Our First Snow in Atlanta. IT DOES SNOW HERE!

A very large snowflake on our deck, West on our deck, Bud by our mailbox, Bud with a snow man, and West catching one of the several hundred flakes that fell with his mouth.

Well, we had our first Atlanta snow and we were all very surprised. The forecast called for cold rain mixed with sleet. By 9:00 PM Wednesday, however, we had already exceeded our January monthly average for snow--in only 4 hours!

I must admit I got my boys hopes up about their school closing on Thursday. When we went to bed it was 31 degrees and supposed to drop a few more degrees. Unfortunately, it actually warmed to 33 and melted the streets.

Nevertheless, it is possible that we could quadruple our monthly average with another storm that is supposed to come through tommorrow. Believe it or not, there is a potential for three whole inches!

If that happens, Atlanta will shut down.

Kicking the 'Golden' Dead Horse One More Time

Well the movie’s debut came and went and from an entertainment economic standpoint “The Golden Compass” did not live up to its billing. After 5 weeks in the theatre, its gross revenue in the US was just north of $55 million. In comparison, “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Chronicles of Narnia” earned $47 and $65 million, respectively, in just their opening week.

By the way, this wasn’t due to any boycott of the movie but rather due to an unfair, pre-mature marketing of the movie as the alter-ego of Narnia and T.L.O.T.R. (Note to self: If I ever decide to become a movie producer, avoid and eradicate all comparisons to blockbuster productions prior to the release of my work).

Although the point is nearly mute now, for those that would be interested, this is a message I posted on a Christian forum hosted by Crosswalk booksellers:

“Regarding (the dead-horse becoming) Golden-Compass issue I would suggest that it is, at least to some extent, naive to think that by avoiding a movie one can avoid competing and even hostile world views to historical Christianity. Unless you live isolated in a bubble on a desert island somewhere (which you most likely don't if you are reading this) than you cannot escape living in a reality which has a supreme Creator but is also pervasively tainted by the effects of the fall. Jesus says, "You are either for me or against me." There is nowhere in between. There is no middle-ground. Therefore we are constantly bombarded with messages (verbal, non-verbal, print, visually, reality, etc.) that either promote the kingdom of God or oppose it.

At the same time, we must also know ourselves very well (in addition to those whom we have relationships with and for who we care for) so that we don't place an insurmountable stumbling block in front of us. There are a vast amount of decisions that you and I have to make every day based on kingdom principles. God has seen it in his good pleasure to not tell us the answer to every predicament we will find ourselves in (that conversation would never end, by the way). Instead, he offers a Way which if followed doesn't answer all of the questions but rather redeems our motives. Contrary to what many evangelicals would like to propose apologetically to a relativistic culture and, in spite of the existence of absolute truth, most issues are not black and white. Life is far too complex for them to be. This is a good thing. It requires us to use the God-given brain and heart that we have. In every decision we make we must consider the fact that we as Christians are still divided in our loyalties, we have a mixed bag of motives, we live this side of heaven for the purpose of propagating the kingdom of God in a kingdom opposed to that reign, and we must understand how to communicate with that kingdom.

BTW, even if you are isolated on a desert island, unless that desert island exists somewhere post-second-resurrection, you still are having to deal with contrary-to-God tendencies and proclivities--in other words, you and I have yet to turn our entire lives, thoughts, actions, inactions, etc. over to God in order to love him with all of our heart, strength, and mind. In other words, we still are communicating (hopefully very, very inconsistently) that we don't fully and wholly believe and submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and therefore are communicating something anti-kingdom of God!”

Ban on Gift Cards

For the New Year I have decided to call for a ban, or at the very least a moratorium, on the use of gift cards as a viable option for gift giving for Christmas. However, I am not doing so for reasons which you might surmise.

When it first became an option for a birthday or Christmas gift, I was vehemently opposed to the idea of giving gift cards. It seemed so impersonal. It seemed so shallow. It seemed so thoughtless. I thought to myself, "Only a gift that is offered after thoughtful contemplation of the recipient’s tastes, likes, and/or needs is a considerate one.”

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the essential nature of gift cards, that is, putting the actual choice of the received gift in the hands of the recipient, was nothing new. Mankind, especially Grandparents in my case, had given gifts in the form of cash for years. I don’t remember one time when I thought to myself “My, how insensitive my Grandparents are!” Surely it is not merely a matter of generation difference that qualifies one as an appropriate giver of such a gift?

This year, however, the want of gift sensitivity increased even more with the dawn of the e-card (at least it was a new phenomenon to me). That’s right, now you can just email a document to someone which they print out and use like cash with the designated merchant. Why not? It’s cheaper than Western Unioning cash.

Consider the forerunner to the gift card—the department store registry. Predominantly in bridal form, the idea is that the bride herself (the groom only begrudgingly participates in this procedure) is able to choose a comprehensive selection of items she wishes her wedding participants to give her for her wedding present. Therefore, at least to some degree, the actual choice of the received gift is put in the hands of the recipient. This in fact is more advantageous than a gift card for once one takes just a few hours to select her desired items, her labor is complete in the matter. She has nothing else to do except wait to see what will be chosen from the selection pool.

Not only is it not due to the insensitive nature of gift cards, that I am calling for their ban at Christmas, it is also not because I am anti-market or anti-capitalist. It is not because that merchants benefit more than the consumer in that they actually earn interest on the cash they receive before the merchandise has even been removed from their inventory—in other words, before they have paid for it. It is not because some merchants charge an administrative fee if the card lays dormant for more than a specified amount of time. Finally, it is not even because some estimates suggest that nearly 20% of all gift cards go unredeemed. That means that the value of a gift card sold is actually 120% of the price for which it is sold.

No, the reason is that essentially for many it is merely an exchange of equivalent quantities of credit. In the case of a friend of mine, his family had to assign specific merchants as the issuer of the gift card to each family member so that Christmas didn’t become merely the exchange of $25 Starbuck’s gift cards from each to the other. The only true beneficiary to such a transaction is Starbuck’s. For in a family of 6, Starbuck’s bottom line increases by $150. However, for each individual family member the net value of their giving/receiving transaction is $0. Now you tell me, who really has the Merrier Christmas?

I know, I know, essentially the net value of gift/receipt transactions for each individual at Christmas is generally $0 even when actual gifts are used. However, nearly all of the mystery of gift-giving disappears the moment the little, flat, rectangular present is wrapped. Imagine ten, twenty, or thirty of these little presents stacked around the Christmas tree. The only remaining mystery is whether it is a MARTA bus pass or some sort of merchant gift card.

Finally, Santa Clause will become an irrelevant, extraneous, has-been little elf. Can you imagine jolly old St. Nicholas picking up little Johnny or Suzie into his lap, smiling and ho, ho, hoing in his deep, guttural laugh, and then asking the question, “So, little boy, from which merchant and in what denomination do you want your gift card issued this year?”

I’ll not have it.