Through visiting my friend Pastor Marcel Kurtz at Valley Church, I learned how to do Facebook Live. To test it out, Marcel and I recorded a Facebook Live conversation, viewed by 195 people. Then I tested it a second time, seen by 365 people, with Pastor Owen Scott who co-ordinates the North Shore Pastors Prayer Fellowship with myself. After that, I did a Facebook Live about the upcoming Festival of Hope, viewed by 216 people. Then I did a Facebook Live at the gym on Restoring Health, viewed by 225 people. The next Facebook Live interview, with 191 viewers, was with Bob Grahame whom I am coaching about his upcoming bookThe Future Never Arrives: at least not as expected. Then Janice and myself did a Facebook Live Christmas Greetings, viewed by 730 people. On Christmas Day, we did a Facebook Live for our son Mark’s sermon, with 238 people watching. Our most widely viewed Facebook Live has been a Christmas Carolling with the Hird family, seen by 1511 people so far.
On January 1st New Year’s Sunday, I preached my first sermon being recorded on Facebook Live, viewed so far by over 1,800 people. You are invited to check out the New Year sermon from Hebrews 2:10-18 ‘Rising Life in 2017’
Here are the unlisted YouTube weblinks from the Behold the Star Cantata to watch and potentially pass it on to your friends and family. The St. Simon’s NV Joint Choir, led by Janice Hird, did a wonderful job.
At a recent birthday party, I had the joy of meeting a fellow UBC School of Social Work alumni whom I had not seen since our 1976 graduation. As we renewed our friendship, he gave me a Charles Dickens biography as a Christmas present. This sent me to our local library to get out numerous Dickens books, biographies and movies. Dickens was perhaps the first true celebrity in the modern sense.[1] While many of us love the beauty of Shakespeare, Dickens remains more accessible to most English-speaking people.[2]
Why have Dickens’ books continued to speak to us a hundred and fifty years later? Perhaps it is because of Dickens’ secret suffering in his painful childhood.[3] His parents moved more than twenty times in eighteen years.[4] Since Dickens’ father was sent to debtors’ prison and Charles Dickens to a blacking factory, he was able to tell compelling stories of degradation and abuse. The average Londoner in the 1840s died by age twenty seven, with almost half of the deaths being children under the age of ten.[5] Dickens was deeply disturbed by the poverty, hunger, and ignorance, as well as by the indifference of the rich and powerful to the widespread suffering.[6] George Bernard Shaw said that Dickens’ book Little Dorritt is more seditious than Karl Marx’s Das Kapital.[7]
The ideals of family life and generosity to the poor in Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol continue to strike a chord today with countless millions.[8] Dickens, like many of us, was at his best at Christmas, letting down his hair, resting from his frenetic writing, and enjoying the warmth of family and good food.[9] Many people don’t realize that Dickens had a very deep faith in the Christ of Christmas.[10] The last Dickens book The Life of Our Lord was published posthumously 85 years later, after the death of his last child. Written for his ten children, it shows both his love for both Jesus and one’s neighbours: “My dear children, I am very anxious that you should know something about the History of Jesus Christ. For everybody ought to know about Him. No one ever lived, who was so good, so kind, so gentle, and so sorry for all people who did wrong, or were in anyway ill or miserable, as he was.”[11]
Despite his high ideals, Dickens was often tempted to be a Scrooge.[12] The financial pressure was enormous and unrelenting. With little initial profit from A Christmas Carol, Dickens wrote: “I shall be ruined beyond all mortal hope of redemption.”[13] Fortunately for Dickens, Americans turned A Christmas Carol into a bestseller.[14] Dickens visited the United States twice, both times being treated like a Hollywood Superstar, even being chased by paparazzi.[15]
Marrying on the rebound, Dickens chose a wife to whom he was not romantically attracted.[16] Catherine Hogarth Dickens did not live up to his fictional ideals of women who were perpetually young, attractive, thin, and emotionally passionate.[17] While she loved being at home looking after her large family, he always wanted to be on the go, particularly abroad.[18] The more anxious Dickens became, the faster he went and the slower Catherine went. Before he developed painful gout, he would walk twelve miles every night.[19] It was his way of both de-escalating and carefully observing his environment for new book material. Dickens commented: “If I couldn’t walk fast and far, I should just explode and perish.”[20]
Sadly, after a marital conflict, Dickens had a partition built in their bedroom, cutting himself off from his wife.[21] Rather than celebrate his wife’s very different personality, he resented her for not being just like himself: “…nothing on earth could make her understand me, or suit us for each other. Her temperament will not go with mine…no one can help me.”[22] Because he had never forgiven his mother for trying to send him back to the blacking factory, it poisoned his relations with his wife: “I never afterward forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back.”[23] Bitterness betrays our highest ideals and turns us into Scrooges. Dickens, under pressure, portrayed himself as a victim, blaming others rather than owning his personal baggage.[24] Remarkably his wife Catherine stayed loyal to her painful husband, going to productions of his work and keeping up with his publications even after the divorce.[25] In the midst of his rejecting his wife, many friendships were cut off, publishers fired, theatricals ended, family vacations ceased, and his charitable work with heiress Angela Burdett-Coutts brought to an end.[26] The breakup of Dickens’ marriage and the secret infatuation that he had with Nelly Ternan wore Dickens out.[27] In the last part of his life, he was as sick as his secrets, exhausted by his coverups and workaholism.[28] Despite Dickens’ tragic male/female relationships, his unforgettable vision for a better society still speaks to us in the early twenty-first century. My prayer for those reading this article is that we will learn to integrate our ideals and our reality in loving our neighbours as ourselves.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just send a $20 cheque (USD/CAN) to ED HIRD, 102 – 15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, V4A 0A5, Canada.
– In order to obtain a signed copy of the prequel book Battle for the Soul of Canada, please send a $18.50 cheque to ED HIRD, 102 – 15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, V4A 0A5. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $4.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
[1] Jane Smiley, Charles Dickens, (Lipper/Viking Penguin Publishing, 2002), v.; Norrie Epstein, The Friendly Dickens, (Viking/Penguin, Toronto, Canada, 1998), xvi “The best-selling novelist in Russia is neither Tolstoy nor Dostoyevsky but Dickens.”; Smiley, 26, “…as close to a household name as any movie star today…the first person to become a ‘name brand’…”
[2] Smiley, v, “Among English writers, Dicken’s only peer, in terms of general fame, worldwide literary stature, and essential Englishness, is William Shakespeare.”; Claire Tomalin, Charles Dickens: a Life, (Viking/Penguin Books,Toronto, Ontario, 2011), Inside Front Cover, “Perhaps the greatest novelist in the English language…”
[3] Smiley, vi “…Dickens did not reveal the details of his painful childhood even to his children.”; Epstein, 15, “His entire life was a reaction against his parents and his childhood…as a man, he was compulsively controlling…In his novels, every abandoned waif was a version of himself; his negligent silly mothers were caricatures of Elizabeth; his wastrel selfish fathers were all John.”
[6] Tomalin, xlii.; Epstein, 207, “Daniel Webster said: ‘Dickens has done more to ameliorate the conditions of the English poor than all the statesmen Great Britain has sent into Parliament.’”; Epstein, 209 “Through his writings and what he meant to reader’s, he has probably influenced more people to do good than any other writer.”
[7] Epstein, 275; Tomalin, 229, “…(Dickens) wrote on many social issues –housing,sanitation, accidents in factories,workhouses,and in the defence of the poor to enjoy Sunday as they choose.”
[8] Epstein, 174, “ Christmas Carol is a phenomenon, an industry, and a ritual… Carol touches our deep desire for a second chance at life.”; Gary L. Colledge, God and Dickens, (Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan, MI), 52 “Wes Standiford, borwwing from Byron Rogers, refers to Dickens as the man who invented Christmas.”
[9] Epstein, 186, “As his son Charley commented, ‘My father was always at his best at Christmas.’ That season brought out all of Dickens’ most endearing qualities – his hospitality, graciousness, generosity, sense of fun, and genius for entertaining.”
P.187 Chesteron: “The mystery of Christmas is in a manner identical with the mystery of Dickens.”
[10] Smiley, 162 “Love, kindness, forgiveness, benevolence, celebration, mercy, joy, charity, and innocence all had their source, for Dickens, in Christ and Christmas.”; Smiley, 42, Charles Dickens said: “Looking on Niagara Falls: then when I felt how near to my Creator I was standing, the first effect and the enduring one –instant and lasting–of the tremendous spectacle was Peace. Peace of mind,tranquility, recollection of the dead, great thoughts of eternal rest and happiness…”
[11] Charles Dickens, The Life of Our Lord, (Simon and Schuster, New York, NY, 1934), 11, 27 “…God makes no difference between those who wear good clothes and those who go barefoot and in rags.”
[12] Tomalin, Front Inside Cover: “After his death, his own daughter wrote to Bernard Shaw, ‘If you could make the public understand that my father was not a joyous, jocose gentleman walking about the world with a plum pudding and a bowl of punch, you would greatly oblige me.’”
[13] Smiley, 60.; Tomalin, 150 “The accounts for the Carol showed that almost all the profits were absorbed in the expenses of binding, special paper, coloured plates, and advertising.”; Epstein, 185, paraphrase: The Carol’s failure drove Dickens to Italy. His dramatic readings of it earned him more money than any of his books.
[14] Tomalin, 150. “In America, it became his biggest seller, clocking up two million copies in a hundred years.”
[15] Tomalin, P.127 “He was seen as ‘the English writer who was on their side, who believed in liberty and democracy, and who showed in his books that he cared about ordinary people and thought the poor more worthy of attention than the rich.'(…) At the time of his arrival, the New York Herald wrote: ‘His mind is American–his soul is republican –his heart is democratic.’”; Tomalin, 130, “Dickens commented: ‘There was never a King or Emperor upon the earth so cheered l, and followed by crowds…and waited upon by public bodies and deputations of all kinds.”
[16] Epstein, 38. “Maria Beadnell’s capriciousness and his subsequent humiliation influenced him to choose the placid and compliant Catherine Hogarth for a wife.”; Epstein, 45, “…Catherine was so unlike Maria that she never would remind Charles of what he had lost.”
[17] Smiley, 61. “Catherine’s pregnancy with Francis, the fifth child of the family in seven years, seem to have marked a running point in Dicken’s attitude towards his wife. The agitation he betrayed in his money worries and his eagerness to go abroad met with great reluctance and depression on her part. He seems to have held against her both the inconvenience of the pregnancy and her inability to rally quickly after the birth.”
[18] Tomalin, 66. “She (Catherine) had no experience of anything but family life when he met her, and showed little evidence of being interested in anything outside the domestic world.”
[20] Tomalin, 183 “His need to walk through the streets at night was a tormenting mental phenomenon.”
[21] Smiley, 61 “Catherine’s pregnancy with Francis, the fifth child of the family in seven years, seem to have marked a running point in Dicken’s attitude towards his wife. The agitation he betrayed in his money worries and his eagerness to go abroad met with great reluctance and depression on her part. He seems to have held against her both the inconvenience of the pregnancy and her inability to rally quickly after the birth.”
[22] Smiley, 140, Writing to his good friend Forster, “She (Catherine) is exactly what you know, in the way of being amiable and complying; but we are strangely ill-assorted for the bond there is between us…and if I were sick or disabled tomorrow, I know how sorry she would beans how deeply grieved myself, to think how we had lost each other.”‘ “Her temperament will not go with mine.”; Smiley, 285.; Tomalin, 66. 118, “Kind looks and gentle manner she doubtless had, and a will to please –what she lacked was the strength of character needed to hold her own against her husband’s powerful will.”
[23] Epstein, 26 “…John suddenly wanted his son (Charles) be sent to school; Elizabeth however wanted him to return to the warehouse. With great bitterness, Dickens recalled, “I never afterward forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back.”
[26] Smiley, 18, 289; Tomalin, 210 re Miss Coutts, Dickens, and Urania House: If there was a providence in the fall of a sparrow, these girls were his sparrows, and he wanted them to fly, not fall.”
[27] Nelly ends up marrying an Anglican clergyman, after Dickens’ death, while pretending to be fourteen years younger than she was.
[28] Smiley, 75 “…Dicken’s secretiveness and shame at his origins was a realistic response to the closed, judgemental nature of English society.”; Smiley, 206 “it (his frenetic schedule) left him exhausted…but the habits of industry and restlessness could not be broken.”; Tomalin, Front inside cover, “…the very qualities that made him great –his indomitable energy, boldness, imagination, showmanship, and enjoyment of fame–finally destroyed him.”; Tomalin, 259 “Dickens kept going by taking on too much. He knew no other way to live, and no day went by in which he did not stretch himself, physically, socially, and emotionally.”; Epstein, 53 “Dicken’s nervous energy was perfect for the serial form which required two weeks of concentrated feverish work… On the other hand, the process, continued uninterrupted for almost forty years, was his undoing….at forty three, Dickens looked almost elderly.”
If the wise men at Christmas had been wise women, they might have brought Jesus practical Christmas gifts like baby toys, food or clothes (not myrrh, frankincense and gold). These wise men had no idea how their initial gift-giving at Christmas would eventually fuel the world economy, helping many businesses go from red into the black in December. Why is it that gift-giving at Christmas has become so entrenched in most people’s lives? Why is it that many of us struggle to unwrap the gift of Christmas? Why is it that Christmas, the most joyful time of year, is also the most depressing time of year for many?
As a child, I loved looking forward to opening Christmas presents waiting under the Christmas tree. Our public school still had actual Christmas pageants in which I took my part as a Christmas shepherd. As a teenager, opening Christmas presents was still fun, but it started to lose its Christmas wonder. I still unwrapped the Christmas presents each December, but I never stopped to unwrap Christmas itself. I never stopped to ask why we were making such a fuss about the Christmas season. I will never forget when my mother had me go to church on Christmas day. It felt like a radical intrusion into an important holiday time. Why would someone go to church at Christmas? Even though I had been raised in church, I had no idea that God came to earth at Christmas, that God became a little baby in manger. I never rejected the meaning of Jesus’ birth at Christmas. I just never thought about it. It was so familiar to me that I was blind to Christmas.
Home blindness, the tendency to become oblivious to what is in front of us, is a phenomena recognized by social scientists. People often say with regret that they never really appreciated what they had until they lost it. Each Christmas, there are a myriad of Christmas movies that express the theme of loss at Christmas, and rediscovering the joy of Christmas. The Christmas blockbuster ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ [originally called the Greatest Gift] went unnoticed at its 1946 release, so much so that the copyright license in the late 1970s was not even renewed. This meant that television studios could show the movie for free at Christmas. After a few years of this, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ became a cult classic. Who can forget the conflict around the Christmas tree as Jimmy Stewart/George Bailey was close to committing suicide? Who can forget the final scene around the Christmas tree when all his friends come together and unite in support? Who can forget the joyful Christmas Carols sung by Jimmy Stewart, friends and family as they thanked the baby Jesus for the true meaning of Christmas? This Christmas, let not forget to unwrap the true gift of Christmas, the Christ Child come to earth to save us.
The Rev. Dr. Ed and Mark Hird
-an article previously published in the Deep Cove Crier/North Shore News
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just send a $20 cheque (USD/CAN) to ED HIRD, 102 – 15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, V4A 0A5, Canada.
– In order to obtain a signed copy of the prequel book Battle for the Soul of Canada, please send a $18.50 cheque to ED HIRD, 102 – 15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, V4A 0A5. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $4.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
Every year I impatiently wait for Christmas. I love Christmas, but I don’t like waiting. The season of Advent (which starts this year on Nov 30th) teaches us a lot about waiting, not just to remember Jesus’ first coming in Bethlehem, but also to wait patiently for Jesus’ second coming. Waiting in an age of instant gratification is hard. That is why Advent rarely ever gets commercialized.
Impatience is one of those areas where God has been nudging me lately. I am one of those people who like things to happen yesterday. We Hirds are go-getter people who love to see things completed. I am so often impatient with myself when writing a new book or newspaper article. In my sequel Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit, I speak about Titus who was a first-century go-getter. Titus reminds me of my father, Ted Hird, who always gets the job done. At one of my father’s retirements, his company, Microtel, gave him a statue of a horse in memory of my father’s billing the company for a dead horse. Working in Newfoundland for three months with the snowy roads sometimes impassible, my father hired a farmer’s horse to drag the telecommunications equipment up the hill. The microwave tower was finally finished, but the horse died. Titus-like leaders make things happen against impossible odds.
Hidden in our strengths are our greatest weaknesses. That is why we can’t see them, and often don’t want to change. Persevering people rarely want to admit their stubbornness, and their need to be more flexible. Administratively gifted people rarely see how painful they can be when they slip into micromanaging of others’ lives. We Tituses are great people to have around when you need a job done. But we can be painful to be around when our impatience causes us to be too pushy, too controlling, and too anxious.
I remember impatiently waiting for Christmas as a little child. I desperately wanted to see the Christmas presents waiting for me. So we talked our grandmother into going into my parents’ bedroom to show us where they were hidden. The famous passage 1 Corinthians 13, which is read at many weddings, reminds us that love is patient. True love waits. Waiting makes Christmas that much better. It is so hard to wait. It is so tempting to take the matter into our own hands and prematurely solve things. Recently doing my doctorate taught me that quick fixes fix nothing. Genuine lasting transformation takes time. Lasting change needs to be thoughtful and intentional. We all want to be better people, especially at Christmas. Becoming more Christlike however doesn’t happen overnight. We can’t just wake up on December 25th and suddenly become the most patient loving person on earth.
What motivates me to become more patient this Christmas is realizing that my impatience has often hurt other people whom I care for deeply. My wife has graciously chosen to forgive my impatience many times during our thirty-seven years of marriage. I want to be a more gentle and kind person especially to my wife. My impatience too often gets in the way of this desire. God keeps telling me to give my impatience back to Him, to put my impatience on the altar, to let go and let God. When I get out of the way, God often does things far beyond what I can ask or imagine. God is remarkably patient and kind in a way that most of us don’t fully get. Rather than pulling the plug on us when we are rebellious, God keeps on loving us, hoping that we will choose to return home. God wants us to come home for Christmas. God in a manger welcomes us home for Christmas. The Christ child is patiently waiting for us this Christmas. He really does love us beyond our wildest imagination.
My Advent/Christmas prayer for those reading this article is that we will all grow in Christlike patience and love.
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin
-an article previously published in the Deep Cove Crier/North Shore News
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just send a $20 cheque (USD/CAN) to ED HIRD, 102 – 15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, V4A 0A5, Canada.
– In order to obtain a signed copy of the prequel book Battle for the Soul of Canada, please send a $18.50 cheque to ED HIRD, 102 – 15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, V4A 0A5. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $4.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
Everyone wants ‘Peace on Earth’. Is it really possible? President John Adams was a genuine peace-maker, even to his own detriment.
One of my most popular Deep Cove Crier articles, with almost 17,000 online readers, has been my article on John Adams’ good friend Benjamin Franklin. Both were founding fathers of our neighbour to the south. My American relatives have told me that Adams is the greater man.
Adams’ greatest strength and weakness was that he was a passionate peace-maker, even at the cost of sabotaging his own re-election as the second American President. Napoleon in 1797 captured 300 American ships, six percent of the American fleet. (1) The ‘hawks’ in Adams’ own Federalist party desperately wanted to go to war with France, but Adams negotiated a peace treaty that allowed him to disband Alexander Hamilton’s unnecessary and costly army. Hamilton, the commander of this army, took this as a personal insult, and dedicated himself to splitting Adams’ own Federalist Party. John Adams wrote his wife Abigail saying that he knew “Hamilton to be a proud-spirited, conceited, aspiring mortal, always pretending to morality…as great a hypocrite as any in the US…” (2)
With two Federalist presidential candidates, the Republican presidential candidate, Thomas Jefferson, won the election on the 36th ballot after a deadlocked Congressional tie vote. (3) Jefferson, who had foolishly endorsed the blood-thirsty French Revolution, was wisely mentored by Adams. At his final State of Union address, President Adams stated: “Here and throughout our country, may simple measures, pure morals, and true religion, flourish forever!” (4) His final prayer as he left the House was: “I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.” (5) Despite strong political differences, Adams and Jefferson ended as good pen pal friends, both dying in 1826 on the significant American July 4th holiday. (6) Jefferson acknowledged Adams as ‘the colossus of independence.’ (7)
John Adams was both passionate about liberty and yet cautious about our human tendency to selfishness. James Grant commended Adams for “his unqualified love of liberty, and his unsentimental perception of the human condition.” (8) As such, Adams produced constitutional boundaries that guarded people’s essential freedoms of life and liberty of speech, assembly, and religion. The US Congress praised Adams for his “patriotism, perseverance, integrity and diligence.” (9) Adams insightfully commented: “our Constitution was made only for a moral & religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” (10) The root of equality, said Adams, was the Golden Rule – Love your neighbour as yourself. (11)
Adams has been described as one of North America’s greatest bibliophiles. He loved to learn, reading voraciously in wide-ranging areas of interest, including the Bible. Equality for Adams was grounded in equal access to education for all: “knowledge monopolized, or in the Possession of a few, is a Curse to Mankind. We should dispense it among all Ranks. We should educate our children. Equality should be preserved in knowledge.” (12) His prayer for his children was: ““Let them revere nothing but religion, morality, and liberty.” (13)
One of Adams’ strengths was that he was deeply honest, even to his own political detriment. Unlike the worldly-wise Benjamin Franklin, he would say exactly what was on his mind. Adams urged Franklin to get more exercise, saying that “the sixth Commandment forbids a man to kill himself as it does to kill his neighbour. A sedentary life is tantamount to suicide.” (14) James Grant commented that “like the mythical George Washington, he seemed incapable of telling a lie; he was naturally and organically honest.” (15) Adams once commented: “The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my religion.”(16) Adams was indeed an unusual politician. He found the endless political bickering to be painful and pointless, commenting that “a resolution that two plus two makes five would require fully two days of debate.” (17) Adams was known as a foul-weather politician, only drawn to serve his country because of the intense crisis. He would have much rather been anywhere else: “The longer I live and the more I see of public men, the more I wish to be a private one.” (18) Adams was a latecomer to American Independence, preferring to work for reconciliation with the British. While Benjamin Franklin had favour and therefore initial funding from France , John Adams eventually obtained key loans to the United States from the cautious Dutch. Because of his endless negotiations in France, Holland and England, Adams only saw his dear wife Abigail for a grand total of three months over six years. (19) He wrote to Josiah Quincy: “Happy is the man who has nothing to do with politics and strife.” (20)
One of Adams’ first assignments in Congress was to draft a resolution appointing a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer throughout the thirteen colonies: “that we may, with united hearts and voices, unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins, and offer up our joint supplications to the all-wise Omnipotent, and merciful Disposer of all events; humbling beseeching him to forgive our iniquities, to remove our present calamities, to avert those desolating judgments with which we are threatened, and to bless our rightful sovereign, King George the third.” (21) Sadly King George dismissed Adams and his colleagues as ‘wicked and desperate persons.’ (22)
King George’s thirty-three thousand British troops resulted in thirty-five thousand American deaths by sword, sickness, or captivity. (23) Adams knew that without heart-forgiveness, American independence would quickly become as barbaric as the French Revolution: “In a time of war, one may see the necessity and utility of the divine prohibitions of revenge and the Injunctions of forgiveness of Injuries and love of Enemies, which we find in Christian Religion. Unrestrained, in some degree by these benevolent Laws, Men would be Devils, at such a Time as such.” (24)
In 1815 he wrote his own gravestone epitaph: “Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of the peace with France in the year 1800.” (25) My prayer is that we too may be passionate peace-makers like President John Adams.
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin
-an article previously published in the Deep Cove Crier/North Shore News
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just send a $20 cheque (USD/CAN) to ED HIRD, 102 – 15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, V4A 0A5, Canada.
– In order to obtain a signed copy of the prequel book Battle for the Soul of Canada, please send a $18.50 cheque to ED HIRD, 102 – 15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, V4A 0A5. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $4.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
Footnotes
(1) James Grant, John Adams: Party of One , (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY, 2005), p. 392.
(2) Gore Vidal, Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2003), p. 133.
(3) David McCullough, John Adams , (Simon and Schuster, New York, NY, 2001), p. 572.
(4) John Adams, State Of The Union Address 11/11/1800,
(19) McCullough, p. 271 “At last, on June 11th 1782, Adams negotiated with a syndicate of three Amsterdam banking houses — Willink, Van Staphorst, and De la Lande & Fynje — a loan of five million guilders, or two million dollars at five percent interest. It was not the ten million dollars Congress had expected…”; Grant, p. 196.
Christmas is about love. It is so easy to be cynical about love, to be hurt by what looks like love, to give up on ever being truly loved. What is love, sang Tina Turner, but a second hand emotion? When we are hurt, our heart can shut down. We can grow cold and jaded, singing with Tina: “Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?” Sometimes in my life, my heart has grown cold. Sometimes I lose my passion. That is when God has broken in and renewed my heart with his love. I remember one time when he literally baptized my heart with love. It seemed like I was walking in an ocean of God’s love and healing. I wish that I could live there daily.
Love means many different things to many people. For some, love is expressed through gift-giving. We can thank the three wise men bringing gifts for the flood of presents given every Christmas. But love is more than just giving people gifts. Love is also about quality time. We live in a frantically busy culture, particularly on the North Shore, where it seems like there is never enough time to do all that we want to do. It is so easy in our task orientation to lose the relational focus. Love stops to listen. Love puts down the newspaper and the cell phone to give true face-to-face time. Love is curious, open and present. Love is willing to change. Love is willing to grow. Love is willing to admit that we are often wrong.
Love chooses to encourage when everyone else is tearing down another person. Love, in the words of 1 Corinthians 13, never gives up on you, always believes in you, always takes a chance on you. Love realizes that sticks and stones do break our bones, that words will hurt and crush us. Love says no to bullying. Love grieves over the tragic loss of Amanda Todd. Love never gives up, never lets go, always speaks blessing. Love adds value. Love cares. Love respects. Love allows you to be yourself.
Love doesn’t just talk the talk. It walks the walk. Love is practical, down-to-earth. Love is a cup of cold water, the gift of a meal, a roof over our head. Love is the washing of another’s feet, the wiping of their brow. Love is meeting people’s needs. Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche Community, said that love doesn’t mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness. The Great Physician said that he came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Love is the way of the cross, the way of suffering, the way of unselfishness.
Love is both a verb and a noun. To say that God is love is true, but it can feel abstract. What if God put love into action by entering our neighbourhood? What if God came down at Christmas? What if Christmas is actually about God embracing us?
This Christmas I invite you to look again at the baby in the manger, the Christ child. Ask yourself if love came down at Christmas. Ask yourself if this love might touch your heart. The greatest is love. May love fill you, your family and your friends to overflowing during this Advent/Christmas season.
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin
-an article previously published in the Deep Cove Crier/North Shore News
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just send a $20 cheque (USD/CAN) to ED HIRD, 102 – 15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, V4A 0A5, Canada.
– In order to obtain a signed copy of the prequel book Battle for the Soul of Canada, please send a $18.50 cheque to ED HIRD, 102 – 15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, V4A 0A5. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $4.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
Through visiting my friend Pastor Marcel Kurtz at Valley Church, I learned how to do Facebook Live. To test it out, Marcel and I recorded a Facebook Live conversation, viewed by 195 people. Then I tested it a second time, seen by 365 people, with Pastor Owen Scott who co-ordinates the North Shore Pastors Prayer Fellowship with myself. After that, I did a Facebook Live about the upcoming Festival of Hope, viewed by 216 people. Then I did a Facebook Live at the gym on Restoring Health, viewed by 225 people. The next Facebook Live interview, with 191 viewers, was with Bob Grahame whom I am coaching about his upcoming book The Future Never Arrives: at least not as expected. Then Janice and myself did a 
Facebook Live Christmas Greetings, viewed by 730 people. On Christmas Day, we did a Facebook Live for our son Mark’s sermon, with 238 people watching. Our most widely viewed Facebook Live has been a Christmas Carolling with the Hird family, seen by 1511 people so far.
-Click to check out our newest marriage book For Better For Worse: discovering the keys to a lasting relationship on Amazon. You can even read the first two chapters for free to see if the book speaks to you.
Despite his high ideals, Dickens was often tempted to be a Scrooge.
had a partition built in their bedroom, cutting himself off from his wife.
Dickens’ marriage and the secret infatuation that he had with Nelly Ternan wore Dickens out.
and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both 
Who can forget the joyful Christmas Carols sung by Jimmy Stewart, friends and family as they thanked the baby Jesus for the true meaning of Christmas? This Christmas, let not forget to unwrap the true gift of Christmas, the Christ Child come to earth to save us.
don’t like waiting. The season of Advent (which starts this year on Nov 30th) teaches us a lot about waiting, not just to remember Jesus’ first coming in Bethlehem, but also to wait patiently for Jesus’ second coming. Waiting in an age of instant gratification is hard. That is why Advent rarely ever gets commercialized.
I remember impatiently waiting for Christmas as a little child. I desperately wanted to see the Christmas presents waiting for me. So we talked our grandmother into going into my parents’ bedroom to show us where they were hidden. The famous passage 1 Corinthians 13, which is read at many weddings, reminds us that love is patient. True love waits. Waiting makes Christmas that much better. It is so hard to wait. It is so tempting to take the matter into our own hands and prematurely solve things. Recently doing my doctorate taught me that quick fixes fix nothing. Genuine lasting transformation takes time. Lasting change needs to be thoughtful and intentional. We all want to be better people, especially at Christmas. Becoming more Christlike however doesn’t happen overnight. We can’t just wake up on December 25th and suddenly become the most patient loving person on earth.
things far beyond what I can ask or imagine. God is remarkably patient and kind in a way that most of us don’t fully get. Rather than pulling the plug on us when we are rebellious, God keeps on loving us, hoping that we will choose to return home. God wants us to come home for Christmas. God in a manger welcomes us home for Christmas. The Christ child is patiently waiting for us this Christmas. He really does love us beyond our wildest imagination.
