Christmas is Over. Now what?

So Christmas is over. Again. Now it’s on to normal things. Like work, cleaning, and watching football. And maybe a New Year’s Eve party. The kids have gone back home, the mess is put away. The tree that we marveled at a few weeks ago has now progressed to the “let’s get that damn thing out of here so we can see the TV better” stage. That’s how it’s supposed to be, right? The “Christmas Spirit” kinda fades away. After all, we’re adults. I know some people who don’t really bother with a tree, or presents, any more. I understand that. Really, sometimes when it comes to Christmas, what’s the use?

A while back I had two, seemingly unrelated, Bible lessons more or less dropped in my lap at the same time. The first was basically that God made us all different, as he made each part of the body different. While the eye is different from the ear, both are useful. And though I’m different from you, we can both be useful as well. The second one was the story of the angel coming to Mary, telling her that she would give birth to the savior. Like I said, pretty much unrelated.

Well, maybe not. Let’s go back to Mary. Back in her day, the important people were all male. (Some could argue that hasn’t changed, but that’s another discussion!) She was no more than a young girl, maybe 15 or 16 years old. She was a Jew, and they were a troubled people. They were under a less-than-benevolent Roman rule, they had been mistreated throughout their history, and this “Messiah” that God had supposedly promised them was nowhere in sight. The Jewish scholars and rabbis seemed to be all about rules, and making sure everyone followed them. Women weren’t even allowed to speak in many situations. Mary definitely wasn’t one of the “important people.”

Yet Mary changed the world like no one before. She gave birth to that Savior, on that very first Christmas. And that birth has changed everything. Of course, this virgin birth thing could be just a story, a legend. Sure it could. But maybe it really did happen, just like we’ve been told. If you're a Christian, this night has a special place in your heart. But even if you don’t believe a word of it, it you can’t argue about the effect Christianity has had on this world. No matter what your beliefs, Mary changed the world.

So what does this have to do with you, or me? Well, in a word, everything. Mary was a nobody, and look at what she did. Well, I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to change the world. I would, however, like to make a difference in the world before I leave it. It doesn’t have to “shock the world” but it sure would be nice if I could, at least in one small way, leave it a better place than I found it.

But if you’re like me, you find yourself saying, that “I’m not important enough.” We tend to think that the “important people” like politicians, board presidents, and other well-known people, are the ones that make a difference. But Mary did it. Why can’t we?

You know, she didn’t plan that. But she did have faith and trust that God would help her in some way. We can do that too. We can believe that he can use us, in some small way, to make a difference. We don’t know when it will happen, or how, or if we’ll even realize it when it does. But we can believe. Whether you already believe, or think you might believe, or just want to believe, you can keep trying, keep hoping that he will use you to make a difference. And you will change the world, maybe not in a way that will make the news, or that everyone will talk about, but at least in a small way, one that pleases God. Personally, that’s enough for me.

Maybe Christmas is over. But this is a message of Christmas I can remember all year long.

Don't Touch that Number!

The other day somebody emailed me a phone number. I opened the email on my phone, and of course the phone number was highlighted. I touched it, held my finger on it, and a dialog box came up asking if I wanted to dial that number. That’s pretty intuitive. Kinda common sense that it would work that way. Well, no more.

You see, Apple owns the patent for that action. By April, only Apple phones will be able to respond that way. Really? Apple can patent a touch? Really? What’s going on here? If the officials who decide these things are trying to stifle tech progress, they’re doing a pretty good job. I’ve written about this before, but it just keeps getting worse.

How did you get to read this blog? You probably clicked on a link somewhere. That’s pretty much how the web works. Now imagine the person who came up with that had been as greedy as Apple, and as shortsighted as the patent officials. If that had been the case, you wouldn’t be able to click on links to navigate the web. Unless of course you were on that single one brand of computer system. In other words, the web would be owned by one company, one brand. Who could, of course, charge pretty much what they wanted. How much do you think the web would have developed in that scenario? No, it wouldn’t have. At all.

Now try this. Put your mouse over any word in this blog, and double-click. It selects the whole word, doesn’t it? We’ve come to expect that kind of thing. But someone, in some software program at one time, first implemented the “double click selects the word” idea. If they had patented that, then you’d have to learn a different way to select a word in every different program you used. Or how about dragging with the mouse to select text? Yep, that could be someone’s patent as well.

Android manufacturer google says they will design an alternative to the touch. But honestly, why should they have to? And of course, every phone/tablet/computer system will have to come up with their own way to respond to that phone number. Each different one you use, you’ll have to learn a new system.

Apple has hundreds of law suits just like this, in dozens of countries. And of course, other companies are filing their own law suits in response. For those of you who love free enterprise, and good old American competition, this is not going to help.

This really can’t end well.