Advent 9: BLOG

Blog:  a word that starts with a little explosion and ends with a thump.

Apparently the word is a truncated version of the 1990's term web log (as in Captain's Log, for all of us who grew up with Star Trek. Which is pretty much everybody.)  A verb form has also developed (blogging) as well as a second noun (blogger) i.e., the one who blogs.    

So we've arrived at Day Nine in our mutual blogging adventure, and by my calculations that puts us exactly one third of the way through our Advent Reflections experience.  (11/29 through 12/25 = 27 posts; 9 x 3 = 27.  But who's counting?)

A number of you have mentioned that writing a daily blog, even for just 27 days, is a big commitment.  To quote a reader who is a fellow writer, "I'd be tearing my hair out."  Others mentioned they hoped I was enjoying the process, and that they were loving the posts, but it was clear they wondered about the toll the effort might take.  A few offered the wise suggestion that a sentence or two is enough of a post from time to time.  (Thank you!  See yesterday's post!)

Since I'm a bona fide, card carrying, highly experienced worrier, I put in extra worry time before this project began:  What if I can't think of anything to say?  And if I do, will I say it well enough? 

Then your feedback started coming in, and I felt much better.  In fact, I took probably ten minutes to feel great--and then I started worrying about whether I could sustain a fresh and inviting attitude all the way to the end.

Luckily, I have a good sense of humor to accompany my highly developed anxiety.

Here's the thing:  I thought I was giving you a gift, and it turns out you gave me one. 

Knowing that you are there, reading and reflecting along with me, has focused my Advent awareness in ways that I won't pretend are always easy, but they are incredibly valuable.

I am much less likely to go off shopping or wherever, and slip into that distracted unconsciousness that is all too easy to fall into.  Instead, my eyes and ears and heart and mind are open, looking for Spirit in it all; waiting to discover something I can share with you that might lift your hearts or give you pause or open your eyes to something new.

It's not just me talking; it's you listening as well.  Energetically, without you my job would be only half done.  For what's the use of a gift that is not received?  The communion is only half experienced.

Surely you deserve a more thoughtful term than "blog followers." 

So, with your kind permission, I'm going to continue to use "soul friends."  Anamchairde. 

Thank you.

Advent 8: Blessing

  A SABBATH BLESSING

He who has realized that 

sun and stars and souls do not ramble in a vacuum 

will keep his heart in readiness 

for the hour when the world is entranced. 

                                                 –  Abraham Joshua Heschel

Today, on the Second Sabbath of Advent, may each of us stand ready to be entranced.

Advent 7: LISTENING

The word listen contains the same letters as the word silent.                                                   

~Alfred Brendel

Have you ever met anyone with social anxiety disorder?  We used to call it "being painfully shy" and it’s a surprisingly common issue.  The people who suffer from it worry about what to say in a social situation; they are torn between fear of saying the wrong thing and looking foolish, and fear of having nothing to say at all--and looking foolish.   

I am no therapist and don't want to oversimplify, but I can recommend one common sense help for social anxiety disorder:  practice listening carefully to people when they speak to you.  You will soon be in great demand because everybody is desperately looking for someone to really listen to them--to listen wholeheartedly, and to believe that in that moment there is no more important place to be, and nothing more important to do.

In Matthew's nativity story, Joseph listens intently--and obeys--each and every time an angel prompts him: 

...do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife...the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit....you are to name him Jesus. (Mt 1:20,21) 

...take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt.... (Mt 2:13)

...take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead.  (Mt 2:20)

The wise men listen too, to the dream they have which warns them to avoid King Herod and return to their country by another road.

In Luke's version of the nativity, listeners frequently burst into song lyrics when they hear the Voice of God or an Angel of God.  (This response is not advised in normal conversation.) 

Mary listens to Gabriel's news and responds positively:

Here am I...let it be with me according to your word. (Lk 1:38)

 Her cousin Elizabeth listens to a cue from her son, the unborn John the Baptist, and her response remains among us today as a part of the Rosary:

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.  (Lk 1:42)

Mary listens to Elizabeth in her turn, and responds with what is called The Magnificat:

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.... (Lk 1:47)
  

Listening is something most people don’t do very well.   We’re too busy trying to remember what we want to say next.  As John Wayne (aka 'Big Jake' McCandles) tartly observed:  "You're short on ears and long on mouth."

Really relaxing into a conversational exchange is a gift and a privilege.  We have been admitted into the privacy of another person’s life and thoughts, and we have an opportunity to learn something.  

How much more does that apply when God is trying to speak to us?

In Jesus' day they must have had the same problems with dysfunctional ears, so he chose stories-- parables--as the most user-friendly form of teaching.  And even then he often pointed the ending with "You who have ears, listen."

If Jesus was standing among us today, in all his transfigured glory, I wonder if we would listen any better than Peter was doing on that famous mountaintop?  That was a classic example of someone talking instead of listening.  If you recall, finally God interrupted the flow and spoke directly to Peter:  This is my son, my Chosen;  listen to him!  How embarrassing.

 Here's an intriguing question:  what do you think Jesus might talk about if he was here in the flesh today?   

Would he have a great parable about computers to help us better understand God's presence in our lives?  Or maybe traffic, surely he would talk about traffic.  And hunger.  And illness.  And sex.  And money.  And the need for love, of course.  Actually, a lot of his topics would probably be exactly the same.  Which is a disconcerting realization.

I have written a pseudo-Jesus parable below, just trying to imagine what he might talk about today.  The Gospel According to Alice:

The kingdom of heaven is like a group of young people 
who went out to dinner together 
and they all turned off their cell phones.  

(AL 1:1)

If you have an idea for a contemporary Jesus parable please share it in the comment section below.  

Advent 6 Christmas Weather

Weather.  If you don't like it, wait a minute.

My brother-in-law in Omaha was trapped inside for two days over Thanksgiving weekend because they had an ice storm.  Thanks be for football. 

On Wednesday, at the same time I was weeding the flower beds by my front door, my sister Nance was watching snowflakes trace the outlines of the trees in her yard in Illinois. 

Pulling weeds is not my favorite thing—although it can be very therapeutic—but I was really enjoying myself because being able to weed in December felt like such a treat.  The soil was chilly but soft, and the weeds looked bright green and thriving, so when I spotted them en route to placing the wreaths on the doors I decided to take twenty minutes and pluck them from their happy home.  (The weeds, not the wreaths.)  The alyssum I spared, leaving it like little white explosions in the pots that flank the front door.

For a completely different weather experience, our son and his wife went to Grand Cayman today; we look forward to pictures of turquoise and purple and fuschia Christmas lights closely wrapped around the trunks of palm trees:  Christmas Caribbean style.  A high of 88 degrees there today, according to my phone.  Way too hot, right?

The temperature in Jerusalem has been in the fifties this past week; it’s supposed to be in the very low sixties next week.  Hardly “the bleak midwinter” but certainly not conducive to riding around on donkeys and sleeping in barns.  If you were thinking of doing that. 

Speaking of Jerusalem, I wonder if there are any decorations in the Church of the Nativity in nearby Bethlehem?  If there are they must look quite different from the Christmas trees and poinsettias here in the States--or so I imagine.  Palm branches, maybe?  Although perhaps that would smack too much of Palm Sunday.... 

All around the world, people are preparing.  They are preparing differently but they are preparing for the same thing:  Immanuel, God with us.  

There's a lovely Church of England hymn, The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended, that speaks of the whole earth as one praying community:

As o'er each continent and island

The dawn leads on another day,

The voice of prayer is never silent,

Nor dies the strain of praise away.

The sun that bids us rest is waking

Our brethren 'neath the western sky,

And hour by hour fresh lips are making

Thy wondrous doings heard on high.
 

OR, as somebody much less formally theological than the Church of England once put it:

Welcome Christmas. Bring your cheer,

Cheer to all Whos, far and near.

Christmas Day is in our grasp

So long as we have hands to grasp.

Christmas Day will always be

Just as long as we have we.

Welcome Christmas while we stand

Heart to heart and hand in hand.
~Dr. Seuss

Any weather, any landscape, any time zone.

Advent 5: ALPHA AND OMEGA

Yesterday there was a wasp making its way up our staircase at home; he looked drunk.    

I tried to lift him out of danger from hurrying feet, but as I stooped from my great height (scraping 5’2”) he summoned his last strength and flew feebly off. 

There was a dead lady bug this morning  at the base of our comforter (a real one, not one of those faux orangey ones).  Tidy.  Legs all tucked up under her shell.  Ready for whatever was coming next.

The other day one of those prehistoric-looking bugs that carries its shield on its back was climbing up my office window, moving in painful slow motion, so I gently scooped him onto a piece of paper and tucked him outside in a big pot with a decorative blue spruce; that way he could enjoy being in the natural world in his last hours.  Alice to the rescue.  My husband Tom observed dispassionately, “You do realize he came in here to die in comfort?”

Death.  It's everywhere.

Today would be my brother-in-law Chris’s 54^th birthday.  He passed on eleven years ago. 

My mom’s birthday is a week from today; she died at 91 this past May.

Birth and death.    

Jesus is born.  In a dream Joseph is warned the infant is in danger, so the holy family flees to Egypt.  Matthew’s gospel tells us that when Herod is balked of Jesus, he slaughters the babes “in and around Bethlehem” instead.

Death and birth. 

Yesterday Claudia Chapman wrote that she had 

a run in last winter with a lengthy illness which, quite literally, took my breath away, led me to think about the afterlife in a more intense fashion. You'd think after all these years of contemplation that I would be comfortable in my beliefs wouldn't you? It turns out that I'm not; not at all. In fact, I was pretty scared.

Claudia goes on to describe a teacher in grade school choosing the crayon color that she (Claudia) was to use when coloring in the “class calendar square” for the day.  Claudia accepted the teacher’s choice, but secretly resented it.   

If I learned anything at all on that day in first grade, if I'm just handed a peach crayon and told to color in the sky one day, I hope I'll say ‘please, I'd like to pick my own colors if you don't mind.’

Six months ago I had a heart attack and bypass surgery.  My cardiologist told me to expect grief to come calling. I figured he was just a pessimist, but he was right.  Contemplating your own death up close and personal is a brand new animal. Albus Dumbledore claimed death is but the next great adventure to the well-ordered mind but my own experience was a lot messier than that.  Like Claudia’s, it included fear.  Even panic.  And the gift?  Each precious moment.     

In Word from Wormingford, the Rev. Ronald Blythe clambers gingerly down an impossibly steep hill to the front door of a parishioner, an ancient and formidable lady named Dorothy Sewart.  

 Being told at twenty-five (by some ‘tom-fool doctor’) that she had not long to live, she decided to live recklessly and was continuing to live even more recklessly at eighty-five. (p. 7)

A soul, the good reverend opined, living entirely unto herself.  

Why does it take a death sentence to teach us how to do that?

Advent: endings and beginnings. 

Jesus’ “first coming”--is front and center, but his “second coming” hovers close behind.  The church readings now include the "end times” or the "last days.” And those are some scary readings. 

But amid all the signs and symbols and prognostications is some very excellent advice about living "between times."  I think even Dorothy Sewart would approve. 

Wake up and get with the program.

If you’re afraid, ask for help; it will be given.  Better yet, don't be afraid.

Savor it all, even the hard bits; they have something to teach you.

LOVE extravagantly. 

And, of course--choose your own colors.

4 Advent: MY CHRISTMAS CRUSH

Today I have been traveling.  It’s what I meant to do when I imagined this blog.  I would move to a different location each day, and I would just plant myself there and think about…whatever came to mind.  And write about it. 

But till today I hadn’t done that.  The first three days of this blog were focused on mechanics: the mechanics of learning to write for a fair amount of time each day and every day (I would be embarrassed to tell you how long a couple of these posts took); the mechanics of learning what to do when something that looks perfectly fine on your own screen develops internal demons when you transfer it to somebody’s blog program (you panic and text your daughter-in-law the webmaster or your son the computer software writer); and the mechanics of figuring out the timing of everything so that by 9 am in the morning something intelligible will on offer in everybody’s email.

But today, with three whole days under my belt, I got braver.  I left my house and drove a mile and a half to the Barnes and Noble cafe in Westport.

   

When I got here the place was packed, only two tables out of about twenty still free, due to the fact that the wrapping paper station has taken over the lower left side of the café.  Armed with my mug of skinny peppermint mocha I found a table on the lower level, literally inches from a ledge covered with what looks like hundreds of games:  Monopoly, Battleship, Clue, Parcheesi, Twister, and a whole bunch unknown to me.  Why does it make me feel so good to know that people still play Twister and Parcheesi?!

 

Two hours later I have had a ball, sipping coffee, listening to moderately horrible renditions of Christmas carols, watching people meet up to chat, including several pairs of tutors with students.  I can feel the smile on my face, even before I greet my friend Margy who works here, and Don as well, a fellow customer I met ages ago when I first began coming here to work on my sermon.

 

It has been a great afternoon.  This is much more what I figured blogging would be like.

 

And what about Advent wisdom for the day, I hear you wondering.  Have you any spiritual pearls to share as a result of your relaxing and enjoyable afternoon?  Good question. 

Not really.  Well maybe.  Sort of.  I guess I’ve spent the afternoon rediscovering how much I love the season and most of its trappings.  I know it’s fashionable to resent the secular “taking over” of the religious celebrations of Christmas, but I confess that in my book it’s mostly all good.  Christmas is one of the church’s big hits; why argue with success?!  The making-a-buck thing gets tiresome, that’s true, but what’s not to love about friends and family celebrating, and parties and Christmas cards and presents given and received, and feasts shared and great music and lots of lights twinkling all around? 

Anybody who thinks they’ve taken Christ out of Christmas is mistaken.  Not possible.  Christ is in Christmas, Christ IS Christmas, for Christ’s sake--and I mean that with all reverence.  His message is out there.  His message is in here.  (Imagine me touching my heart.)  The most secular humanist who sends a Christmas card or talks about peace and good will on earth through recycling and re-purposing, or who is concerned about caring for the sick and freeing those who are in subjection to others or in thrall to drugs—that person is talking about Christ, known or unknown. Those are Christian ideas and Christmas morals and Christian sentiments and Christian theology.

And if they’re also Buddhist and Hindu and Jewish and Muslim beliefs, why on earth would we complain?

Bidden or unbidden, God is present.  (Carl Jung)

Ubi Caritas et amor deus ibi est.   

Where there is love and caring, there is God.

Peace on earth.  One person at a time.  One heart at a time. 

Let’s leave the nonsense about the design of Starbucks coffee cups to the politicians.

Advent 3 DIVINE STORIES

An Advent Tale

Ask any “churched” person about the meaning of Advent, and they may respond with waking up or preparation or penitence or hope or light or birth or one of many other options.    

Individual words have their own energy of sound and meaning, but a whole new level of power blossoms when words come together to tell a story.  Jesus knew that.  That's why he taught in parables.  He was an absolutely divine story teller.

Last Sunday Rev. Max at St. Timothy's on the Hill shared a story from Barbara Brown Taylor's book Bread of Angels.   The story is about yet another Advent word:  WAITING.  It's about waiting till the bombs stop falling. 

Taylor has a friend who was eight years old when the Germans bombed London.  The little girl lived in the city with her grandparents, her cousin Bettine, and a big English sheepdog named--appropriately--Blitz.  Whenever the air raid sirens sounded, they all sheltered in a sandbagged garage they shared with a Swedish couple and their little girl, who was also around eight years of age.  And what Taylor's friend remembers most about those times in the bomb shelter is what tremendous fun the little girls had.

We saw things in those sandbags no one else saw.  We hunted for gold in them and we found it.  Then we hid it again.  Sometimes we found goblins and fairies, too.  There was a whole world down there that the adults couldn't see.  When we got too loud they'd say, 'Shhhh, we can't hear the bombs.' 

 Then we would listen too and if the explosions were nearby we would get scared, only the Swedish girl taught my cousin and me what to do.  'Lie on your back and cross your arms over your chest and God will protect you.'  After the bombs stopped, (we) sneaked outside and looked up at the sky--the beautiful sky where all that ugliness came from....I tell you, we had an awfully good time! 
(pp. 162-163.)

How do we choose to wait?

With dread, expecting the worst?  (Shhh, I'm listening for the bombs!)

Or with hope, with trust (cross your arms over your chest and God will protect you!), and above all with divine creativity--open and alert and responsive to all of life, the comfortable and the uncomfortable.

That's the kind of waiting that prospects for gold in sandbags, and celebrates the beautiful sky from which bombs can fall.

Sacred parables aren't only found in scripture.