And so this is Christmas.
Christmas, as an adult I'm discovering, is marked with changes.
Last night, for the first time in my life, I didn't attend church with my family (when there was an option to do so) on Christmas Eve. I attended a separate service, earlier in the afternoon, by myself, and it was a good thing. I suppose I could have also attended the evening service at the church I grew up in, the church which all of my immediate (and most of my extended) family still attends. But I didn't. I don't know why I didn't. Maybe it was a way of simply being myself. Maybe it was a little bit of petty rebellion against expectations of family and the people dad pastors. Maybe a little bit of resentment at something I always hated as a child - Christmas Eve was one of the few times in the year when just my siblings and parents and I were deliberately together, when we set aside everything else and enjoyed each others company, and I always hated the years when the church declared a need for a Christmas Eve service, because it cut into family time on a night filled with my favorite traditions. I suppose it was some combination of exerting self-identity, rebellion and resentment that kept me home.
And when I came home, I quietly and prayerfully lit the advent wreath on my dresser. The one I've lit through this whole season. And I celebrated in my own quiet way the coming of the light.
For the first time in my life, we didn't spend Christmas Eve revisiting the story of our family either. Each of the three of us siblings have an ornament that marks a significant event from each year in our life. A large portion of these ornaments are hand-carved by dad. On Christmas Eve the boxes of those ornaments would come out, and Dad would tell the story of our family as each of us hung them on the tree one by one. 20 plus years of love and laughter and struggles were rehashed as we added to the more "traditional" decorations already on the tree. Last year my parents informed us that it was the last year we were going to hang ornaments and tell the story. They stopped providing the ornament for us when we turned 21, so for several years I'd already been purchasing my own, but I loved the story telling, and the laughter.
Earlier this month I picked up my box of ornaments from my parent's house. It was a hard box to open this year, filled with so many memories and milestones. I eventually opened it in the company of one of my roommates, telling my own version of the story as I hung 26 years of ornament memories on the tree in our living room. But I missed hanging them together on my parents tree last night.
(And, last night mom hinted that next year, she was thinking of scrapping the our traditional feast of hor'deourves for a more traditional dinner. My only response was "Why???")
And so, this morning I'm laying here curled up in bed. Soon I'll get up and wrap the last few presents. I'll read a little from scripture, and send an email or two to those friends who are really family, and are far away this Christmas.
Eventually I'll head for my parents house in time for the traditional hashbrown breakfast that dad makes. (You really haven't lived until you've eaten my dad's hashbrowns - an all in one dish with sausage and cheese and veggies and potatoes and spices and just general goodness). This year, we're eating breakfast before presents. That's unusual, though it was the source of much laughing debate when my parents announced this intention to us last night. One of my brothers insisted that this is the way we've always done it. (He's wrong, by the way.) Essentially, now that we're adults, and want to stay in bed past 7am on Christmas, if we ate breakfast after presents, it became lunch. Since the extended family dinner is at 4:30, that was two large meals close together. So we'll eat breakfast first - it makes sense after all, and we're no longer the little children whose patience for presents could not have been contained through a meal.
Christmas, as an adult, I think, is what you make of it. There's not the chaotic wonder and impatience and delight at presents that there was as a child. Traditions change. The family expands or contracts depending on the year. This year I find myself longing not so much for the family of my blood (though I'll love spending time with them) but the family of my heart (spread out across the country and much missed and loved). I'm hoping to speak with some of them in the next few days as well.
And so this is Christmas: That Jesus Christ, took on flesh and lived among us. That he lived and suffered and died and was resurrected. That he offers us the chance to choose life, a life more abundantly lived.
Merry Christmas everyone! May the peace and light of Christ fill your lives this day and in the coming year.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Again at prayer...
My heart is as prayer again.
This morning I am praying:
This morning I am praying:
- for an encircling, a drawing together
- for healing and restoration
- for roses along paths
- for some I love very deeply
- and some I know only in passing
- for conversations that must happen
- and for all the things the have gone unsaid, through fear, or through necessity
- and for courage to speak the things that are as yet unsaid but must be given voice
- for a diminishing of greed and jealousy
- for those who have been heavy on my mind and heart these last days and weeks
- while remembering "his body broken, his blood shed"
- with thankfulness for a friend with whom I spent last evening, laughing, talking, eating, communing
- for a tearing down of idols (idol worship is about self harm)
- for restored dreams
- for travels that are not yet fully possibilities, but that God is calling some to
- for health and strength
- for daily bread
- for just enough light for one more step (another step deeper into darkness, closer to the light)
- for birthing
- for empty arms to be filled
- and empty hearts to be held
- while thinking about some lyrics from two Ben Harper songs (Roses from a Friend, and Blessed to be a Witness)
- for two little girls in Winnipeg who touched my heart deeply (and their family, who also entered my heart)
- for two friends recently engaged
- for the closing of the gap
- for the lonely to be set in families
- for all those who bear the marks of Christ on their lives
- for healing and wholeness
- for joy amidst suffering
- while remembering Francis and Claire and Lazarus and Rose of Lima and all the others that have impacted this year
- for peace
- and hope
- for the coming of the light.
Advent is nearly at a close. The light is coming. Amen, come Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Mid-day again
It'll be another hour before I get my lunch break. That's just what happens when people are out of the office and the routine is different. It's no big deal, just a little annoyance in the midst of my day.
A busy day.
A casual day. There's something about wearing jeans that makes even my less than stellar work situation just a tiny bit more bearable.
I'll be so glad when tomorrow at noon arrives. Four days in a row off of work will be a beautiful thing.
Family. Food. Friends.
hopefully rest.
Sleep has been an interesting endeavour lately. More so in the two nights I've been staying alone. Not frightening the way I thought it might be, just... active. It's the only word I can think of. That, and fleeting. Hopefully that doesn't keep up for the entire two weeks they're away. I'm not sure my body would cope with that very well.
I'm still wearing a white scarf everywhere I go. Still praying. Still wondering. Still waiting. Still longing. Still dreaming. I think I'm glad that the scarf that is somewhat of a sacramental object. The scarf endowed with so many memories and reminders of the nearness of Jesus is white. If I'm going to have days on end where I need it within easy reach, at least it's a nice neutral color that goes with everything.
And with that, I'm off to fill in an expense report for my boss. And sort through a stack of mail that looks tedious and time consuming. Half a day today. Half a day tomorrow. And then a break. A much needed break.
A busy day.
A casual day. There's something about wearing jeans that makes even my less than stellar work situation just a tiny bit more bearable.
I'll be so glad when tomorrow at noon arrives. Four days in a row off of work will be a beautiful thing.
Family. Food. Friends.
hopefully rest.
Sleep has been an interesting endeavour lately. More so in the two nights I've been staying alone. Not frightening the way I thought it might be, just... active. It's the only word I can think of. That, and fleeting. Hopefully that doesn't keep up for the entire two weeks they're away. I'm not sure my body would cope with that very well.
I'm still wearing a white scarf everywhere I go. Still praying. Still wondering. Still waiting. Still longing. Still dreaming. I think I'm glad that the scarf that is somewhat of a sacramental object. The scarf endowed with so many memories and reminders of the nearness of Jesus is white. If I'm going to have days on end where I need it within easy reach, at least it's a nice neutral color that goes with everything.
And with that, I'm off to fill in an expense report for my boss. And sort through a stack of mail that looks tedious and time consuming. Half a day today. Half a day tomorrow. And then a break. A much needed break.
3 Thoughts from Henri Nouwen
3 more thoughts from Henri Nouwen that have arrived in my email inbox recently.
An Experience Offered to All
Some people say: "I never had an experience of the fullness of time. ... I am just an ordinary person, not a mystic." Although some people have unique experiences of God's presence and, therefore have unique missions to announce God's presence to the world, all of us - whether learned or uneducated, rich or poor, visible or hidden - can receive the grace of seeing God in the fullness of time. This mystical experience, is not reserved for a few exceptional people. God wants to offer that gift in one way or another to all God's children.
But we must desire it. We must be attentive and interiorly alert. For some people the experience of the fullness of time comes in a spectacular way, as it did to St. Paul when he fell to the ground on his way to Damascus (Acts 9:3-4). But for some of us it comes like a murmuring sound or a gentle breeze touching our backs (1 Kings 19:13). God loves us all and wants us all to know this in a most personal way.
Light in the Darkness
We walk in a "ravine as dark as death" (Psalm 23:4), and still we have nothing to fear because God is at our side: God's staff and crook are there to soothe us (see Psalm 23:4). This is not just a consoling idea. It is an experience of the heart that we can trust.
Our lives are full of suffering, pain, disillusions, losses and grief, but they are also marked by visions of the coming of the Son of Man "like lightning striking in the east and flashing far into west" (Matthew 24:27). These moments in which we see clearly, hear loudly, and feel deeply that God is with us on the journey make us shine as a light into the darkness. Jesus says, "You are the light of the world. Your light must shine in people's sight, so that, seeing your good works, they may give praise to your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:14-16).
The Heart of Jesus
Jesus is the vulnerable child, the humble preacher, the despised, rejected, and crucified Christ. But Jesus also is "the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, ... [who] exists before all things and in him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:15,17). Jesus is the King, ridiculed on the cross and reigning from his throne in the heavenly Jerusalem. He is the Lord riding into the city on a donkey, and the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is cursed by the world but blessed by God.
Let's always look at Jesus, because in his crucified and glorified heart we will see ourselves called to share in his suffering as well as in his glory.
An Experience Offered to All
Some people say: "I never had an experience of the fullness of time. ... I am just an ordinary person, not a mystic." Although some people have unique experiences of God's presence and, therefore have unique missions to announce God's presence to the world, all of us - whether learned or uneducated, rich or poor, visible or hidden - can receive the grace of seeing God in the fullness of time. This mystical experience, is not reserved for a few exceptional people. God wants to offer that gift in one way or another to all God's children.
But we must desire it. We must be attentive and interiorly alert. For some people the experience of the fullness of time comes in a spectacular way, as it did to St. Paul when he fell to the ground on his way to Damascus (Acts 9:3-4). But for some of us it comes like a murmuring sound or a gentle breeze touching our backs (1 Kings 19:13). God loves us all and wants us all to know this in a most personal way.
Light in the Darkness
We walk in a "ravine as dark as death" (Psalm 23:4), and still we have nothing to fear because God is at our side: God's staff and crook are there to soothe us (see Psalm 23:4). This is not just a consoling idea. It is an experience of the heart that we can trust.
Our lives are full of suffering, pain, disillusions, losses and grief, but they are also marked by visions of the coming of the Son of Man "like lightning striking in the east and flashing far into west" (Matthew 24:27). These moments in which we see clearly, hear loudly, and feel deeply that God is with us on the journey make us shine as a light into the darkness. Jesus says, "You are the light of the world. Your light must shine in people's sight, so that, seeing your good works, they may give praise to your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:14-16).
The Heart of Jesus
Jesus is the vulnerable child, the humble preacher, the despised, rejected, and crucified Christ. But Jesus also is "the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, ... [who] exists before all things and in him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:15,17). Jesus is the King, ridiculed on the cross and reigning from his throne in the heavenly Jerusalem. He is the Lord riding into the city on a donkey, and the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is cursed by the world but blessed by God.
Let's always look at Jesus, because in his crucified and glorified heart we will see ourselves called to share in his suffering as well as in his glory.
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