Waiting for Christmas Carols

Maybe it’s because I spent many an Advent waiting for something to be different, or maybe it’s just that I’m a bit of a liturgical nerd, but Advent is such a meaningful season for me, and one of my Advent practices is to listen, not to Christmas music, but to Advent music. I have an Advent playlist that someone else curated but that I have copied into my own music service provider. The songs speak of the need for a redeemer, of waiting, of darkness, of hope, and of preparation. The songs come from a variety of sources, but the themes of Advent are woven through them.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Christmas music, but waiting for it until it is actually Christmas makes listening to it that much more special. When you consider that Christmas candy and decorations have been in the stores since before Halloween, it’s an act of resistance to not listen to Christmas music until Christmas Eve! And it’s not like I shut it out altogether. I sing it at church or when caroling, and I hear it when I’m in any store. I do love Christmas carols, and I savor the singing of them. It’s just that I appreciate the story that Advent music tells.

Advent holds powerful memories for me, memories of such deep longing for life to be different, for ridicule and loneliness to not be such a prominent part of my life. The scriptures of Advent, in speaking of hope and waiting and light shining in darkness spoke to my heart when I was waiting in my own difficult circumstances. I held them as treasure as I sat in the early morning dark with the Advent wreath lit before the house awoke for the day. I dared to hope in those hours before daylight.

I am grateful that my life is different now, but every Advent that rolls around reminds me of those years of longing in the darkness and I think of others who are in situations where they struggle to hope that things can change, that life can be different, that a savior is coming because God loves them and does not leave them alone. My Advent playlist reminds me that there is still a need for a savior, that the baby born in Bethlehem continues to matter to many who need a reason to hope.

There will be plenty of time for Christmas carols, and like the light, they will break into the season of Advent in various ways and places. But I, for one, will wait to play them, and instead, will play songs about waiting and preparation and the light that is coming. If you are interested in what I’m listening to, here’s a link to the playlist.

Letter to a Fly

Dear fly, (though I don’t really mean the “dear” part)

why must you ceaselessly circle my head,

occasionally tangling in my hair, or

clumsily crashing into my cheek, or worse,

my lips?

I know you are a child of God, as am I.

St. Francis would have called you brother.

I’ve tried to imagine you as guardian angel

keeping me safe as I walk in the woods, but it

stretches beyond the reach of my imagination.

Were you more calm, maybe marking the place

in my psalter, as your kin did for Saint Colman

I might have more affection for you.

Your presence, however, reminds me

I do not yet fully love as God loves.

I have some growing to do.

Soaking

One of my potted herbs, a basil plant, takes time to water. If I try to pour water on it from my watering can, the water simply runs across the top of the soil and over the edge of the pot. The plant itself gets no benefit.

What I’ve learned is that I have to use a small watering bottle with a straw, and squeeze water through the small opening in the straw to give the plant what it needs. It takes time, but it’s the only way I can adequately water the plant.

I thought about this plant as I was reading from the epistle attributed to James. James begins his letter with these words:

My brothers and sisters, think of the various tests you encounter as occasions for joy. After all, you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let this endurance complete its work so that you may be fully mature, complete, and lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

To build endurance involves some soaking. It takes time, patience, consistency, and the ability to be content when you don’t see “progress.” Endurance requires showing up, day after day, moment by moment. It isn’t glamourous. It doesn’t draw much attention. It doesn’t generate a rush of adrenaline. It may not garner you any praise or recognition.

Endurance is about remaining in the flow of God’s grace so that you are gradually reshaped. I think about rocks worn smooth by constant contact with the flow of a stream. It takes a very long time for a rock to go from jagged to smooth. In the same way we grow more complete in our faith by remaining in the flow of grace.

The willingness to be consistent and constant without any significant signs of progress does test our faith. We would prefer that God would bestow signs and wonders on us that enable us to be certain of our growth. It’s been my experience, though, that God works mostly in small, subtle, barely perceptible ways. We have to trust that the soaking, the flow, is moving us toward maturity and completeness.

Wait: Eastertide's Final Lesson

 

Reshaping the Heart: A Lenten Journey

 

I wrote Lenten devotions for my church. You can access a digital copy here. It takes a little while to download, so consider it an opportunity to cultivate patience!

This video introduces the resource and talks a bit about Lent.

Disruption -Elizabeth & Zechariah

We are not the first to experience a disrupted holiday season.

An Imperfect Lent

I struggle with perfectionism. My childhood environment likely contributed to this tendency. Because I used to teach time management and spoke of the dangers of perfectionism, I hadn’t recognized it in myself until I was first introduced to the Enneagram. When I read about Enneagram type One, I realized I could not deny this part of who I am.

A social media post circulating just prior to Lent motivated me to practice a Lenten discipline of letting go of perfectionism. What I am realizing is just how subtle and insidious the demon of perfectionism acts in my life. I catch myself more often than I would have expected beating myself up for failing to do something I feel I ought to do.

Shoulds and oughts are the love language of the perfectionism demon! Grace is the antidote to combat the negative self-talk of should and oughts. Holding my successes and failures with equal grace is the discipline I am seeking to cultivate. The patience I extend to others who fail I also need to extend to myself.

I don’t expect to arrive at Easter Sunday perfectionism-free. The tendency is deep within me. However, as Enneagram literature tells me, the gift of being a One is the desire to improve the world. Improving the world means improving myself, and improving myself means allowing myself to fail with grace and without shame.

Making New Traditions at Christmas

Christmas is a season during which we often place great weight on tradition. We reenact, year after year, things we’ve done previously, elements of past Christmases that hold memory and meaning for us. Though we may balk at tradition at other times, we hold on to Christmas traditions with great zealousness.

Yet there are times when those traditions are no longer available to us. Children grow up, family members die, divorce happens, people move, etc. When these things happen, we grieve the loss of traditions. We may bemoan that things are not what they have been. We lose the patterns of holidays that are as comfortable and familiar as well-worn shoes.

We can become angry, blame those whose changes have wrought changes to our traditions, or simply let ourselves become depressed and despairing. When tempted to embrace an unhealthy emotion, maybe it is good to consider the first Christmas and the chaos it caused to all who were a part of it. An unmarried young woman, pregnant, a betrothed who sticks with her at the risk to his own reputation, a birth away from home and the difficult journey preceding it—there really was nothing very peaceful and calm about that first Christmas!

This year I am thinking of ways to create new traditions around this season.  The inspiration for this came from my Christmas tree. The Christmas I was separated from my spouse, I almost didn’t get a tree. Not knowing whether the separation would be temporary or permanent, the practical side of me thought not to, but I realized that having a tree could provide an emotional lift in a chaotic and stressful holiday season. To appease my practicality, I purchased a $15 prelit tabletop tree and a $1 package of small star ornaments for it. I tied a small gold ribbon at the top and placed my presents for family and friends around it.

This is my third Christmas with my little tree. While in Portland Oregon with friends, I found small wooden bird ornaments that fit both my tree and my personality (I love birds). Another friend brought me some small shiny balls to add to my tree. Decorating it this year was something I looked forward to, because it represented people and memories that I cherish.

My tree is inspiring me to consider how I might make more new traditions for the Christmas season. I want to embrace that things may be as chaotic as they were the first Christmas, and yet also imagine ways to create traditions that will be touchstones in the sometimes messy circumstances that are indicative of “real life.”

Whether your holiday season is chaotic or calm, I pray you can be patient, loving and centered in God’s peace, not just at this time of year but always. Merry Christmas!

Freedom

I am becoming,

uncurling like a fern frond.

It isn’t easy to become

who you were created to be.

Rocks get in the way and you have

to be patient until something

(or someone) moves them

or until you become sure enough

of your destiny that you have the

strength to push them aside

or maybe both happen at once.

But then, ah then,

you stretch out your leaves—

free!

Listening

1 Samuel 3:1-10

I’m here.

Listening. It’s enough

for me that you know

I’m here.

Listening.

A Prayer

Mark 14:36

On the other side of suffering, I see your transforming work, O God. But when I read this single verse, Jesus’ plea to you, I go back to my season of suffering and my wish to run away from it.

A wise guide spoke hard truth to me when she said to stay with my pain. Let it be my teacher. I did not want to hear those words, but I received them. I lived them, through days and weeks and months, walking the thin line between despair and hope.

I did not numb myself to the pain, but felt it as fully as I was capable of feeling it. And even for that, I was derided by the same ones whose words and deeds had already exiled me.

But because I did not numb myself, did not avoid the pain, I now sing with unfettered joy the song of salvation and new life. I am redeemed and reborn! Thanks be to God! Amen.

Song of Praise

Revelation 4:1-11

Holy, holy, holy!

Creator God, you are holy!

In the orange fire of sunset,

in the vivid pink of sunrise,

in the indescribable blue of spring sky,

your glory bursts forth.

Holy, holy, holy!

Christ Jesus, you are holy!

In you, we see God’s heart for us—

love we cannot fathom,

patience filled with grace,

forgiveness that bids us live with joy.

Holy, holy, holy!

Spirit, you are holy!

In the stillness of early morning,

in the silence of a chapel,

in laughter, tears and love of community,

your presence is palpable.

Holy, holy, holy!

Wrapped in Trinity’s holiness

may we too be holy,

lifted by love to deep devotion,

challenged by grace to grow in grace,

filled with joy irrepressible.

Holy, holy, holy!

The Speed of Growth

Mark 4:26-32

Let nature take its course—

not a popular word in a society of speed.

Consumed with size and strength and speed,

we are like mechanics, manipulating the

engine of life to meet our demands for

more, faster and bigger. We override the

Creator, who glories in the smallest flower,

the speed of a snail, the delicate strength of a spider web.

We want bigger chickens, faster answers, more choices.

We cannot content ourselves with a Kingdom that grows by itself,

that revels in smallness, that is revealed in the simplicity of seeds

and birds and bread.

Life begins small and is only authentic when unforced.

Depth and strength require time, not speed.

The Kingdom comes in its own time.

Let Nature/God take its course.

Endurance

James 5:7-11

O God, waiting is hard. But harder than waiting is unknowing.

With the Psalmist I cry “How long?” And will the journey even take me

to a place I want to be? It seems all I see is the interminable question mark.

Yet in the waiting, in the unknowing, I experience compassion and mercy.

There is hope for fruit from the seeds of suffering. So Lord, cultivate in me

patient endurance and courage. Maybe these are the fruits you want to give me.

If so, may I feast on them until they nourish and strengthen me.

Questions and Faith

Habakkuk 2:1-3

Compassionate One,

I remember a book title I once read: Swift, Lord, You are Not.

I hear your call to wait, to trust,

yet as I watch a nation’s heart turn to stone

I wonder when the tide will turn.

How many more children will come home to find their parents taken away?

How many creatures have to die before we realize our dependence on clean air and water?

How many people will be attacked and killed before we realize that killing others doesn’t allay our fear?

As the fist of power squeezes tighter,

how many more will be crushed by its greed, its hate, its oppression?

God of the ages, help me to take the long view—

to remember that empires fall when power corrupts,

to see that plants grow from the decay and rot of what has died,

to look at you on a cross and to see the empty tomb beyond.

Evil may seem strong, but you are stronger,

though your way is not the way of the world.

You who are the way, the truth and the life,

may we know that your way is power in powerlessness,

your way is strength in weakness,

your way is nonretaliation to violence,

your way is resurrection through death.

So I will trust;

I will do what is mine to do;

I will not let my heart turn to stone.

I know you will take small acts of faithfulness

and multiply it many times over.

Confession

Isaiah 40

God, whose way leads through

wilderness, whose desert path

uproots us out of ordinary time,

forgive us when we choose

complacency over change,

ease over transformation,

numbness over attentiveness.

We prefer the false security of

easy answers, blame and prejudice

rather than the disciplines of

understanding, patience and

accountability.

Hold us in the desert long enough

to clear our vision, change our hearts,

gentle our judgments.

Hold us accountable even as you

hold us in your hand.

Flatten our mountains of pride.

Raise the ones we have despised.

Make our desert sojourn fruitful—

harsh enough to soften us, to turn

us to you in utter dependency,

so we will know that you show

your power in gentleness,

your strength in compassion,

your greatness in proximity.

Beginning

As we age, we may become reluctant to become a beginner. Yet the start of a new year is a good time to begin something new. Two years ago, I began to practice yoga. At 55, I was not as limber as I once was, but I took my clumsy, stiff self to yoga with regularity, and now I can bend in ways I couldn’t bend when I first went to yoga class. I still have much to learn, and am often reminded by yoga instructors to come to my mat with a beginner’s attitude.

This year, I am teaching myself to crochet. With a rainy start to the year, I had a great opportunity to devote some time to beginning this new practice. With clumsy fingers and a lot of patience with myself, I am slowly watching a dishcloth take shape.

New years invite us to new beginnings. Yet every day likewise offers us a fresh start. I am drawn to the early Christian monastics, those abbas and ammas of the desert. And as I think about beginning, I offer you a favorite saying of mine:

Abba Poemen said of Abba Pior that every day he made a new beginning.

What a refreshing way to approach life. If we make a new beginning every day, we don’t carry the burden of guilt, shame and regret. Because of this, we can focus on God’s direction in our lives, rather than on ourselves—our failures and shortcomings. We accept God’s forgiveness and grace and rise to live and serve afresh each morning. And, at the end of the day, we let the day go, knowing that we begin again tomorrow.

New year’s resolutions are good, but when we fail at them, we often abandon them and fall back into old habits. If, instead, we could see tomorrow as a new beginning, we might come closer to implementing our desired changes.

When we live like Abba Pior, we live with freshness, hope and expectancy. Surely these are some of the childlike qualities that Jesus was thinking about when he taught us to have the faith of a child. Making a new beginning every day invites us to keep the gift of grace always before us. Instead of dwelling obsessively on the past, we can live and grow closer to the true self God created us to be.

Over vs Through

I bought an Italian Parsley plant a few weeks ago. I put the pot in a sunny window, gave it water, and hoped it would thrive there. I snipped leaves off for several recipes that first week.

All seemed to be going well with my little plant until I returned from a weekend retreat. Yellow leaves greeted me on my arrival, even though there was still water in the dish under the pot. I got the scissors and began to trim the dying leaves, which took almost all the leaves off the plant. I wasn’t sure the plant would survive.

But just a couple of days later, I noticed lots of new leaves. The severe pruning allowed the plant to be healthy and grow. Had I simply repotted the sick plant, or just continued to water it, without any pruning, I am convinced it would have died completely.  

That little plant reminds me that avoidance of difficulty, or glossing over one’s pain (think Monty Python—“It’s only a flesh wound”) does not create the opportunity for growth that going through difficulty, enduring the pruning, or feeling the loss makes for us.

When we are seriously wounded, healing takes time and attention. You wouldn’t tell someone with a broken leg to just get over it. The leg has to be set, protected and immobilized, so the bones can knit back together. The inner wounds of bullying, betrayal or rejection are no different. Wounds take time and attention to heal. Ignoring them or pretending they don’t exist is just as unhealthy as wallowing in self-pity.

A friend told me that cancer was the best thing to happen to her. She let go of her go-go pace, allowed her body to rest, and spent time with God. Her spiritual growth through the process of chemotherapy was tremendous, and she is a different person now—filled with a peace and wisdom that only time, reflection and stillness can bring. She told me how she felt sad watching others who, while undergoing chemotherapy, tried to maintain their lifestyle at the same level of activity as before their treatment. She said they missed the gift that their treatment offered—to go deeper with God. They were focused on getting over cancer. My friend focused on going through.

To go through, we have to let go. We have to relinquish our timetable, our sense of control. When we go through loss, pain and wounding, when we allow the pain to teach us, we learn that there is much we no longer need. Pruning makes space for something new, something that cannot grow without enduring the difficult.

Jesus fully went through his suffering. He drank it, without any self-pity, to the last drop. He died, the ultimate pruning, but he rose from the dead. And how did the disciples know for sure it was him? Because he rose with his wounds. He bore the scars in his resurrected body, a constant reminder of the suffering he endured.

Jesus, my parsley plant, and my friend remind me of the gift of going through, of allowing the pain to give us new life.

Letting Go

I have a hard time remembering that I cannot control much (if any) of what happens to me. It’s one of those things I know, but I still get frustrated when things don’t go as I think they should.

It hit me last week. One of those “A-ha” moments as I recalled the most familiar part of the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

There is more to the prayer than these lines, but there is plenty here. And while it is a prayer I am familiar with, last week it went from my head into my heart.

The persistent theme of my life lately has been letting go. In my reading, journaling and in multiple instances of life I have encountered the prompting to let go. Suddenly last week, the beginning lines of the Serenity Prayer hit me like something I was hearing for the very first time.

To accept what I cannot change, not grudgingly, but with peace, is a challenge. When I get frustrated at another’s behavior, when the actions I’ve undertaken with pure motives are misunderstood and criticized, being able to let go with serenity requires discipline.

In a recent discussion I was reminded of one way Jesus did this. When a rich man comes to find out what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus tells him to sell all he has and give the money to the poor and then follow Jesus. The man goes away sad.

Jesus lets him go. He does not run after him, even though Mark 10:21 says that Jesus loved him. Jesus lets him make his own decision, even though the man’s decision is to walk away. Sometimes love looks different than our expectations. One might think that if Jesus loved the man so much, he would run after him and try to make sure the man understood the cost of his decision. But Jesus gives him the freedom to make his own choice.

In her book, Kitchen Table Wisdom, Rachel Remen contrasts attachment and commitment. I think what she says is relevant to being able to let go, to accept what I cannot change. She says that attachment closes down options, while commitment opens them up. Attachment leads to entrapment, while commitment leads to greater degrees of freedom.

Jesus was committed to the rich man, but not attached to him. The rich man was not committed, but instead was attached to his reputation as a moralistic rule follower and to his possessions, and this limited his options. He was entrapped by his image and his stuff. Jesus loved the man enough to give him the freedom to remain attached. This way of love may not seem like love to us, but time and again Jesus gives people the openness to choose for themselves. If we love as Jesus did, our hearts and lives and love become more open, and we may be better able to let go and accept what we cannot change.

Slow Small Steps

One of my favorite stories of the desert abbas and ammas reminds me of the slowness and smallness of progress in spiritual growth. A hermit told a brother who was discouraged about his lack of progress in keeping the monastic rule about a father who told his son to clear a field. The son, discouraged at the amount of thorns and thistles, lay down and slept instead. His father found him asleep and asked him why he had done nothing. The son said the task was larger than he could do, but the wise father said that if he would clear only the place he slept each day, the work would advance slowly and the son would not lose heart.

We sometimes think we are not progressing because we don’t clear our inner field all at once. The spiritual journey, however, is not a sprint but a marathon. The thorns and thistles have to be cleared away a little at the time. I’ve been reminded of this as I’ve been reading through Paul’s letter to the Galatians. In chapter 6, Paul encourages the Galatian Christians to not grow weary in doing good. As I reflected on that verse this morning, I saw within myself the thorns and thistles of a lingering resentment. My first inclination was to berate myself for the resentment, but then I thought about story about clearing the field, and I realized that this was the “patch” that needed my attention at this moment.

We live in a culture that does not value slowness and smallness. Consequently, we get discouraged when the only way forward is through slow, small progress. I’ve seen it with folks who are recovering from surgeries or health issues and I’ve also seen it in people who have had a significant spiritual awakening. We tend to grow impatient and frustrated when healing is prolonged and when the spiritual high has descended into ordinary time. And when we come upon an inner patch of thorns and thistles, we may choose to shrug our shoulders and go to sleep, preferring to numb ourselves against the acknowledgement that we are not all we imagined ourselves to be.

I’m grateful that God’s expectations of us do not move at our Western culture’s go-go pace. Grace is about slow, small progress. I won’t even say it’s about steady progress, because the journey of spiritual growth is not linear. It happens in its own time, but it only happens if we keep at it.