Advent Day6: Foolstide

[My Advent posts this year have taken various characters and objects from the story of the coming of The Christ as a little child and ruminated on their thoughts.  Some have found it a bit confusing.  Today, a break from that, an interlude, if you will.  Hence this offering rejoicing the silliness surrounding Christmas in our time and place.]

It is said that the Puritans labeled Christmas Foolstide.

I like that.

I know what they meant.

But I like it anyway.

Let’s stop taking ourselves so seriously.

Yes, Jesus is the reason for the season.

And yes, coming to save the world is a pretty big deal.

But did you ever stop to wonder exactly what Jesus thought he was saving the world from?  Or for?

Maybe you’ve got it right and Jesus was and is saving the world from all its sin (after all, who am I to say otherwise to a couple of thousand years of tradition?).

And maybe he was and is saving the world for God.

I mean, it makes sense, right?

But what makes us think God is found more in quiet cathedrals than in styrofoam penguin santa puppets?

What makes us think that because he was murdered, it is Jesus’ greatest desire that we crawl rather than run and laugh our way to him?

After all, he spends a whole lot of time talking about the weakest, the least, the foolish, the children; yet somehow, from that, we grownups conclude that church is the place where children are shushed and laughter is out of place and heaven forbid we use penguins for our nativities.

Yes, Jesus is the reason for the season.  

But here’s the thing, my serious Christian friends: nothing and no one takes that away.  Not the crass commercialism.  Not the substitution of ‘holiday’ for ‘Christmas’.  Not whether stores are open or not.  

There is no ‘war’ on Christmas, except, perhaps, by some Christians who hold that because the date of Jesus’ birth is unknown, there should be no celebration of it.  I have no problem with these friends.  They are not wrong.  

I have enough of the heritage of the Catholic traditions in me, Protestant that I am, however, to view the taking of things secular and engrafting them into ways Christian – to show, to teach, to bemuse, to transform – as one of great potential in, of and for the Kingdom.

So yes, I, for one, rejoice in styrofoam penguin santa puppets and Batman angels and T-Rex camels and when I order a teenage mutant ninja turtle blimp today for a little friend’s birthday, I will rejoice in my Buddy Jesus Savior and call it a good day.

Happy, blessed, wondrous Foolstide to you!

Christmas Day

Smoke from my neighbors’ chimney sweeps horizontally across my window view, barely visible through the naked forsythia branches that all seasons filter my view of the world.  Here, then gone as perfidious wind changes direction merely because it can (I know there’s science and wind does not will, but grant me the imagining), and all I am left with are bare branches, bereft of the little birds that people their limbs most days in this time of winter.

It is Christmas.  Blessed Christmas.

So what if we do not know the exact birthday date?  So what if it’s a made up day?  So what if pagans had the day first?  It is a remembering . . . living . . . breathing . . . laughing . . . loving . . . contemplative . . . peering-through-branches kind of day worth keeping.

Why do I, born to modernity living into post-everything, cling to these old ways and observe these old days?

Because even my atheist father found joy in Christmas. . . because every Christmas carries with it the remembrance of people and places and times past as well as the promise of times yet to be, whether I inhabit them or not – no matter.

Because every baby carries promise and possibility.

Because I have caught around-the-corner glimpses of the peaceable kingdom and it is glorious.

Because that’s what I was made for.

That’s why I hold fast to Christmas.

How about you?

Cantos Musing Muse ’Mused

Life is my canto
this but a pause
in a moment
of a life as lived
too short to count
as canto, I find
I can’t surrender
the cant and it
doth make me smile

***

It is the moment-upon us
Christmas coming Advent
waiting almost over now
time, this Eve of Christ’s
Mass – body brought
of course it will be broken
it is the way of bodies
this deconstruction of the
certain thing, the finite thing –
it will not – for it cannot – last

***

Mary moves
          from girlhood to womanhood
          from naivete to wisdom
          from mother of a boy to mother of the world

Where, oh where, are the paintings of dancing Mary?

***

Image for depression – the sink hole –
we fill and fill and fill and is never,
because it cannot be, enough to fill
the hole, for the hole is endless . . .
what to do with that?  Is it really endless
or does it just seem so?  Does it matter
when we’re feeling, living in, the hole?
I suspect not.  But what to do?
I wish I knew
for there are many – too many –
so filled with sadness there seems
no room – like Motel 6 already
booked to the brim – for anything
else and the sadness of the sad
breaks my heart if not me

***

The depression of not having enough is one thing
of (the fear of) not being enough is quite another

***

Those living in the time of fulfillment
have no need of hope,
they are living the thing hoped for
Hope is for the needful
we think here on earthscape
it good to be full
but full of need?
Aren’t we breathing all
all in need of a next breath?
Who will provide that?
Hope

***

It is not cowardly to die,
but it is incredibly brave to live

***

Messiahs do not come in good times
for we have no need of saving
when things go well

***

Children are our greatest joy and our greatest sorrow . . .
and so it is the fervent prayer, spoken or unspoken . . .
known or unknown . . . of every parent of every child . . .
please, please, please, let my child outlive me . . .
born to die, please do not make me bear witness . . .

***

These, then, are the thoughts of an old woman
on a particular day of advent on a particular year
on a particular planet . . . oh, how lucky,
how blessed, are we, to bear witness to their birth,
these children of the world we abuse so easily . . .
how cursed are we that they too will die. . .
and in the meantime, blessed or cursed . . .
therein is the pilgrimage sometimes of our own making. . .
sometimes not . . . and its name is joy.

Advent: For What Do We Wait?

When we say we’ll wait
we advent people – for
what, for whom, do we
wait?  For You, O God –
of course – but what
does that mean?  When
I wait for You, what am
I waiting for?  

Rescue?  Only a very silly
woman awaits a rescue
which has already come

Peace?  Already given

Love?  Already bestowed

Perfection?  Already present

You?  Already here . . . and
gone . . . and done . . . and
back again

To die?  Nay

To live?  Now we get
somewhere

so long as I remember

to live in the waiting
to live

to meet in the waiting
to meet

to get in the waiting
to get

to give in the waiting
to be given

Maybe advent’s more like a summer picnic at Grandma’s house than Christmas morning – Christmas morning has us looking forward to the presents as well as The Presence and sometimes (often?) the one outshadows the other.

But a summer picnic at Grandma’s – there, presence is the present, as we all gathered round, forming and reforming into smaller groups of the whole . . . caught up . . . hugged up . . . loved up . . . and out came the memories in story and pictures and we all gathered round to listen and look, to relive and remember, to smile and cry and huddle in . . .

This . . . yes – this together, gathering round time . . . this is what we waited for and it was the who of us all along.

Broken Packages

Jeanne Lou gave me what she and the girls could retrieve from my mom’s crushed car a few days back, but it wasn’t until last night that I actually inventoried what was left of Mom’s abortive over-the-river-and-through-the-woods journey to my house that ended in her wreck coming down the Virginia-facing side of Cheat Mountain.

The Christmas presents, so carefully wrapped, presented with torn paper, crushed boxes, and those blasted containers I can never open without serious self-injury now not so smug.  It all looks like the after-Christmas-morning melee – how did I never see our Christmas morning flotsam for the wreckage it is?

As I survey it all, various me’s emerge:

Clinically-detached me wonders at the science of impact on a cold winter’s day, where so much survived intact, but the plastic bits are all shattered.  What is it about the properties of plastic that metal and rubber and even glass could remain unbroken, but not the plastic?  This is what I think as I survey a small yellow funnel Mom had for adding oil, now in bits – and other plastic things as well.

Theologian me surveys it all and wants to draw some meaningful metaphor out of the things that survived and those that did not – surely some important insight about our own brokenness is called for, what with the tattered paper and cracks so visible.

But it is daughter me who prevails as I solemnly open each gift bearing my own name, as always bemused by some gifts and touched by others – observing how Mom’s skin is now as delicate as wrapping paper – and just as torn by the indignities of being hurled about a moving missile of a car on the skids in the snow mountains of West Virginia. . . how her broken bones must look like the shattered bits of the new steam iron she was bringing me, still in its box. . . and as I sit alone in Mom’s house in the darkness of the night, with only the sound of her ticking kitchen clock, within the vagaries of my own soul, I weep.

Where I Live - Redux

My mom was recently in a pretty serious car accident.  She’s doing better, but still has a long way to go, so your prayers for her continued recovery have been and are most definitely welcome.

Coming back home to Virginia on Monday after having been at her bedside virtually uninterrupted since December 22, I drove past where the accident happened and contemplated the vagaries of time and place.

In this time and this place, words of care are expressed in ways direct and indirect.

I learned of my mother’s accident as I was preparing to walk out the door to officiate an evening worship service.  The voice on the other end of the phone was the wife of another pastor.  It turns out that a lay pastor over in West Virginia, where the accident happened, had heard a paramedic say the woman in the accident’s daughter was a minister in McDowell.  David called Darlene to ask if she thought that was me.  Sure it was, Darlene called me to give me the bad news.

The next day, desperate to get to the hospital, I plotted a course the long way round the snow-covered roads made largely impassable and contemplated what to do about upcoming services – particularly Christmas Eve.  Someone suggested we cancel as there are a number of services on Christmas Eve in the area and our folks could attend another service easily.  That’s what we did.  Turned out virtually no one had services as the snow continued unabated the next days, leaving the community together in their apart-ness.

Calling the radio station to ask them to announce our cancellation, the congregant calling was asked if it was okay to say the reason why and to ask for prayers for my mom.  And so it was that the whole county has been praying for my mom.

There have been many other acts of kindness in these days, but for now, I am grateful that I live in a time when and a place where the radio station issues prayer concerns for a fallen one and folks go out of their way to get you the news you need to know, where the degrees of separation are small and largely irrelevant when it comes to crisis.

Optimism

Making sure you have enough money to buy a new car when yours was totaled in an accident and you’ll be
          80 years old come March . . .

Making plans to attend a Broadway play lying in your hospital bed . . .

Believing you can walk across the room when you haven’t taken 2 steps in a week . . .

Being sure that Christmas presents are waiting for you to open while lying in that same hospital bed . . .

Believing that 2013 will be better . . .

My mom . . . the eternal optimist . . .

May all her dreams come true. . . and yours too.

Christmas is For Family

It’s Christmas Day.

You’re supposed to be with your family.

Isn’t that what Christmas is about?

It’s what even the preachers say, these days.

But maybe even the preachers got it wrong.

Maybe it’s always been about being
with the one that needs us.

Or maybe it’s just that we forgot
how to define family

Maybe family is
whoever needs you
most at the time

And so it is that God’s Holy Spirit
tapped a few folks on the shoulder today
and whispered in their ears . . .
Check your facebook
Justin has need of you

And while I, the usual
keeper of the FB for our
church, sit with my mother
as she every so slowly
recovers from a car accident –
taking phone calls from
far away family while she
and I keep ICU nurses and docs
occupied on this Christmas Day,

while all that goes on, Justin
sends out a cry for help
and people come running
Jim and Bonnie and Diane
Janine and Vicki and Tabitha
Jeanne Lou and Lisa

the saints gather round
and pray and breathe
and pray and comfort
and pray and share

It is Christmas Day
a day for gift-giving
I pray Justin is getting
the gifts he needs

I know I am
as I read through
tears all this

yes

family

gathered round

keeping him

safe

and

loved

and

comforted

and

loved

and

held

from afar

yes – that’s family I’m seeing

And I’m wondering if any
of the reaching out ones
have considered that today,
Justin is God’s gift to us?

Life Rhapsody No. 1

At creation . . . or was it before –
does it matter?  – The question
(implied of course, for angels
never speak in the interrogative)
is posed – and time itself –newly
created infant that it was --
gasps at the audacity –

Angel’s They won’t thank you for it.
– their self-awareness;
the knowledge that they
will some day die.
They won’t thank you for it, You know.

God I know.

***

Friend Sarah’s ‘this too shall pass’
wisdom is wisdom indeed,
but when did wisdom ever breed gratitude?
Is it the wisdom that grants us the cheek
to hate our creator?
It is
but we hate God for that too, I think, I fear.

***

I’m an evangelist for sadness.
I do sad really well.
What that says about me,
I do not pretend to know.
But there it is.
Having a bad day?
I’m your gal.

***

Messing with the birds
I throw open the door and
the cacophony outside comes
full stop
I laugh with the glee of the
child uncaught
and shut the door
do a ten count
song resumes
throw open the door again
stops
Repeat and repeat and repeat
again – comfort & joy in playing
hide & seek with the birds –
who knew what great
playmates they are?

***

Tis the season 
all bright and wild, 
if Mary had been 
filled with reason, 
there would have been 
no room for the Child.
–Can’t Remember Who (wrote it)

***

The light in the wrong place
as I try to type the words
from the page
the light is always
in the wrong place
blinding – erasing out
the black on whiteness
of the painful words
why can’t I see them?

***

I find the Christmas poppers
in the trunk along with the
other gifts and baked treats
and am delighted – here is
the thing Mom (elevated
at that awkward never-seen-
in-the-created-world angle
reserved for hospital beds)
and I can share – we will
have a Christmas tomorrow –
it’s a thin thing, I know –
even before, Ben always
insisting that I am the only
one among us who enjoys
the poppers and they – the
rest – only go along to humor
me – but I know better –
humoring me is not something
this family does – and so I
am pleased beyond all
proportion, wondering if Mom
would want a picture in her
paper party hat tomorrow
or if the imagining will be
better – am betting the latter
– that hospital bed angle
really isn’t flattering to anyone

***

It is Christmas Eve
My mother lives
Survivor of wars and
family and cancer –
hers and others –
she will not be undone
by a little thing like
a car accident –
and she and I will spend
our Christmas together
at her bedside
and I will know that
I have received my
gift – no baby to me,
she, but a baby
nevertheless
in the created
scheme

***

Rhapsody

Shopping for Jesus

Yesterday I went with Laura and Priscilla to town.  The occasion?  To buy Christmas gifts for three Angel-Tree children on behalf of the church.  Presents may not buy or even bring happiness, but they are tangible evidence of important things – things like: you are loved; the spirit of Santa is real; you matter; life isn’t always about too little; giving is at least as good as getting; time spent with friends is never wasted; knowing each other is crucial to genuine gifting – it’s hard to pick the right jacket for a wee one you’ve never met; and perhaps most of all, how very, very, blessed I am.

I actually get to help a family bring a small measure of Christmas joy to its children.

I just hope Jesus likes the presents we picked; after all, they’re mostly for him.

Dress Rehearsing Jesus

Dress rehearsing in my own mind telling my 5-year-old grandson the Christmas story became our own very small Christmas ‘pageant’ this year.  It’s more humorous than perhaps warranted, with ‘wise guys’ and Mary & Elizabeth pulling babies and teddy bears from their shawls.

In putting it all together in a visual, I realized that there is lots of movement – seems everyone is always going somewhere.  This is not a character-driven story; it’s an event-driven story with the characters virtually pushed along from one happening to the next.  And visually, that can be pretty funny, especially for the angel of the Lord, who flits from one divine-message recipient to the next.

Mary, Joseph & THE STAR
during PW Christmas program

But my favorite ‘character’ in our pageant has to be the North Star.

I got some foam crosses and stick-on stars, which the kids used to decorate the yellow and orange crosses, which were then taped (carpenter’s double-sided tape – the next new wonder in my universe – who knew?) to a cardboard cake circle.  And she is fabulous.

We look to the sky for meaning.  How could we not?  Available to all . . . expansive beyond our imagining . . . ever varied yet ever constant . . . of course we see God inhabiting the vast array.

I only wish I could bring all the ‘actors’ along when I tell my beloved grandson the story of stories, of the time when God came to town and a star led the way.  I only hope he can see what I see, for it is wondrous.

Advent Reflection: A Big Batch of Ordinary

“A quart of peanut butter?  Are you kidding me?  Are you making peanut butter balls for the whole county?”

Twila’s words come smiling over the telephone lines (or is it waves now?  Who can keep track of these things?)

This morning my hands are still soft from the butter and peanut butter mixing workout they got yesterday.  That part of my Advent observance is done – check.

The satisfaction of the job done and done well is large; the soft hands a bonus.

But how on earth does this relate to Advent and Christmas?  I try to stretch some meaning out of the making of things, but nothing comes.  I try to link chocolate (a great love of mine) to Jesus’ coming, but come up empty.

All I know is that this is part of tradition for me – so deeply ingrained that it’s almost genetic, this gathering of the ingredients and rendering them into the form of edible art.

So maybe the Advent connection is in the creativity, the making of something delightful out of a batch of the ordinary.  Isn’t that what God does with us?  – making something delightful out of a very big batch of ordinary?

2 Clerk Helpers, 1 New Friend & ½ a Bar of Paraffin Wax

The other day I went to town (a big deal where I live) and while there did some shopping for the necessary ingredients for my Christmas baking.

Rendering up Christmas goodies is part of my personal Advent observance – my own waiting and preparing looks an awful lot like cooking and baking.

In years past, I’ve done these rituals in the company of others – family and friends – but now, I am alone in my kitchen – or so it would seem to the outside observer.

But I know I stand in the company of the saints who have gone before (some of whom might be surprised to hear themselves described as saints, but saints to me, nevertheless).  As I made the first batch of fudge the other night (Fudge recipe), it was as if I could hear Dad and his sister Bonnie squabbling over my shoulder about the age-old fight: to beat or not to beat, while Grandma stood behind them just smiling on her brood.  At one point, I actually turned around, half expecting to see them.

But I digress.

In the grocery store the other day, I was looking for the paraffin.  A woman was perusing the pastas with the help of one of the clerks, a young man clearly not knowing what she sought.  Being me, when I heard her asking about whole wheat pasta, I stepped in and pointed the boxes out to her.  We spoke briefly about diabetes (my mom’s and hers).  Then I asked the hapless clerk where I might find the paraffin.

He looked confused.

“Wax,” I offered, trying to be helpful.  At the same time, the woman declared “peanut butter balls”, to which I nodded my yes.

Still confused, he went off for help, guided by the woman’s offer that the paraffin would be with the canning supplies.

He came back with another clerk who had two large boxes of jars in her hands.

I smiled at the confusion, bid the woman good luck and went off with the second clerk to canning supplies.  Sure enough there was the paraffin.

Later at the check-out line, the young man was bagging my groceries and was delighted to see that I had indeed found the paraffin.

Today the supplies are all out and sometime in the evening I will make hundreds of peanut butter balls to the delight of my family past and present.  I know Bonnie and Grandma will be there.  I’m not too sure about Dad – he loved to eat them but never bothered to help in the making.

And from my recipe book with the handwritten note, “verified with Bonnie 12/91" (which I can now do by memory, but always have the recipe on hand just in case), I will proceed.

PEANUT BUTTER BALLS

1 quart peanut butter 2 large packages of chocolate chips
1 pound butter (softened) 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
3 pounds confectioner’s sugar ½ bar paraffin
3 teaspoons vanilla

Mix together chocolate chips, oil and paraffin and heat in double boiler while mixing remaining ingredients in large bowl.

Mix softened butter and peanut butter.  Stir in sugar (although I’ve never been able to stir this.  I just put my clean hands into the mix and do it the old-fashioned way).  Add vanilla and mix it in.

Make into small balls (about the size of walnuts).  Dip the balls into the melted chocolate (I use a fork rather than a spoon so the excess chocolate will run off easier)  mixture and put on wax paper to cool.

Enjoy.

Has Christmas Jumped the Shark*?

I combine Advent with Christmas here, Advent being for many in the United States simply the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy.

Fonzie on water skis, in a scene from the Happy
Days episode "Hollywood, Part Three of Three",
after literally jumping over a shark.  Wikipedia

A case can certainly be made that Christmas, at least in the West, jumped the shark a long time ago.  And I admit I’m part of it: yes, I have a Santa Claus Advent calendar - with cute little pockets where I faithfully place hard candies each year for visitors.

Hot dog and marshmallow and rubber duck creches (The 42 Worst Nativity Sets) delight me.

A Christmas Story long-ago replaced It’s a Wonderful Life as my favorite all-time Christmas movie.

I have gazillions of Santas . . . including a Santa jack-in-the-box, a couple of wind-up Santa toys, numerous Santa figurines of various sizes and my all-time favorite, a Santa who wiggles and dances to Jingle Bell Rock.  He sits on my desk.

I have strung popcorn for a 30-foot tree and prayed at the lighting of a Christmas tree in a town center, standing on a stage fit and lit for a rock star, where Santa’s entry overhead on a zip line was the main feature of the evening.

I’ve prayed at Wintertide in my own community, in a place where the nativity still stands on the court house square, but the main story-telling attraction is not of the birth of Christ, but Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Does all of this make it easier to confuse the medium for the message?  Probably.

Yet somehow, I am not troubled in the least by any of it.

I see baby Jesus in plastic Santas and silly movies . . . in creches made of hot dogs and crass commercialization . . . in Hallmark movies and in way too many presents under the tree.

I hope Jesus sees this not as the moneylenders busy at work, but as the joy-filled happy-birthday-party extravaganza the entry of God into real time evokes.  I sure hope so.  After all, this in Advent is the week of hope.

So has Christmas jumped the shark?  Is Jesus past his own sell-by date?  For my own part, I’m not worrying until someone dresses Jesus up in swim trunks and a leather jacket.





__________________
*Jump the shark:   is an idiom created by Jon Hein that is used to describe the moment in the evolution of a television show when it begins a decline in quality that is beyond recovery. The phrase is also used to refer to a particular scene, episode, or aspect of a show in which the writers use some type of "gimmick" in a desperate attempt to keep viewers' interest. . . The usage of "jump the shark" has subsequently broadened beyond television, indicating the moment in its evolution when a brand, design, or creative effort moves beyond the essential qualities that initially defined its success, beyond relevance or recovery. Wikipedia

Thanksgivings Past

Over the river and through the woods, to Grandma’s house we went.  Life was good with Dad at the wheel, Mom beside him in the front, and me in back watching the world speeding by as we drove the 18 miles to Grandma’s.

In the ways of childhood, the ride seemed much longer, much farther, than a mere 18 miles.  We were crossing mountains and entering under the forest canopy, curving first one way then the other, to make our way back from our city house into my Dad’s childhood, heading “out home”.

As an only child, I could barely contain my excitement at getting to see the cousins again.

The food was the food – plenty and good and hot.  So many years later, I have yet to master my Grandma’s skill at getting everything to the table hot.  I mourn that it’s too late to ask her how she did it.

And in our family, long before the retail merchants caught on, Thanksgiving was always the immediate segue into Christmas.  Our last gathering before the big holiday, on Thanksgiving we would draw names for our gift exchange, some of us secretly making trades: you got your Mom?  Oh no!  Of course, I’ll trade with you!

And I’m pretty sure it was on Thanksgiving when I cooked up the ill-fated scheme to have cousin Doug play Santa Claus for his younger sister Lisa, who still believed.  Ill-fated because Doug chickened out at the last minute (or maybe he planned it that way all along; with Doug, you can never tell).  I was probably about 11 at the time, so my concocted costume required lots of imagination – red tights and pillow-stuffed sweat shirt, black boots and a home-made cotton-ball beard looked much more like Santa in my imagination than in real life.

Because Doug bailed, as the creator of the costume, of course it fell to me to jump in, and jump in I did.  And of course, my loving family would memorialize my humiliation with photographs snapped just at the moment when little Lisa asked in her child’s soprano, Why is Beth dressed up like Santa Claus?

I wish I could tell 11-year-old Beth not to sweat it, we were making memories.

There's a Song in the Air

It is winter in these mountains where I live . . . the sun shines, dazzling the eyes as it reflects off the frost giving us the hoped-for white Christmas.  The air is cold . . . stick-your-nostrils-together-when-you-breathe-in cold, but the winter birds chirping away don’t seem to mind.

Last night’s candlelight service is now but a memory.

And my Christmas has begun. . .

As a pastor, my Christmas begins when yours ends. . .

I love it all . . . the hustle and bustle of last-minute preparations . . . the beauty and pageantry of the late-night service . . . the stillness that descends on the gathered as candles are lit . . . and in some ways best of all, the time after . . . the time of reflecting on who was there and who wasn’t . . . hearing the carols again in my heart . . .

You (well, you and the winter birds) are my Christmas play list and I thank God for each and every one of you. . . the ones I know so well and the ones I will never see or meet.  Thank you and Merry Christmas.

Christmas Eve in Amman

Christmas Eve, 2005, Amman, Jordan.
On Christmas Eve, I went to midnight Mass at a local Roman Catholic Church with a Roman Catholic colleague, a Jewish girl, her 'lapsed Protestant' boyfriend (from a Protestant family almost never having been to church himself) and a young Muslim friend.  The worshipers were almost all Philipino domestic workers and the service was in English.
  During communion (the Mass), I stayed with our guests while my Catholic colleague went forward to receive the host (the communion bread).  Jamil, my Muslim friend, asked why we didn't all go up and as I was trying to explain, it got less and less sensible to me.
As we sat, Jamil said, “I like this - it is very nice - it reminds me of Jesus (whom Muslims embrace as a prophet) loving and feeding the poor.”
  I turned to see the people (many of whom are among the poor) walking forward to receive the host from the priest and I saw with new eyes.  Jesus did come to feed the hungry, physically as well as spiritually.  Is communion an enactment of that reality as well as the reality of atoning sacrifice for salvation?  I want to think so.
  We, our guests and I, continued to watch quietly.  The question occurs to me:  who, starving to death, would I not feed?  It is the question I am left with as I marvel that my Muslim friend  wanted to participate and saw no reason why he should not.  Feeding those who lack:  it really is pretty simple, isn't it?

Beloved,
I wrote this reflection five years ago, as I prepared to return to Iraq in the wake of the kidnapping of four of my colleagues from CPT, the peace group I go to Iraq with.  It was a very difficult time, without much joy.  The rain and cold of that Christmas Eve night was appropriate to the mood . . . darkness was all around and the light was hard to find.
As we sat in the service, the priest prayed to God, “Let us be dazzled by Your light.”
I saw very little of God’s light in those days, but one sparkling moment was when my friend Jamil, his eyes alight with wonder, spoke of the beauty of Jesus feeding the poor.
In this Muslim man’s eyes, I saw the light of God that night.  The light from Jamil sustained me on many lonely nights, as he and his friends at the hotel we stayed in awaiting our entry visas into Iraq comforted and cared for me, prayed for my kidnapped colleagues (their friends as well), and generally brought joy out of their poverty to an American woman, who, but for them, was very much alone in her sorrow.
And so, this Christmas season, I pray for each of you . . . in your own sorrow and loss, in your own poverty, may you be aware of the surrounding joy of those you mistakenly believe have little to offer . . . may you who inhabit the churches have your eyes opened to the godliness of those whose feet have never darkened the church’s doors . . . may you standing on the outside see the beauty and wonder of the Jesus who would feed you and may you receive the courage to come inside, for you have much to offer as well as to receive . . . 
May this be the Christmas when we all sit down at God’s table as welcomed guests and receive the great meal of love that God in Christ prepared for us from before the beginning of time itself.
In God’s own dazzling light,
Beth Pyles, Pastor

The Importance of Wrapping Paper

During Bible Study today, Rosalee shares a Christmas lesson on the importance of wrapping paper . . . years ago she and a fellow teacher got identical gifts for their students, but the other teacher wrapped hers and Rosalee did not.  Rosalee’s students felt somehow that they had gotten less than the other students because their gifts weren’t wrapped.  It wasn’t that they wanted wrapping paper; they actually believed the gifts themselves were different.  The wrapping paper somehow transformed the other gifts into something more.

In my own family, I have seen this in the positive sense, where even white socks and underwear become like the North Star in the wonder of giftedness they inspire simply by being festively wrapped.

And so it is, I think with life.

Chefs and fashionistas and wedding planners and interior designers have always understood that packaging matters, which is just another way of saying that we consume, we take in, we understand things, first with our eyes.

But when it comes to wrapping paper, our hands matter almost as much as our eyes . . . whether we rip and tear eagerly or slowly and carefully take apart what has been so thoughtfully put together . . . whether we notice the color and design of the paper or only see a blur of color as we dive into the gift underneath the wrapping . . . no matter how we approach it all, our hands hold the reality of gift before our minds grasp the nature of the thing presented and make their judgments . . .

In that moment, when the gift sits on our laps, when the wrapping paper surrounds the gift with care, when we behold with our eyes and deconstruct with our hands, there is holiness . . . the recognition of something special having arrived . . . the anticipation serving to actually transform the thing awaited into wonder and beauty and love . . .

That, for me, is Advent . . . the wrapping paper surrounding the gift of the coming of the Christ child . . . the wreaths and the candles, the children’s pageants and the poinsettias, the greening and candy making, the Christmas cards sent and received, the unwrapping of the Biblical story, the waiting and waiting and waiting . . . all make the event, the coming, the triumphal entry, even more than it was already . . .

Jesus is often for me like a pair of comfortable old socks . . . welcome, fitting just right, familiar . . . but the coming, the Advent anticipation, the wrapping paper wonder of it all transform that comfortable familiarity into something bigger, something my hands and eyes know so much better than my mind . . .

Even comfortable old socks can be transformed . . . even the one who wears the socks can be surprised.

Hallelujah!

O Holy Night

I remember many holy nights, some bursting with the soaring strains of the hymn – Christmas Eve services past . . . three male friends at a Christmas party spontaneously dropping to their knees as they sang off-key and gloriously . . . Fall on your knees . . . the laughter, the wonder, the soul-touching music . . .

Tonight as I drove the mountains home through the dark tunnel of the night, the radio brought the glorious word to my hearing in a new way . . .

It was the last verse rather than the first that spoke into this night . . .

Truly he taught us to love one another; 

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

From that holy night to this, the message is heard anew and anew . . . when he appears, the soul feels its worth . . . 

From God’s worth comes ours . . . and we are taught again how to love one another . . . taught again the law of love and the gospel of peace . . . taught again that all our imprisoning chains are broken in Him for the sake of our brothers and sisters. . . taught again that oppression no more shall find its home on earth . . .

O Holy Night as sung by Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo 

I'm Dreaming of a White (Socks) Christmas

I have many Christmas memories, most of them wonderful, some of them truly horrible.  I survived the horrible and cherish the wonderful.

And of all things, every time I see a new package of white socks, I remember Christmas at my Grandma’s house.

Every Christmas day, my Mom, Dad and I would have our own Christmas time and then we would travel ‘over the river and through the woods’ to Grandma’s house, where extended family gathered for more celebration.

Often, distant family would come who hadn’t called to tell Grandma they were coming.  But she was always ready for them, for at Grandma’s house, no one left without a present.

As soon as she’d see Aunt Irma and Uncle Lernie, or Aunt Irene or Uncle Dice pull up, Grandma would send me hurrying to her bedroom dresser, to get from the top drawer (where I wasn’t allowed to go otherwise, because that’s where Grandpa kept his ‘secret’ stash of pink lozenges that I so loved) a package of men’s or women’s white socks to wrap and put under the tree with their name on it.

It might not be white socks anymore, but my own mother always has a little stash of gifts for the unexpected guest and now, so do I, because you never know who might drop by at Christmas.  And every guest, bidden or unbidden, must have a gift.

Welcoming the unexpected is a wonderful lesson my Grandma, Mary Edra Tennant Pyles, taught me about the meaning of Christmas.

And like Bing Crosby, I too dream of white Christmases, but mine are filled with socks more than snow.

This Christmas, may you be met with gifts of white socks everywhere you enter as the unexpected guest; and may you be ready to welcome such guests into your own circle of love.