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I went to bed early tonight and slept through the preliminary fireworks, but the midnight burst woke me enough to chase away the sandman. So here I sit against the pillows, thinking. Before today, each new year piqued some fresh aspect of soul-building, but life (with God’s apparent cooperation) seems to have slowly drained me of a future focus and left me living day-to-day. All ambition, any hopes I had for some meaningful role in the world, has been pushed far away so that I am reduced to waiting… indefinitely… perhaps till the end of my days.
I’ve been trapped here for a year or maybe two. The good news, I think, is that my sense of worth has been slowly stripped free of its bondage to accomplishment. It feels odd—why am I still on earth if I have no purpose for being here—but it no longer feels painful or shameful or condemning, like I’ve been benched for screwing up. My life perspective has devolved into “It is what it is.” I’m ready to get back in the game if I’m called on, but I’ve put my sweats back on, and I’m okay to just sit and watch the action from the sidelines.
So here’s to a year without resolutions… or plans… or expectations. That’s a first for me.
For centuries before Jesus’ birth, the Jewish people waited for the coming Messiah… and for centuries after His birth, they waited still. As a whole, they found no hope in Christ because he brought no hope, not of the kind they wanted–a Savior who would deliver their nation. They expected the Messiah to save them from their enemies, not to save them from themselves. I think many of today’s religious people have the same mix-up.
To speak faith into current issues, I started another blog (here). I took that conversation elsewhere to keep this blog safe for readers because controversy often creates anger, especially among the religiously committed, increasingly so in our polarized country. This Christian acrimony is deeply disturbing to me because it feels contrary to the Spirit of Christ. Many believe that the great danger in our world today is the moral drift of society and that we must take a stand against the enemy that assaults us with godlessness.
But Christ did not come to save me from the moral decay outside myself, to place me in a safer world. He came to save me from the moral rot inside myself, from spiritual distortion and blindness, from self-loathing and self-worship, from the pride that would perseverate on the sins of others rather than my own. Let us put Christ back in Christmas by focusing on our own drift away from Him rather than on the drift of our society. His second advent will heal the world as a whole, but my present hope is in His promise to start that redemptive work in me.
It is Christmas eve morning and I have not followed through with my intention to post regularly through the season. Then again, perhaps it is not too late as the 12 days of Christmas still lie ahead to carry us to the Epiphany–if you follow the old calendar. This was not a tradition my childhood family kept, so the day after Christmas was a huge letdown, all the magic and sparkle wrung out with only the empty winter days dragging on, drabness taken to a new low. But of course the first Christmas was not an ending, but a new beginning of the most dramatic and transformative kind, not only from the human perspective of a first child’s birth, but of the entrance of God himself into our dark world with His presence and goodness. The light of the world burst on us that night, so let the celebration begin, and don’t be too quick to take down and box up the strings of blinking laughter.
Dec. 10
I try to notice the small gifts of each day, collecting them like shells on the beach, appreciating each for what it offers: a country walk on a sunny, brisk day, a snuggling puppy, a connection with Kimberly on a call I nearly missed. While a blueberry roll, even a basketful, can no more repair a heavy heart than seashells can rescue a trashy beach, it is still a benediction, however small, and during advent I’d like some Christmas shaped blessings, little seasonal sacraments with which to trim my day and focus my heart on the Coming One who is always present, a paradox and mystery worth contemplating.
Come, thou long expected Jesus,
born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us,
let us find our rest in thee.
I’ll have to think about it and get back with you.
Dec. 9 Is It Me or Christmas That’s Broken?
Did I seem morose in yesterday’s post? I found it soothing. When I trust God’s acceptance of me, mess and all, it gives me a sense of release, of lightness, even sometimes joy. This evening Kimberly and I lit some scented candles, turned off the lights, and celebrated Christmas by meditating on the words so reflective of our experience:
And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
whose forms are bending low,
who toil along the climbing way
with painful steps and slow
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
O rest beside the weary road,
and hear the angels sing!
I was suddenly struck by the appropriateness of our experience and feelings in this season. It was to such as us that Jesus came. He came to “preach the gospel to the poor.” In December our whole society rises up to call the cheerful blessed. I feel out of place. It is the biggest holiday of the whole year, filled with happiness and laughter and peppy greetings to random strangers. “Holiday” is a linguistic child of “Holy day,” but it is the prodigal son that hollowed out his father’s meaning and ended up with all the froth and little of the substance. Berly and I listened to a popular Youtube rendition of “It Came Upon a Midnight, Clear,” but it had elided this middle verse. No one wants to hear about life’s crushing load at Christmas! No one but Jesus. That’s exactly what He came to hear… and to heal. Although the healing hope of this chorus is the next life (according to verse 3). Today’s joy then, muted as it may be, does not flow from our present success and comfort for “in this world you will have tribulation,” a promise of Jesus we’d like to leave unclaimed under the tree. The birth of Mary’s child rather opens the door for us into a world to come where all tears will be wiped away, and that is our hope, our future hope. Relief for my pain does not come here and now, but comfort comes into my pain because Jesus sees it and is moved by it, and his heart bleeds with mine. He does not need me to be cheerful, even on His birthday! Tonight that verse clenched my heart till the tears came in realization of a loving Savior who sees and knows and embraces me in my misery.
The status quo is just another word for complacency or resignation in my book, it stinks of the stocks. For me, hope is tied to change, so when progress is blocked I despond. I don’t go down easily–I have always been a fighter–but I crippled my emotional resources fighting for the wrong end with the wrong means, and since I crawled from the field of battle, my rehabilitation seems to have no end. I’ve been working on my recovery for over a decade. At this rate, my convalescent home will become my retirement home; my life’s purpose has drained off like water from a cracked barrel. How do I celebrate Christmas on crutch and braces? What gift can I bring to God? I have nothing, nothing but a broken heart. What I have, I give.
“A broken and contrite heart you will not despise.”
“Hope for the moment. There are times when it is hard to believe in the future, when we are temporarily just not brave enough. When this happens, concentrate on the present. Cultivate le petit bonheur (the little happiness) until courage returns. Look forward to the beauty of the next moment, the next hour, the promise of a good meal, sleep, a book, a movie, the likelihood that tonight the stars will shine and tomorrow the sun will shine. Sink roots into the present until the strength grows to think about tomorrow.”
~ Ardis Whitman
Dec. 3
Simplicity is no synonym for asceticism. Reduction has no inherent value or virtue. Subtraction must be creative and purposeful so that each decrement enhances the beauty, strengthens the good, focuses the impact. “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free,” said Michelangelo, but our work is as much greater as the pumping heart surpasses cold stone. Simplicity trims the superfluous and distills the quality until the vital, vibrant spirit of a thing emerges to ignite our passions and light our way.
Dec. 2: Simplicity: Spirituality on Rations
Kimberly and I are boxed in by limited resources, especially emotional resources. “Blessed are the poor in spirit” Jesus said, and though it doesn’t feel blessed, I find it carries a spiritual wealth that others miss. In fact, the really hard part of our experience is not from our personal limits, but from our society’s values and judgments. Our daily choices must break through a constant barrage that threatens to swamp us. Our society has traded in Jesus’ version of abundant life for the American version of abundant life. It is now measured by success above faithfulness, impact above humility, drive above being, power above brokenness. How can we grasp in today’s world any sense of the blessedness of poverty?
Here are a few of the riches we found in our own experience of poverty.
1) Focused orientation: Excess breeds a casual spirit. With few resources comes a focused life. Superficiality is stripped away, and the things that really matter really matter. If you have one true friend, for example, you learn a depth of friendship that a crowd of pals won’t teach.
2) True values: Someone with a folder of opportunities and a stash of resources has a wide range of choices. Those of us with few resources must guard our priorities or suffer dearly for it. Since my spirit falters under criticism, for instance, I choose carefully the issues on which I take a public stand. I have not always been this way–I used to voice every disagreement with relish, aggressively. That was not good for me or my relationships, or even good for the truth. It was a potent defense mechanism, which I have laid aside, making myself much more vulnerable, but also more authentic, a high value for me now.
3) Enhanced growth: I expected in theory that more resources would create more potential and freedom, but I found in experience that suffering and stringency are much more fertile soils for self-discovery and growth. When life is smooth, I have little need or motivation to go plowing up my soul, but daily struggle demands attention. Patience and courage and perseverance and faith are strengthened by the obstacles we face.
4) Deepened empathy: Recent studies have shown that those who have more care less about others. Statistically, the poor are more generous than the rich. Those of us who feel threatened and battered by life can better understand and feel compassion for others like us, and we feel safer with someone whose soul has been deeply cut. The tender are tender.
5) Healing relationships: Deep connection doesn’t come through sharing our strengths and abilities, but rather, like grafted branches, our exposed wounds bind us together in a living, vital way. It is in shared weakness and want that we create strong community. When the window dressing is stripped off–all our efforts to look good and capable and successful–then the real me can connect with the real you, and acceptance of my true self has astounding power to heal.
I can resent my poverty or scrabble to escape it or pretend it isn’t there, but when I embrace my poverty, the true spirit of Christmas is released.
For November I posted daily a thanksgiving on Facebook, usually tongue in cheek, and I found the daily practice was good both for my writing and my outlook. Keeping a habit is a good bit easier than creating one from scratch, so here’s my carryover: daily advent reflections, starting inevitably with simplicity to which Kimberly and I are forced by our meager resources.
Dec. 1 (yes, I realize it is Dec. 2… I’ll catch up tonight)
So, Thanksgiving’s out of the way, barely. Friday and Saturday I put up half our Christmas decorations, a little here, a little there… the rest is not going up. Kimberly and I scale our life investments to our energy levels, which is one of the secrets not only of keeping the spirit (and Spirit) in Christmas, but of surviving all year.
I could say we are forced into simplicity, and it sometimes feels that way, but truly it is a life choice. We have discovered that our hearts are fuller, healthier, more alive when we spend within our means emotionally, financially, socially, and in every other way. I have to continually remind myself that my lifestyle is a choice. It doesn’t feel that way because our personal poverty level is not a choice–it has been thrust upon us–and though we do what we can to increase our reserves without depleting our souls, we seem to make little headway. But how we choose to live within such a tight emotional budget is in our hands, and I believe we do well with what we have, better than many who have far more in their personal accounts.
Many approach Christmas with a determination to squeeze out of it every ounce of happiness they can–after all it only comes once a year. They decorate lavishly and bake incessantly and shop feverishly. They bribe or cajole all the relatives into coming for this great gala, then spend large amounts of energy keeping everyone to task fulfilling THE PLAN. “Quiet night, holy night” gets swallowed up in the Magnificent Christmas Celebration. Sometimes the spirit of Christmas seeps into our souls more easily when we settle into simplicity.
Janathan Grace Reflections 