Archive for the ‘Christmas’ Tag
For months we have been preparing for the big celebration, putting regular life on pause, pumping up our happy expectations. We cranked up cheery music, hung lights and ornaments, filled our stockings and fridges, piled presents under the tree. And now it’s over. Regular life comes flooding back with its anxieties and stresses, dullness and duties, and the only thing left to do is box up all our happiness for the long winter trudge. Some of us hold onto the decorations a little longer, maybe till New Year’s, clinging to the feelings that are quickly slipping away. Ordinary life feels so bereft in comparison, cold and heartless.
When I was a kid, the after-Christmas-slump was eased by the school holiday. As an adult, the after-party is a hangover of postponed tasks to catch up on. I want some fun to anticipate as an antidote for the disappointment of everyday life. But as I make the transition to reality, I sense the hollowness of my over-hyped Christmas. We tried to make it meaningful and rich with various spiritual practices, but for me, the oversold glitz from past decades sucked me in at last… or maybe sucked out the core of good we tried to foster, leaving it an empty make-believe.
Thankfully that good is not too far away for me to pull back in to reorient myself on solid ground, the rich goodness that lies in the gritty reality of a broken world. I feel myself stabilizing and getting my bearings. Life is rich in ways fantasy never is. It has weight and substance, meaning and direction, and a hope that does not disappoint because it is a grounded hope, not a Disneyland hope. Sobriety is so underrated!
Kimberly and I sat chatting this morning about Mary, the mother of Jesus. I said, “Imagine God coming to you and saying, ‘I want you to raise my son.'” It’s intimidating enough to be an adequate mother who doesn’t mess up a child: just the right balance of affection and discipline, limits and freedom, patience and prodding, while adjusting to each child’s uniqueness. Now imagine the Savior of the world is plopped in your lap as an infant and you are responsible to nurture, discipline, and give spiritual guidance to God’s child. It’s not just your kid you’re worried about, but the whole world is depending on you… and so is God! Talk about impossible expectations!
I know what it’s like to feel the weight of the world on my shoulders, to feel that I have to make all the right decisions and give every ounce of my energy and attention. I know the fear of failing God and screwing up his plans. And even though I once thought I was responsible to save hundreds of thousands of people by my efforts, I’ve found that trying to simply get my own life straightened out is just as big an emotional burden, just as sure to scare me with potential failure and the shame that will flood in.
But what if Mary didn’t take on all that responsibility? What if instead of being responsible for God, she believed that God was responsible for her. Suppose instead of saying, “Yes, I will do it. I will perform this God-sized task,” Mary said to the angel, “I’m the Lord’s servant; let it be done to me according to your word.” From the very beginning God was announcing what he would do for Mary rather than what Mary must do for God. All the responsibility was on God’s shoulders and Mary was simply a recipient by grace. Which is exactly what the angel told Mary–calling her not “highly favored” but “highly graced” (the Greek word is rooted in charis, which is “grace”). It was not like a talented sports team that is “highly favored” to win, as though God were impressed with Mary (the harmful idea behind the “immaculate conception” of a sinless Mary). Rather Mary was one on whom great grace was poured, and grace by definition is undeserved. God said in essence, “I am catching you up in this awesome plan I am carrying out. Come watch me do this amazing thing… and I’m using you!”
What if that is true for me too? What if I am greatly graced? What if God is inviting me into watching him do for me and through me all the good that he has planned? It seems too good to be true, to let down that burden of responsibility and just “be” with God, to receive goodness rather than construct goodness, to be God’s showpiece of grace, God’s artwork of beauty and redemption. Joy to the world!
Every year Christmas is a cultural blitzkrieg of celebration, carrying many along in its triumphal sweep while capsizing in its wake those who cannot keep up with its jubilant spirit. Be happy or be left out. In our chipper American culture, that is the flavor of the year, as Ella Wheeler Wilcox so aptly described it:
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Even those who are forgiven for a downcast spirit on an average day are expected to step up to the occasion when the band starts playing, which it does ceaselessly from Thanksgiving till the last relative shambles out the door and the long, bleak, cold winter blows inside.
I’m no sour-puss. I like celebrating Christmas if I can bring all of myself to the party–the sad parts as well as the hopeful parts, the tears and smiles, winces and hugs, serious and silly words. When my uncomfortable emotions are welcomed, my winsome emotions have room to express themselves genuinely rather than as a pretense. Let me weep freely with you, and the laughter you hear will be deep-hearted as well. My soul is chilled when I’m pressured to be false to myself, to express inflated or deflated feelings to please others who care more for an acceptable presence than a true presence. Of course some contexts call for safe, superficial connections, and in that sense every office party is a masked ball, but then everyone enjoys it for what it is–play acting–and does not confuse it for genuine connection.
But even “genuine” can be a canny facade. Many folks who think they are being real are so cut off from their own heart that they are simply reacting, sharing the surface emotions they feel in the moment that serve to disguise–even to themselves–the deeper underlying emotional currents, the submerged rip-tides that are too threatening to acknowledge. Under the intense pressure of Christmas conformity, these can burst out suddenly and without warning. Anger can cover for shame, tears can hide anger, cheerfulness can mask fear. The underlying emotions which are unacceptable or painful are transmuted into acceptable or comfortable feelings. The intensity of those feelings may wake us to some deep lying issues but will fog up our skills for interpreting them.
The inflated expectations of the holidays is not a safe harbor to dry-dock the soul and begin to scrape away decades of clinging barnacles. Sometimes the best any of us can do is try to ride out the storm of cross-current conflicts that arise. But these family gatherings are rich with telltale signs of underlying issues, and once we get enough distance to look back with compassion and insight, we may be filled with fresh personal discovery. Next year we can bring more of our true selves to the party and welcome the true selves of others as we grow into the grace of understanding and accepting ourselves and others more fully.
As Kimberly and I walked our dogs yesterday, I shuffled through my disjointed thoughts and feelings, arranging and rearranging them, trying to sort out with her the contours of my despair. For two weeks I have felt crushed by the racial divides in our country, but unable to speak, silenced by the angry retorts that always come. “Why do I feel such deep despair in hearing that dissent?” I asked Kimberly. “It’s natural to be discouraged,” I went on, “since I smart when my thoughts are rejected and I grieve for those condemned by the critical reactions. I can see a handful of reasons to be disheartened, but my anguish is so much deeper than that and crushes me at hearing just one or two retorts. Why do I despair?”
After an hour of trying to fit the emotional pieces together it became clear that I was suffering from the collapse of my worldview. I have struggled for two decades with my own impotence to change the world in some small way (as I mentioned here), but I faced that personal uselessness by clinging to a broader hope for the world–that others would bring the change I could not. If I was not a player on the winning team, I could still cheer on the good guys from the bleachers. This year it has slowly been dawning on me that my hope is misplaced. My team will not save the day, we cannot save the day, we are not saviors. In fact, we are all in as much need of a Savior as the rest of the world around us. We are all broken. And along with our broken world we await the day of redemption.
I don’t mean to suggest that we can bring no good to the world. We must work to bind up our little tattered corners of society, but ultimately it is a patchwork affair, a jerry-rigging until the Great Healer comes to bring us true and full peace at last. As grace-infused people, we do not offer a resolution on this day, but a resolve until that day, we hold up a light of hope in this dark, troubled world. That doesn’t seem much like the “Christmas spirit” of sleigh bells, bright lights, and belly-laughing Santas, but perhaps I misunderstand the true meaning of advent hope.
“Oh, come, oh, come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lowly exile here until the Son of God appear.” Those words rang so true to my forlorn spirit, that they brought me to tears this week, tears of heartache but also of hope: “Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.” We cling to the first advent in expectation of the second.
Today is epiphany, when the Eastern church once originally celebrated Jesus’ birth. So we might say it is second Christmas. Our lights are still up inside and out. And our tree’s up. We are still munching seasonal chocolates. I continue to play Christmas music in my car. I’m not ready yet to bid these days adieu, especially in place of the dark, cold months of winter that stifle the year’s last hurrah. I want to hold onto some of the good this holiday brings: a cheerfulness and warmth toward strangers, a celebratory cadence in my steps, a lift in my heart’s song above the daily drudge.
Why does the mundane always drag us back from our festivals, tugging like gravity till our balloons lie all deflated and cheerless. How might I bring some of this rhythm and light, some of this forgetfulness and memory back with me into the daily round of chores and schedules? I don’t want or need more obligation by adding to my diligence an imposed cheerfulness, a forced smile, and so make my grinding tasks even more burdensome. No, I rather want to lighten the driving duties of the day, bring some sunlight into the shadowed spaces. Any thoughts my friends?
Before realizing what I had done, I started a post with the title “Holding onto the Good,” and the good referred to Christmas spirits. I was falling into the American error of confusing the good with good feelings, when truly the good often comes with the worst feelings possible. One of my fundamental life commitments is this: embrace the hard to gain the good, regardless of how it feels. But culture sucks me back into assuming that good feelings are the reward for good choices, that I can measure my spiritual pulse by how positive I feel, and negative feelings are a mark that I’ve slipped up somewhere. No wonder I want to leave up the tinsel and lights and stretch out this season to push back the bleak winter. That, and it just feels better. Who doesn’t want to feel good?!
For my LOTR friends
I affirm that desire: feeling good is not all bad. A sense of well-being gives me more energy to make the world a better place. It is a great blessing and resource. Like all resources, however, it can be turned to self interest. It can make me balk at choosing the hard or painful or costly. It can make me less patient, understanding, and sympathetic towards those who are struggling… even wanting to shove them away to insulate and save my positive vibes. Good feelings are emotional cash, which can be spent well or poorly. I’d like to have a big stash, but that’s not necessarily what’s best for my soul. In my experience, suffering has much more potential power in shaping me for good, true good.
Still I instinctively avoid it and wish it away. Pushing ahead through pain is like walking up to my knees in mud–it takes all my energy, gives no pleasure, and progress seems dismally slow. Perhaps my New Year’s resolution should be: learn to slog, which no doubt means adjusting my goals, expectations, and evaluations. Sometimes the measure of triumph is simply taking one more step.
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.
Janathan Grace Reflections 