...being enough

A confession? This time of year gives me an inferiority complex. I continually seem to come up short, run late, disappoint myself.

Advent beckons to me, to come away, to quiet myself, to slow my breathing, to wait in stillness for the world to turn upside down. And year after year, my already tumped-over world gets in the way of my good intentions. And year after year, my 'meant to's turn into 'should have's, and anticipation becomes regret.

Christmas beckons, with its glitter and sparkle, its jingle and laughter. And year after year, I run out of calendar on the way to making magic. Just-right gifts don't get bought, wrapping paper stays wrapped around the cardboard tube, carols remain unsung. What good is being a visionary, with these feet of clay?

I want to believe, though, that what I bring is enough. That this broke-down season, this cobbled together holiday, this Charlie Brown tree of a practice that is my attempt, despite my best intentions--that this offering is enough. Leonard Cohen wrote:
     Ring the bells that still can ring
     Forget your perfect offering
     There is a crack in everything
     That's how the light gets in.

Still trying. But I will be the one, bringing up the rear, toting my imperfect offering.
It's enough. Thanks be to God.

...welcome, every single one

All who hunger, never strangers, seeker, be a welcome guest.

Come from restlessness and roaming. Here in joy, we keep the feast.

We who once were lost and scattered in communion’s love have stood.

Taste and see the grace eternal. Taste and see that God is good.

---Sylvia Dunstan, 1990

Sylvia Dunstan, the writer of the hymn text for today’s meditation, spent the major portion of her cancer-shortened ministry as a prison chaplain. All along, until her death at 38, she wrote hymns of profound wisdom, celebrating the mystery of God and the welcome of God’s love. In this text, it seems evident that Dunstan’s decade in ministry to those imprisoned has informed her sense of the isolation and rootlessness experienced by so many on the fringes of society. Hungry, strangers, restless, roaming, lost, scattered (and in other verses wandering, empty, lonely, longing). Some in this population have alienated themselves from the mainstream of society, and others have been cast out by the mainstream. Obviously, Dunstan’s heart was for the castoff and cast out; there is pretty good evidence that God’s heart is, too.

If I’m honest today, the words Dunstan chose to relate the alienation from the ‘center’ are feelings I have felt from time to time. How about you? Who hasn’t wandered, felt empty, restless, lonely? Who hasn’t longed for…well, for something more than this?

Here, Dunstan says, here is the table, and we, all of us, all of them, are welcome. Every single one. And there is grace, starting now, overflowing and lasting forever. Enough for all of us, all of them. Everyone together.

Taste and see.

...a resting place

My faith has found a resting place, not in device nor creed;

I trust the Ever-living One, his wounds for me shall plead.

I need no other argument, I need no other plea,

It is enough that Jesus died, and that he died for me.

---Lidie Edmunds, c. 1890

We’ve all heard the stories of the minutiae that divide Christians from time to time. The color of the pew cushions in the new sanctuary…blue like the river of life, or red like the blood of sacrifice? The organ…loud or soft? Bongos and guitars in the Sunday morning worship or high church and opera voices? Whether to sing all four verses of every hymn, or save time with a quick pass by first and last? King James or NRSV?

This hymn reminds me every time that letting the small things get in the way of the one true thing --- Christ’s sacrifice to reconcile us to God --- keeps us far from each other, and from our spiritual center. Our faith rests not in creed, argument, or the thousand little things good people sometimes disagree about. Our faith rests in the good news, the gospel, that Christ died, and lived, for you…and me. Here is our resting place. Here is our center.

...fruit basket turnover!

In darkest night his coming shall be, when all the world is despairing,
as morning light so quiet and free, so warm and gentle and caring.
Then shall the mute break forth in song, the lame shall leap in wonder,
the weak be raised above the strong, and weapons be broken asunder.
---Marty Haugen, 1983

Sweet, smiley-face Jesus. Baby Jesus. Hug-the-children Jesus. Gentle hippie Jesus. What in the world could be so threatening about this guy? What is it that got Jesus on the Wanted: Dead or Alive list with the government, at the same time he managed to alienate the top guys in the religious establishment? What's the problem with a fella trying to bring a little light to the world?

Nothing, really. Unless you've got light. And you're worried Jesus just might be thinking of spreading some of yours around to 'them'. Yikes. Light redistribution. Because, really, when we hear the stories about Jesus preaching relief to the poor, the prisoner, the lost, the downtrodden, people on the fringes, our impulse is to hear Jesus talking to us. But if we're honest, most of us aren't those things. Not here in America. We're the 1% of the world. So Jesus' good news might well have felt pretty threatening to us back then, too.

That's because we buy into a gospel of scarcity, a theory that there is not enough of...whatever. And if there is not enough, we'd better hold on to ours. If there is not enough healing, not enough food, not enough justice, not enough protection --- I'm gonna get mine. And any dude preaching craziness about the first being last, and new kingdoms where everything is turned upside down, and enough love for the unlovable, won't last long in this place, Son of God or not.

But it's a lie. There is enough. There. is. enough. It's dark now, but the dawn is coming. Everything will look different in the quiet light of morning. Everything will change. And that's ok. Good news...fruit basket turnover!