...seeking the city

Where cross the crowded ways of life,

Where sound the cries of race and clan,

Above the noise of selfish strife

We hear your voice, O Son of Man!

In haunts of wretchedness and need,

On shadowed thresholds dark with fears,

From paths where hide the lures of greed

We catch the vision of your tears.

The cup of water given for you

Still holds the freshness of your grace;

Yet long these multitudes to view

The strong compassion of your face.

O Master, from the mountainside,

Make haste to heal these hearts of pain;

Among these restless throngs abide,

O tread the city’s streets again;

Till all the world shall learn your love

And follow where your feet have trod:

Till glorious from your heaven above

Shall come the city of our God.

---Frank Mason North, 1903

What a privilege we have today, to experience this hymn, just over a century old. It presents a great contrast between two cities --- one earthly, one the city of God. In this verse, I can almost feel the dank walls of the city closing in on me: narrow alleys with doorways leading to shadowy rooms; streets crowded with strangers passing, eyes down; threat of danger holding in the stale air like a threadbare blanket. Wretchedness, greed, fear, the noise of selfish strife, lurk around each corner and haunt each boulevard.

And Christ himself visits these streets, never shrinking from the pain and need. Weeping while he walks, aching for the hurting world he loves, but fully giving himself to its brokenness. And while we are Christ’s people in this brokedown city, we walk and weep like our brother Savior.

But there is another city, another city than the one we manage to create when left to our own devices. This city is inhabited with love, and these streets, too, are paved with the footfalls of Jesus; walking in them, living in the rare air of compassion, we put our hands to the wheel to co-create the Kingdom with our Savior. The cup of cold water still holds the freshness of grace; we tread the streets together, Christ among us, on his face “strong compassion.”

Seeking the City…

...where is the tender spot?

"Where is the tender spot?" The doctor poked and prodded for the location of the discomfort. The discomfort, the tenderness, would, of course, be an indicator of injury. Healers probe for tenderness to help guide them to the source of the hurt.

There is at least one more sort of tenderness. This would be the care and gentleness with which we treat something, or someone, we value or love very much. We may treat priceless artwork, or newborn babies, tenderly.

I have been pondering, as I've talked to friends, and scrolled through my media, and reflected on my own life, that the Advent and Christmas seasons evoke tenderness, of both sorts, in an awful lot of us.

With the wonder of children, we unwrap ornaments and remember the stories that go with them. We bake---from scratch!--sweets and savories to share (and a few to keep for ourselves, maybe...). We envision the perfect gift for each loved one, the glow of happiness on each face when boxes are opened on the just-right Christmas morning. We pose our families for the everybody-smile pic for which (almost) everyone took your suggestion about wearing white tops, and it looks great. We tuck our own little ones into bed, or get misty-eyed smiling at someone else's little shepherds in the Christmas Eve pageant. There is so much tenderness here.

But if we're honest, for a lot of us, that's not the whole story. There is tenderness in this season that emanates from the source of hurt. Something about the season causes the backward gaze, and it is a time when those who have lost dear family and friends feel those losses in a deep and tender way, whether the loss is new or decades old. Circumstances change, and what is lost is noticed and mourned at the holidays. Health and wellness, always taken for granted, can slip away, and we note the holiday traditions that will be different. Strained relationships that are ignored during the rest of the year become painfully obvious during a season when the ideal holiday mood is one of togetherness and conviviality. Brokenness and alienation leave tender spots with no visible wounds.

In the midst of the lovely, tender times this holy season, there is also the tenderness that indicates pain. How can we celebrate the wonder of tenderness, and honor the tenderness of the shadows that is also part of the sacred everyday?

Where is the tender spot? I have mine...do you? 

...not a shield...a shipmate

When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside;

bear me through the swelling current, land me safe on Canaan’s side:

songs of praises, songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee.

---William Williams, 1745

The world is always seeking escapes from real life. Drugs, alcohol, gambling, excessive screen time, plastic surgery, overeating---there are countless tempting ways to try avoiding the realities of this world. There is great allure for a hurting yet ingenious humanity to try conquering the unpleasantness of life in the same way we have conquered space flight, locomotion, or bacterial infection. And if we are honest, many of us want religion to serve the same purpose as these escapes---we want it to shield us from the unpleasantness and pain of real life.

In today’s text, the hymn writer confronts real life head-on. No mere escape, our faith walks with us through the fearful days (and they will come, they will come). “When I tread the verge of Jordan…” ‘When’, not ‘if’, and not ‘if I must’. Facing life head-on, the writer acknowledges that death is a reality we all must face. What calms his fears is the steadfast belief that he will land safe on the other side. Facing the choppy waters of the Jordan, our anxious fears subside when we are accompanied by our strong deliverer.

Songs of praises we will ever give to Thee.

...in this darkness

In this darkness
I do not ask to walk by light;
but to feel the touch of your hand
and understand that sight is not seeing.

In this silence
I do not ask to hear your voice;
but to sense your Spirit breathe
and so bequeath my care to your keeping.

In unknowing 
I do not ask for fearless space;
but for grace to comprehend
that neither you nor I are diminished.

In this ending
I do not ask to forfeit pain,
but to gain the strength to love through loss,
and cross the bridge of waiting.
---Pat Bennett, 2001 (para John Bell, laca)

When darkness, and silence, and unknowing fall like black-out curtains on a life, it is tough to assume that the things we no longer see, or hear, or know are still there. Perhaps because we are by nature empirical, we are quick to be drawn in by what we sense and experience; we even have pithy sayings and mottos around experience ('seeing is believing' and 'Missouri --- the ShowMe State').

And because of that dependence on what is seen/heard/felt, the absence of experience leaves us at sea, wondering whether we might not have been abandoned to our own devices by a God who has bigger concerns or more interesting company.

And sometimes God may come to us, breaking through the darkness and silence and cloud of unknowing with certain vision and clear voice and absolute certainty. But the times when God is not revealed in this way does not diminish God, or you. You are not less for not having an experiential revelation. Your God is not less for 'failing' to provide the perfect double rainbow and angel song just in time.

Because God is a pilgrim God, as we are a pilgrim people. And in the dark, and in the silence, and even in the unknowing, there is One beside us to hold us up, to breathe with us, to remind us that we are. And in the endings, that One is there, too, guiding us through pain, willing us in time to be strong enough to risk loving, when light returns.

...making it to Monday

Mother's Day. It can't have snuck up on you, or me. The sweet, tear-jerking commercials; the handmade cards smelling of Elmer's glue and crayon; the preschool 'teas' and musical programs with dress-up clothes and tissue-paper and pipe-cleaner flowers; the bouquets in every store, and cards that never quite say what you intend, but fit the envelope just fine.

While for lots of us Mother's Day is a lovely time of sharing with our own children, or celebrating the love of our mothers for us, for some folks this day is among the toughest on the calendar. While others celebrate, these seek out solitude and separation, counting down the hours to sundown.

Some of these may be children of mothers who were never 'moms' --- those who would not, or could not, love their children; those who withheld human kindness or approval from children starving for it; those who abused the trust placed in them as mothers by hurting their children. How lonely it must be, to try being sold on the idea of a Mother's Day for a mother who wants nothing more from you than your absence.

Then there are women who mourn for children who are not. Women who carried life in them, only to grieve a too-early goodbye, never getting to celebrate birthdays, 'first days', Christmases with children hoped-for and dreamt. Women who struggle with fertility, hope with each turn of the calendar page that this might be the month. Women left with holes in lives and hearts when illness, accident, violence walk in the door and beloved children no longer do. Sometimes Mother's Day means getting through the day.

Then there are the ongoing struggles of motherhood that can complicate the feelings around general 'happiness'. Mothers who wait for their children's busy lives to settle down enough to include them. Mothers who find themselves lifelong advocates for their children in a variety of settings. Mothers who find themselves navigating with their children the deep waters of the medical system or the mental health system; mothers who become over-familiar with the tangled web of the juvenile justice system, or consistently stand in the gap in the halls and classrooms of school systems designed around the 'typical' student. Sometimes putting one foot in front of the other takes precedence over a Hallmark-driven remembrance.

For some of these folks, they hold onto what they can. When it comes to Mother's Day, they are trying making it to Monday.

...a not yet world

You come, O Lord, with gladness, in mercy and goodwill,
to bring an end to sadness and bid our fears be still.
In patient expectation we live for that great day
when your renewed creation your glory shall display.
--- Paul Gerhardt, 1653

We live in a 'not yet' world. It is easy to look around and see that things are not as they should be. There is pain, disease, systemic failure; there is evil, cruelty, apathy, human weakness. There are a few with way too much, and way too many with way too little.

Our world does not reflect its Creator. Not yet.

But part of the Advent waiting we do, in addition to looking forward to observing the birth of the Babe in the manger, is looking forward in eager anticipation to the time when God's dream for this world and the reality of this world become one. This, too, is Advent.

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. And all flesh shall see it together.

Life's crushing load

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.
--- Edmund Sears

There is no doubt about it --- real life doesn't stop for Advent and Christmas. And tragic times of loss and sadness are just as likely to befall us during this holy time as at any other. Doctors deliver life-changing health news. Beloved friends and family members pass away. Young disturbed boys with guns walk into schools and shoot away. People you trusted to stay, leave.
And just like that, the shine can be dimmed on the Christmas glitter. And honestly, that glitter may not ever come back with the same intensity. Because of all the things we are promised, a return to 'before-ness' is not one of them. And some days, it takes more effort to put one foot in front of the other. And some days those aches feel like a 'crushing load', and the path a 'climbing way'.
But there is comfort for the hurt, balm for the pain, a softening for the raw edges of grief. Because even here, resting beside the 'weary road', there is an angel song for what ails you. And me.


...so here we stand, whoever we are,
bathed in the light of a star...