...the present instant

No wind at the window, no knock on the door;
no light from the lampstand, no foot on the floor;
no dream born of tiredness, no ghost raised by fear:
just an angel and a woman and a voice in her ear.
---John L. Bell, 1992

You just had to be there. Sometimes experience is gold. That instant when Mary understood...something...happened because she was present, in that moment, open to that experience. She heard...something...because she was listening, ready for the whisper of the messenger-voice.

The world...changed...because Mary was really there.

What voice might we catch, what message might we intuit, were we to be fully present to life, in all its messy moments?

How might the world change if we were to really listen?

...pass-along glory

Arise, your light is come! The Spirit’s call obey;

show forth the glory of your God, which shines on you today.

Arise, your light is come! Fling wide the prison door;

proclaim the captive’s liberty, good tidings to the poor.

---Ruth Duck, 1974

We are so used to hearing the themes of Advent and Christmastide that they ring almost common in our ears, feel a bit bland rolling off our tongues…Light! Glory! Good tidings! When I stop and think about these things, they make me glad --- I need some good tidings, and some light, and a little glory to shine down on me! Yay, me!

Then hymnist Ruth Duck uses the prophet’s message from Isaiah to call my attention back to intention. Yes, some of that God-glory falls on me...but not to soak up and store. That glory, that light, those are pass-along gifts from a God who has called us as co-laborers in the life-work of lifting, reviving, nurturing, and restoring. These gifts? They were never meant for me, for us, to get and keep. This glory, this light, has always been destined for community.

And those, my friends, are mighty good tidings.

...with the dawn

Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
Walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness---
Being walkers with the sun and morning.
---Langston Hughes

The easiest person to be is yourself. The most comfortable skin to live in is your own. The easiest nature to seek out is your true nature. Being who we are should not be tough; it should be---well, second nature. 

In Langston Hughes' minimalist masterpiece Walkers with the Dawn, the American 20th-century poet emphasized the embrace of one's true nature. Because Hughes' people are dawn walkers, because they walk with the sun, they do not fear the night, nor dark days, nor clouded times. It is not because those times of darkness, or shadow, or unseeing, are not real---or really daunting.

But dawn walkers have it in their nature to know that light is there---behind the gloom, or after it. The nature of Hughes' people was to seek the sun. This was no extraordinary feat---it was in their nature.

As children of God, our nature is to be people of hope. By walking in hope we do not deny the tough times, or refuse to take a path that leads through them. But our nature is to abide in the hope, not the shadow. It is who we are.

...you've gotta be kidding me

Christians all, your Lord is coming, hope for peace is now at hand.
Let there be no hesitation, walk in faith where life demands.
Bear the word that God has given; share the birth that stirs your soul.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ will come and make you whole.
---Jim Miller, 1993

Prepare the way of the Lord. Wait...prepare the way of the Lord? It's struggle enough some days to prepare dinner tonight, or to prepare the presentation for the staff meeting tomorrow, or to prepare to hear the lab results from that medical exam you took last week. But to prepare the way of the Lord? What does that even mean, really, and how in this world are we supposed to prepare for something we haven't experienced and don't really understand?

Prepare? You've gotta be kidding me.

But wait a minute. I can hope for peace: real hope---the kind that puts feet to wishes, and real peace---the kind that surpasses the absence of discord to become wholeness and wellness lived out in whole and well community. And I can listen for the call of life on my life: what is it that calls out my gifts and passions, and who is it that needs the time and efforts I'm capable of? I can share my story with people who want to hear---a love story still in the making of brokenness and healing and pain and joy, and how the God whose best name is Love whispers keeping-on words to me, enough to share.

I can do these things; and you can, too. And in the doing, we may just find we are visited by God born in us, among us, like us. And in the doing, and in the visiting, we may be made whole.

It's a baby. And we prepared the way of the Lord.

...all I want

O come, Desire of nations, 
bind all peoples in one heart and mind;
bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease;
fill all the world with heaven's peace.
Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!
---Latin hymn, c. 1710

Desire. As I word-process these words, Mariah Carey's voice is singing to me out of my iPad Pandora channel: "Make my wish come true...all I want for Christmas is you." The scuttlebutt on Facebook is that DietPepsi drinkers really, really, really want their aspartame back. In 1946, Don Gardner just wanted teeth---at least, that's what his holiday hit, "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" said! All Steve Martin wanted in The Jerk was "this ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, this magazine, and the chair." And if you watch the ads around holiday time, folks really want vacuums (watch as the vacuum commercials magically disappear into a 10-month black hole on Dec. 26!). Surely this can't mean no one vacuums except between Thanksgiving and Christmas (I mean, no one but me)?

Imagine, though, what God's desire for God's own creation might be, what God's intent for this humanity (created in God's own image) might be. Imagine one people. Imagine working together to solve humanity's issues with the good of the littlest, the lost, and the least in mind. Imagine setting envy aside; moving beyond grasping at resources like shoppers in the flat screen aisle at a Black Friday sale; giving up our right to hold grudges.

Imagine that world. And then put on your work gloves---there are walls to tear down, and bridges to build. Because God is not a stand-around-and-watch-it-happen kind of God. God is a grab-a-hammer-there-are-plenty-of-nails kind of God. And I want in on building that world.

O come, Desire of nations, 
bind all peoples in one heart and mind.

...on the way

People, look east, the time is near
of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you able,
trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the Guest, is on the way.
---Eleanor Farjeon, 1928

I know about some of the Christmas decorations out there. I've driven around. And I've cruised around FB too, and Buzzfeed. I've seen Santas, and snowmen, and nativity scenes (sometimes all in one yard). I've seen white lights, multi-colored lights, twinkle lights, chaser lights, net lights, all orange and blue lights (here in Auburn Tiger territory, not an uncommon sight).

I've seen tasteful and tacky, with a few stops in-between.

There is something in us, a good number of us anyway, that pokes and prods at us to pull out a Christmas sweater (or ten) for our house this time of year. Is it because we're happy? to make us happy? to convince other people we're happy? a bit of a combination of everything I've thought of, and more?

In this lovely poem from Eleanor Farjeon, we are reminded that we are preparing for the arrival of a special Guest, with all the 'trimming' that might bring. When we invite Love in to stay, what kind of decorating might we do to our hearts? How would we set the table of our lives to welcome Love? What would we do to prepare a place for this most important Guest?

People, look east, the time is near...

...shrugging off God-ness

For he is our childhood’s pattern;

day by day on earth he grew;

He was tempted, scorned, rejected,

tears and smiles like us he knew.

Thus he feels for all our sadness,

And he shares in all our gladness.

---Cecil F. Alexander, 1848

“You don’t know how I feel!” “Nobody remembers what it feels like to be my age!” “You have no idea what I’m going through!” Now, whether you are a child or a teen, a young adult just starting out on your own or an elder dealing with the autumn of life, chances are you have felt (if not voiced) these very sentiments. I know I have. There is no emotion so isolating as what this hymn refers to as ‘sadness’; the feeling that others don’t know what you are experiencing is one that builds walls between people, making it even more unlikely that anyone will connect with you. Here’s the thing, though. God knows. Jesus has been there.

The miracle of the incarnation, ‘becoming flesh’, is that part of becoming flesh means being human --- with the aches and pains, the tears and fears, the insecurities and lonelinesses. To shrug off God-ness for a time, Jesus took on skin, and everything that fit inside it --- the jumbled mass of feelings and aspirations that make us real. For this, Jesus walked out of heaven and into Bethlehem.

Our pattern, our goal, in humanity, incarnate. The Christ Child.

...that kind of dawn

Light dawns on a weary world when eyes 
begin to see all people's dignity.
Light dawns on a weary world: 
the promised day of justice comes.
The trees shall clap their hands; the dry lands, gush with springs;
the hills and mountains shall break forth with singing!
We shall go out in joy, and be led forth in peace,
as all the world in wonder echoes 'shalom'.
---Mary Louise Bringle, 2001

What would true justice look like? Would it be absolute fairness? A chance for everyone, then everyone for himself? Mel Bringle envisions justice as a condition by which we truly see each other, and thus see the intrinsic value in the other; we view each other with dignity.

Our world's response to the dawning of the day of justice in our world, weary for it, thirsty for it? Isaiah suggests we might witness the natural world break the bounds of possible and become animated with joy---forests and mountains clapping and singing out of their own accord, lending voice to God's own joy over humankind gone mad with value and esteem.

And we ourselves? The prophet says joy will overcome us, too---that our steps will lead us out in joy and peace. I don't know about you, but I imagine I'd walk a little differently on this earth each day if my steps were ordered by joy and peace. Can you feel the rhythm of that gait in your body, in your soul, right now?

Are you smiling? I know I am; I just can't help it. It is no surprise to me that the world shares the wonder at the 'shalom' (literally, the wholeness found in community) that we find together.

That's the kind of dawn I'd get up early for...

...a whole lot of light

Heavy clouds that block the moonlight now begin to drift away.
Diamond brilliance through the darkness shines the hope of coming day.
Christ, the morning star of splendor, gleams within a world grown dim. 
Heaven's ember fans to fullness; hearts grow warm to welcome him.
---Mary Louise Bringle, 2005

Waiting is so hard. The smallest sign can be enough to keep you hanging on.

When you are sitting in the dark, even a tiny glow looks like a whole lot of light. Day is breaking...can you feel it?

We wait with expectation for the dawning of light in our world.

...and nothing else

Many the gifts, many the people,
many the hearts that yearn to belong.
Let us be servants to one another,
making your kingdom come.
Christ, be our light! 
Shine in our hearts. Shine through the darkness.
Christ, be our light!
Shine in your church gathered today!
---Bernadette Farrell, 1993

The title of the 1979 memoir I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can always makes me think of that moment when someone has given 100 percent. "You take it from here, pardner," I hear them say, "I'm out." Or, <mic drop>...done. Elvis has left the building.

And I sometimes wonder if Jesus ever felt a bit of the pull of that tension---his time ticking away, knowing he'd need to count on his rag-tag band of followers to spread the word (that love was the way), knowing he was the Sun, but he'd be having to count on the Moon to reflect the shine in the world before too long. I wonder if Jesus felt like he was dancing as fast as he could.

The church lives in that tension too---never more so than here in the Advent season, when we await the great Already/NotYet: the shining of Light into our shadowy corners, the coming of Christ into our longing world. This verse of the modern folk hymn Christ, Be Our Light by Bernadette Farrell speaks to the divergence, and richness, of what we know, and acknowledge, and embrace. While we yearn for Christ to be our light in this world, to dawn on us, we yoke ourselves with Christ the Sun. As the church, we are the body of Christ in the world, reflecting light like the moon reflects the sun's.

If Christ is to shine in the shadowed corners, it will be through the light reflected by Christ's body, the church. It will be because we served one another. It will be because we welcomed each other. It will be because we nurtured and developed the gifts each brought to share.

If Christ is to shine in our world today, it will be because the church is devoted to the work of building the reign of Love, and nothing else.

...you say yes

No payment was promised, no promises made;
no wedding was dated, no blueprint displayed.
Yet Mary, consenting to what none could guess,
replied with conviction, "Tell God I say, Yes."
---John L. Bell, 1992

Let's make a deal! Well...not a deal, really. I need this, well, this favor. It's pretty huge. And there is no way I can put into human terms what the costs and rewards might end up being for you. I can tell you, though...amazing...and heartbreaking...and world-changing...and earthshaking. 

No person could be faulted for pushing away from the table with a deal like that on it. Too vague, too open-ended, too many possible downsides. Besides, your life is falling into place, your ducks are all in a row, you may not be Junior League just yet but it could happen.

But you say yes. Yes to...what, exactly? To uncertainty (that starts the moment you show up at your engagement party pregnant)...to heartache (there is Simeon in the temple, whispering something to you about a sword piercing your heart, too?)...to fear (now you flee under cover of night into Egypt, a bounty on the life of your baby boy).

But you also say yes...to joy...and to hope. And because you say "Yes," the rest of us get the chance to say yes.

We say yes to love.

...again, for the first time

Can I, will I forget how Love was born
and  burned its way into my heart: 
unasked, unforced, unearned:
to die, to live, and not alone for me.
---Jaroslav J. Vajda, 1986

I'm guilty. Every once in a while, when I hear a certain story start up, the tale winding out of a certain mouth, I'll think, "Not again. How many times do I have to sit through this same old tired yarn?" Folks may say, "Stop me if you've heard this..." but they don't really mean it. People like telling their stories, and as a culture we may be gradually returning to finding value in the stories of everyday people. Programs such as StoryCorps, and radio shows/podcasts like The Moth and Talking History promote the valuing and sharing of oral history and story as both cultural record and art form. And of course, not so many centuries ago, stories were the way cultural histories and beliefs were passed from generation to generation.

Do we ever have that been there, done that thought about the stories of our faith? "Nah, I've heard that 'Baby in a manger' story before; just gonna skip the service this Christmas." "Ehh, I know how that Jesus story turns out; no need to show up for Good Friday and Easter." Well, strictly speaking, we do know how those stories go --- we've heard them plenty of times. And we may, once in a while, even have a 'not again' feeling about those stories. We could say them in our sleep. We could set them to rhyme. We could draw pictures of them. We could sing songs about them. Chances are, we may have done some of that.

Here's the thing, though.

This Love? This new-born Love that seeps into our souls without us having to quest for it, to earn it, to wrest it away from anyone else? We will forget. 

We will forget. 

And so, we go to church, and we listen to the stories, again, for the first time. And the story is new. And it is old. And we will remember. And we will forget.

We will forget.

And we will listen again. Because in the repeating, we are made new. Every single time.

...the weary road

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 H. Sears, 1849

Are you on the weary road? Not yet? Almost? Running parallel, and hoping to avoid the cross street that will carry you there? I don't mind telling you, I've been there---sometimes through no fault of my own, life's roadmap having directed me there through circumstance or happenstance, and me none the wiser. Sometimes, that destination was the fault of my own internal GPS, sending me down roads for which I was ill-equipped, weighed down with too much freight, exceeding the maximum passenger limit, barreling down some highway to God-knows-where, God-knows-why, because I have long ago forgotten the where and why. I'm weary, and that's what I know.

Right about then---right about now---angel song would sure sound nice. Right about then---right about now---I could lay down my burdens, and stretch my aching muscles, tense from constant alertness for that next thing coming to ambush my perfectly good day. Right about then---right about now---pulling over onto the shoulder of that weary road, and wrapping a blanket around me, climbing onto the hood of the car and leaning against the smooth windshield would feel pretty fine. Right about then---right about now---bathing in the starfall of a zillion messengers with heart-burstingly good news of real peace feels like all the heaven I need.

Right about then---right about now---glad and golden hours. Thanks be.

...who we are together

Every valley will be lifted up,
every mountain and hill eased low;
And the crooked path will lie straight,
and the rough patches smooth as glass:
And everywhere around will be evidence of 
the Lord,
And all of us will see it, the human family,
all of us together:
The Lord has always intended it be so.
---Isaiah 40:4-5 (para. laca)

Together. What a powerful word. Christianity is bound up, much of it, in individualism; making a personal profession of faith, choosing a private walk with Christ, developing an intimate relationship with God independent of any hierarchical relationship.

But there is a lot of together in faith. In this prophetic, forward-looking passage from Isaiah, the poet/seer yearns for the day when every geography is, well, flat. And if you are like me, and you are a mountain person, you are thinking, "Boooorrrrrrinnnnng. Who wants a world where everything is flat?" Which may be true. For the able -bodied. For the unencumbered. For the light traveler, not toting burdens, or children, or elderly parents. For the rested, not bent with sorrow or weariness.

But, for us all to gather around and witness the evidence that the Lord, Love, is here among us, we all have to be able to gather. The ground must be level and smooth, and the path must be straight, for us all to approach the glory of God. For us all to be witnesses, we first have to be here. Together. 

In this life, in God's household, if we don't approach together, we don't approach at all.

And all flesh shall see it together. (King James Version)

#ubuntu. I am who I am because of who we are together.

...that road trip, though

Holy Jesus, every day keep us in the narrow way;

and when earthly things are past, bring our ransomed souls at last

where they need no star to guide, where no clouds Thy glory hide.

---William C. Dix, 1861

Have you ever been on that road trip? The one where, because nobody is exactly sure where you are going, everybody is sure where you are going? The one where arguments follow every wrong turn (and every right, or left, one, for that matter)? The one where, for the life of you, you can’t remember what was so good about wherever it was you were going that you had to get in this car full of clowns and drive there? The one where the only thing you had running through your head was Tracy Chapman singing ‘Give Me One Reason to Stay Here (and I’ll Turn Right Back Around)’? Good trip gone bad, baby.

Now, imagine that trip---but with no clear destination, and only a vaguely-formed purpose in mind. Oh. And maybe the journey will take TWO YEARS. Or not. You’re on a need-to-know basis with the unfolding story, and apparently you don’t #needtoknow all that much. The things you know? Track the movements of a strange celestial happening, and follow that star. And find a King. No, not your king (that would be so easy---what do you think this is? Hide and seek?)…the King of a religious group in a Roman-occupied territory over there in that general vicinity. Oh. Now things become clear. #eyeroll But patience is a virtue, and the astronomers have plenty of time to work on their virtue as they follow.

You and I, though---how would we do with a challenge that nebulous, directions that vague, an objective sketched out in shifting sand instead of concrete? Would we follow, gifts at the ready--- staking our reputations, our futures, our hopes on a promise we traced on a map of the sky?

Would we gamble on a God who gambles on us, buying our souls from the meaninglessness of living without the star?

…and when earthly things are past, bring our ransomed souls at last

where no one needs a GPS, the path to show, the way to bless.

...before I believe

Where shepherds lately knelt and kept the angel's word,
I come in half-belief, a pilgrim strangely stirred.
but there is room and welcome there for me,
...and not alone for me.
---Jaroslav J. Vajda, 1986

Welcome. Welcome for me, stumbling in with no clue, and even less right. Not even sure why I'm here sometimes, not sure what draws me, who draws me, to this quiet scene. There is a diffuse light, and the damp warmth of night-calm animals. The babe makes the tiniest sounds...almost no sound at all. I remember a time when those newborn cries sounded louder than thunder. His mother comforts him; and it is easy, in that moment, to feel that everything in the babe's life will be charmed, that the star over the stable is a kind of sign, a blessing.

I know, of course. No one's life is lived under a blessing star. This baby won't be any different---will he? Because there is something...something...that pulls me to him. It isn't the charm of the star, or the comfort of the mother, though they hold their own appeal.

I need to believe there is room for me. Even before I believe.

...hush

Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly-minded, for with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth, our full homage to demand.
---Liturgy of St. James, 5th cent.

Hush.

I'm afraid I often miss it. As a sometime musician, and a sometime wordsmith, I am a two-time loser in the silence department. Keep silence? I would sooner walk on my hands all day (and that, friends, is not happening). Most of the time, I see silence as a vacuum to be filled, an invitation to respond to, a note passed in fifth grade with a place to check 'yes' or 'no'. 

And even in, or especially in, worship, my response to perceiving the presence of God---vast as universe, close as breath---is sound and motion. Say something, do something---THERE IS GOD!
Like the Psalmist, I want to sing a new song---a loud one, a better one, a prettier one---to the Lord. Like David, I want to rip off my cloak and lose myself in a dance of such abandon that my soul will finally be revealed...<sigh>...to the one who created my soul and inhabits it still. Like Peter, I want to spring into action, gathering up sticks and building the hut to end all huts, so that, forevermore, #wecanallhangoutandthisfeelingwillneverchangebecauseJesusyouarethesparkliest.

When sometimes, the perfection, the completeness, the wholeness of worship might be bound up in silence. In stillness. In breatheinbreatheout. In wait. 

But. That's not my spiritual gift.

Hush.

...when the world turns

Though the nations rage from age to age,
we remember who holds us fast:
God's mercy must deliver us 
from the conqueror's crushing grasp.
This saving word that our forebears heard
is the promise which holds us bound,
till the spear and rod can be crushed by God,
who is turning the world around.
My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn.
---Rory Cooney, 1990

God's unearned pardon reigns down 
on those who make awe their breathe-in, breathe-out.
God's strength is exercised in a surprising way;
the proud find themselves alone with their 
hollow, shallow concerns.
God has emptied out boardrooms and 
stripped off power suits all over,
and raised up those who never grasped at greatness;
God pulls out a chair at the feast for the left-outs,
and the A-list are turned away at the door, 
shaking their heads in disgust.
God doesn't forget God's fundamental nature;
mercy, and the merciful, are at the very heart of God.
---Luke 1:50-55 (para. laca)

Power and might are not what they seem. Sometimes they are rather well-disguised. But look out. We may all be surprised by what strength looks like.

When the world turns.

...release God

There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea;
there's a kindness to God's justice which is more than liberty.
...
But we make God's love too narrow by false limits of our own;
and we magnify God's strictness with a zeal he will not own.
...
For the love of God is broader than the measure of our mind;
and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.
...
---Frederick W. Faber, 1854

What fools we are, to create God in our own petty little image, and then to submit ourselves, and each other, to this little-god's judgement and condemnation. When --- oh, God --- the world would expand to neverending-ness right away if we trusted that God was always more.

Always more. 

Always more love.

Always more kindness.

Always more acceptance.

Always more forgiveness.

If we would release God from the chains of being made in our brokedown image...and step into the blazing reality of, ourselves, being created in God's image. Imagine what we might become, what we might already be.

Always more.

Always more.

...light me up

Jyothi dho Prabhu.

(Give us light, O Lord.)

---bhajan, northern India

Give it to me, baby. 

Give me all your 4's (Go fish).  

Give me patience, and I want it right now.

Give me all your money, and nobody gets hurt.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.

Gimme.

We love the word. We use it early and often. To be fair, sometimes we are doing the giving, and that is a really good thing. But in this prayer from northern India, the pray-ers are asking---Give us light. We want it. What you have, Lord. Light of the world. Light for all time, or just the light that might get us through this present darkness. We yearn for that light, beg hungrily for it during our shadow seasons. And we maybe don't care if we sound grabby and greedy when we do the pleading. Our gimmes are that overpowering, and the dark is that, well, dark-ish.

Yet here's the thing. The prayer for light---Give it to us, Jesus---turns out to be not so selfish after all. Because the gift of light is sort of like Oprah's big car giveaway. Just one person can't get the light. Nah, light doesn't work that way. See, if you are sitting beside me? and you get light? guess what? That same light lights me up, too! And I can hear Oprah exclaiming, "YOU get a light! and YOU get a light! and YOU get a light!"

Because when light shines in this life, it lights up the whole place. That's the way light is. It's a gimme. 

Thank God.

...do you believe something?

O come to us; abide with us,
our Lord Emmanuel.
---Phillips Brooks, 1868

"I don't believe in anything. Do you believe something, Ms. Armstrong?" The teenage question was casual, almost throw-away; but there was already a life's worth of pain and betrayal in the carefully-controlled voice, the meaning of life bound up in the few words. I knew my answer had to be truth. And it had to be clear. Oh, and it had to be right then. Because life happens, well, at the speed of life. And I knew she'd already heard plenty of sermons. And lectures. And object lessons.

And she did not believe. Not one thing. 

And while I gathered up the pieces of my heart from where they'd fallen as it shattered, once again, at a broken world that does this to its kids, I slowed my breathing, and gathered my racing thoughts, and stilled my heart, and breathed a prayer. Wisdom, I prayed. Courage, I pleaded. Hope, I begged. Love, love, love, past pain, past failure, past bleak unbelief. And in I plunged.

"I do believe. Not in a God who micromanages the world and every little thing that goes on in it. I have seen too much hurt and pain in this world to believe that way about God. I can't be down with God pulling all the strings behind a world like this. But I do believe. I believe so much in a God that walks this life beside us, hurting with us when we hurt, and celebrating with us when we celebrate. This is the life with God I have experienced, and I can tell you I believe it."

"Well, I know you're right about the world, Ms. Armstrong."

God help us, I'm right about the world. God willing, I'm right about walking together. Here in this holy season, we anticipate the arrival of a God whose name is Emmanuel, 'God with us'. Not some God-up-there, or God-that-was, or God-with-a-carrot-and-a-stick. But God-here laughing at an inside joke,  God-here weeping at the pain of a hurting world, God-here when the path is the most difficult to discern. God-here God-now. Close as breath. Abiding. Emmanuel.

I believe.

...and now we wait

Match the present to the promise, Christ will come again.

Make this hope your guiding premise, Christ will come again.

Pattern all your calculating and the world you are creating

to the advent you are waiting: Christ will come again.

---Thomas H. Troeger, 1985

Wait. WAIT! Wait. There are so many different ways to say one simple word, so many colors and nuances to it. We wait --- in line. on hold. for that check in the mail. till hell freezes over. for that second chance, and the break that will make it ok. to be older. to be old enough. for time to heal all wounds (or wound all heels). till your father gets home.

And even Tom Petty knows, the waiting is the hardest part. All that standing still, and not doing anything, all the stasis and buzz of inactivity. All of the un-. So this Advent –time of waiting can seem pretty…well, pretty un-. Sitting around waiting for…for…God knows what, really. A baby born in a manger? A king, arriving all stealthy and incognito and un-kinglike? A household of God’s own making, realized in Heaven but reachable on earth? The Kingdom come?

But what if there is another way to wait? What if waiting on God’s household to come is the most active thing we can do? What if this waiting is full of dreaming, and planning, and co-creating along with the God who never really stopped in the first place? What if we play a part in ushering in that kingdom characterized by hope, peace, joy, love? What if this Advent waiting is anything but un-?

Come, Lord Jesus. We wait on you.

...time will tell

We ourselves are God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;

wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrows grown;

first the blade, and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;

Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

---Henry Alford, 1844

It doesn’t look like corn. It looks like wide blade grass; St. Augustine, or maybe Johnson grass. Not like corn. Not at first. But wait. Just wait. Keep caring for the plant, watering, weeding, tending. And wait. It doesn’t look like corn at first. But time will tell.

Our own efforts at cultivating the Good News about God’s gift of abundant life may be like tending that corn. It may not seem like our efforts are yielding any results, in ourselves or in the world around us. Funny thing is, though, our task is to water, weed, tend, care. And wait. It may not look like a harvest at first. But time will tell.

...be still, my soul

Be still, my soul: The Lord is on your side.

Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;

leave to your God to order and provide;

in every change God faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul: Your best, your heavenly friend

through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

---Katharina von Schlegel, 1752

There seem to be truths about life, truths that anyone who lives long enough will experience. Life is not always fair. Bad things happen to good (and bad) people. And the only constant in this life…is change. And while I have made my peace with life’s essential unfairness, and the fact that good and bad things happen to good and bad folks, change kicks me in the teeth like a schoolyard bully every time. Weird thing is, I resist change even when the situation I find myself in isn’t particularly ideal. Because, you know, change, OUCH. You may have a problem with one of the other of these great life truths.

And with truths like that, we need a friend in our corner. In this text from the mid-1700’s. we are reminded that God, our best friend, is on our side (your side, my side, all of our sides---but that’s another story for another day). Armed with this knowledge, we are empowered to tackle and solve some of life’s problems. And the others? Those river rapids rushing in the near distance? We are supported while wading through treacherous crossings, a strong arm firm around us lest we slip beneath the surface.

Be still, my soul…there is One beside you.

...being out there

O for a faith, a living faith, the faith that Christ imparts;

belief not locked in ancient creed, but flamed within the heart.

O for a fellowship of love, the love that welcomes all;

that helps the burdened with their load, and lifts them when they fall.

In gratitude for this, our church, a growing faith we claim.

We here resolve, for years to come, to serve in Jesus’ name.

---William R. Hornbuckle, 2007

Almost by definition, a living thing is one that is growing in some way---being changed from the inside out. A living thing is under construction, continually evolving, developing in ways both deep and wide from the nourishment being gathered from its environment. A nurturing, healthy, rich environment means strong, consistent growth---a healthy living thing.

This kind of growth marks a living faith, too; and the church is a natural and wonderful environment for nurturing the kind of development that marks lifelong growth. And the life-affirming thing about the church is that its role in growth doesn’t end with the nurture of personal faith! Because personal faith is not an end in itself, and the church should rightfully be woven into the fabric of not only personal growth, but the very life of the community.

We are strengthened and raised up in a living faith for the express purpose of pouring ourselves into the life of the world around us, with its hurts, and poverties, and divisions, and griefs. We are called to live our faith in the world, among our neighbors, being out there what we’ve learned of Christ in here. Our living calls us, compels us, to be there, in the world.

We have two hands, after all. One to hang on…and one to reach out.

...the table for everyday saints

Here we nurture and encourage as we share this common meal,

While we foster deep communion and our inner selves reveal.

---Larry E. Schultz, 2004

The starting blocks. The finish line. The beginning and the end. In the life of faith, communion serves both as birthing moment and gathering-in, as jumping-off and destination.

When our faith is new, and we are building our muscles of believing and living the life of love to which we have been called, the table provides communal strength and model for our growth. The saints with whom we share the love feast are there to hold our hands during our first tentative steps, to dust us off and brush away our tears after our falls and false starts. As our faith matures, as hopefully it will, we combine drawing strength from the communion of saints with offering our own to those who walk beside and  follow after us --- encouraging, guiding, offering grace, nurturing growth --- always finishing the course where it began, at the table of love.

For this table, for this feast, to nourish us as it could, for its communion to be true and deep, each place must be set as a safe place for the nakedness of honesty to rest, a place where we dare to reveal who we really are to each other. Where we seek to know each other in all our complexity. We must trust each other that much around the table…and being known, and knowing, must matter that much.

That table, everyday saints. Start to finish. Your place is saved. Come home.

...on reckless giving

Take whatever I can offer --- gifts that I have yet to find,

Skills that I am slow to sharpen, talents of the hand and mind,

Things made beautiful for others in the place where I must be;

Take my gifts and let me love you, God who first of all loved me.

---Shirley Erena Murray, 1992

Offering. Giving. $$$. If we are honest, many of us equate “giving” and “offering” with dollars. And there is no doubt about it --- the challenges of the world need your dollars, and mine. But what intangibles do you command that could make this world a better place? What of your own essence can you offer to God?

Is there a skill you can offer? Some expertise you can bring to a situation? What talent could you bring? Could you make the world a more beautiful place with your art, your music? Could you give voice to those without? Shirley Erena Murray, a New Zealand hymnist, imagines offering gifts and skills still “in development” to God; gifts we are still discovering can be offered in trust to God. Can we be reckless in our giving to God, offering up still unformed parts of ourselves in the assurance that utility, even beauty, can be shaped from them? Do we trust God to honor our gifts offered in love?

God. Who first of all loved us.

...rock, paper, scissors, water

By our nurture, by our culture every life is shaped to grow,

fed by long tradition’s learning, formed by mentors as we go;

tune our ears to hear the gospel questioning accepted thought,

ready to respect each other, see the gifts that each has brought.

---Shirley Erena Murray, 2004

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot! If you are like me, you will remember this hand game from childhood. If you are a little less like me, you may remember it from earlier today! For those unfamiliar with it, the game is played using a hand sign each to represent rock, paper, and scissors, and two players face off with their hands out. After counting off three, each player ‘shoots’ one of the hand signs. According to a damage inventory, certain signs ‘beat’ other signs --- rock crushes scissors, scissors cut paper, paper covers rock. Best two out of three, of course, wins.

I have always felt that, if I played rock, paper, scissors, I would carry in a trump card, an unbeatable element against which none could stand. The longer I have owned my own home, and been responsible for the innumerable things that can go wrong there, the more sure I have become of my winning strategy. I would bring water to the game. Un. beatable. Boom. Because water dissolves paper into its pulpy components, and rusts the metal fabrication of scissors. And, given the time, water wears away stone to nothing. Not bragging or anything, but water wins every time.

So in our lives, who or what stands in the place of ‘water’ --- the steady, relentless, direction-shaping influence that ends up changing the complexion of our souls? Will culture do water’s work? Will we be eroded by our upbringing and family? Will mentors and learning shape us? Might, somehow, all of these waters flow together and chart their course across the core of us? Will these waters tune our ears and hearts to hear the radical message of the gospel, bathe away the hardness from us and expose the tenderness? What is water in your life?

Because, friends, water wins every time.

...let go of knowing

Green pastures are before me, which yet I have not seen;

bright skies will soon be o’er me, where the dark clouds have been:

my life I cannot measure, the path of life is free;

my Savior has my treasure, and he will walk with me.

---Anna L. Waring, 1850

The not knowing. Is there a more helpless feeling than not seeing the path that lies ahead of you, not being certain of what the future holds for you? How are we to plan, to plot our course, to steel ourselves against the possibility of future injury or harm without the knowing?

Let go. Let go of knowing. Let go the stress of needing to be in control of a future that was never yours to begin with. Trust that your pathway will wind its way through green pastures, under bright skies. Trust that the Savior holds what is truly treasure for your life.

And know this one thing: the steps you take, wherever your path leads, are walked beside your Savior. Every step, in shadow or sun, through green pasture or shadowed wood---never alone.

...in the gap

Stand for truth and cry for justice, share with those who don’t belong,

And remember as you serve them, sing for those who have no song.

Sing a joyful alleluia, praising God in all you do,

And remember as you witness, God is singing over you!

---Wesley Forbis, 2000

This fall our First Bells are learning a handbell setting of the American folk hymn ‘Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley’. I love the arrangement, and I love the bluesy folk tune. I even love the poignancy of thinking of Jesus turning his face toward Jerusalem, alone among his circle of friends and followers in understanding what lay ahead for him. But I am, perhaps, just as content not to sing the hymn, and to play it instead; for the second verse begins, “We must walk this lonesome valley, we have to walk it by ourselves….” And friends, I am not sure that is the calling we have received in Christ. Because, when we do it best, walking with Jesus is walking together with our brothers and sisters, sharing our joys and pains, our successes and failures, our tears and laughter, our burdens and strengths. When we do it best, we live life together.

This second verse of this relatively new hymn addresses the being there-ness of the Christian life: we stand up, we cry out, we share, all on behalf of those who, for whatever reason, cannot. And then a line lovely and true --- “…sing for those who have no song.” Even more than lending voice to the voiceless, this phrase brings to mind the Old Testament image of ‘standing in the gap’. When there was a breach, or gap, in the walls of a town, a defender would stand in the breach, defending those within at the spot where the wall was weakest. Leaders including Moses were known to have figuratively stood in the gap where God’s people were weakest, being strength for them in their time of need.

When we stand in the gap, when we sing for those who have no song, when we bear each other’s burdens --- then we live life together, and become Christ’s body, here, in this place. Alleluia.

...let me be?

Take My Life and Let It Be

Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee;

Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love.

Take my love, my God, I pour at thy feet its treasure store;

Take myself and I will be ever, only, all for thee.

---Frances R. Havergal, 1874

Confession time, readers: most modern hymnals get this title right. But I grew up singing out of the white 1975 Baptist Hymnal, which told me the title of this hymn was, indeed, not “Take My Life and Let It Be Consecrated", but “Take My Life and Let It Be". Could two phrases be any more different? One asks of God, “Take the gift of this life and make of it something holy, dedicated to you in whatever it finds to do.” The other is the ultimate modern ‘gotcha’ statement: “Take my life…well, no, I need to borrow it back to accomplish these very important things for myself…ok, here you go, God…nope, need it back, good times to enjoy….ok, all yours now….well, take my life, but LET ME BE is what I really mean.”

Are you ready to pour the treasure store of your love, your very life, at the feet of God? Do you want God to let your life be consecrated, or just to let you be?

...held like Jesus

Water Deep and Life Made Whole

tune: O WALY WALY

As John baptized the crowds that day,

Made straight the path, prepared the way,

Jesus approached the water’s edge

To seek God’s will, to make his pledge.

I’ll follow Jesus through the flow

Of water deep and life made whole,

Blessed knowing I’m held from above,

Like Jesus was, in God’s great love.

When Jesus stepped into the tide,

All other yearnings swept aside,

With singleness of heart and mind

He turned his life toward humankind.

I’ll follow Jesus through the flow

Of water deep and life made whole,

Blessed knowing I’m held from above,

Like Jesus was, in God’s great love.

And now we seek the water’s mark

To call to mind the Spirit’s spark

That kindled love’s warm glow within,

Remade as each new day begins.

I’ll follow Jesus through the flow

Of water deep and life made whole,

Blessed knowing I’m held from above,

Like Jesus was, in God’s great love.

...the space will be filled

Come away from rush and hurry to the stillness of God’s peace;

from our vain ambition’s worry, come to Christ to find release. 

Come away from noise and clamor, life’s demands and frenzied pace;

come to join the people gathered here to seek and find God’s grace.

---Marva Dawn, 1999

Horror vacui, “Nature abhors a vacuum”, was thought to have been postulated around 485 BC by Greek physicist-philosopher Parmenides. The theory, in my (very) laywoman’s terms, is that where nothing is, something will rush in to fill it up. Lots of things about physical science don’t make sense to me; this, I have no trouble with. Clear off the kitchen table…whoosh, two days later, the surface is covered with the flotsam and jetsam of daily life. Horror vacui, indeed.

I thought of this principle as I read Marva Dawn’s wonderful new hymn text. She addresses the call, tempting to us all at various times in our busy lives, to come away, to retreat, to leave behind. And the things she names as ‘retreat-worthy’ are indeed the things that wear us down and use us up. But our lives don’t need to be left vacant, empty spaces void of substance or meaning when we retreat from the stressors of everyday.

Dawn suggests that when we come away from rush and hurry we come toward the stillness of peace. When we retreat from the idea that we change the world by worrying we move forward to release through trust in Christ. And when we draw back for a time from the lures of this world, with its clamor, frenzy, and unending demands, we can step into the gathered family of faith, seeking grace in each other’s company and God’s presence.

Nature abhors a vacuum. So when we step away from what binds us, let us lean toward the fullness of faith.

...glory to glory

Finish then thy new creation, pure and spotless let us be;

Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee:

Changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place,

Till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise.

---Charles Wesley, 1747

Restored and finished. Charles Wesley, in the mid-1700’s, used these words to envision the fulfillment of God’s dream for humanity. With a love that surpasses any other concept of love, God continues to “create” us, to draw us toward purity, rendering out anything that blurs our essential essence. This verse is an encouragement to me, as I often feel God must not quite be done with me yet! With each new day, God’s love changes us, glory to glory, allowing each of us to become more of who we were always meant to be. What a God we worship, Whose creation is not limited to a one-time act, but happens over and over to create and re-create us as whole, complex, and complete!

It’s enough to lose ourselves in wonder, love, and praise….

...the ocean's arms

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free,

rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!

Underneath me, all around me is the current of His love,

leading onward, leading homeward to that glorious rest above.

---Samuel Trevor Francis, 1898

Many of us are familiar with President John Kennedy’s quote concerning his deep passion for the sea – “We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea – whether it is to sail or to watch it – we are going back from whence we came.” Kennedy was famously at home in the frigid waters of his beloved Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, where in times of health and illness the water seemed life-giving and restorative.

The man I saw most in love with the sea was my father. Each summer we would camp (you read that right --- camping at the beach in the summer!) for a week or so, in the heat and humidity. And I would watch my professor father with the perpetual farmer tan float for hours on his back in the briny Gulf water, not paddling, not kicking, not moving at all. He’d tell my brother and me, “This salty water will hold you up. You just have to relax and lie back.” It was a matter of trust, and giving up the need to control the water that supported you.

You know, I never did get as good at it as my dad; I never could float for hours, relaxed and committed to the water’s ability to hold me. But for a minute or two, here and there, it sometimes worked. I sometimes let go. And when I trusted that the sea was more capable, more powerful, more boundless than I’d ever be to meet my need to be held up --- for that moment, I was free.

Oh, to trust that I would be held up like that.

...shadowed glory

Holy, holy, holy! though the darkness hide Thee,

though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;

Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,

Perfect in power, in love, and purity.

---Reginald Heber, 1826

It has been a little while (ahem) since I last studied child development, so this week I did a bit of refreshing on the concept of ‘object permanence’. The theory behind object permanence is this: once human comprehension develops to a certain level we can grasp the idea that objects can exist, even when we cannot see them. I was imagining that the age for developing this sense might be a year to 18 months old, and was surprised to find that current research supports a range of three to eight months as the time frame for this understanding to emerge. Imagine how terrifying a game of peekaboo would be for a young child with no sense of object permanence --- when you cover up your face, you are actually gone!

Though we would all agree that God is not object, this hymn suggests that a sense of object permanence is necessary in visioning Godself, individually and as a people. At times both the shadows of this world --- hate, violence, disregard, presumption --- and the shadows of our own souls --- hurt, fear, envy, pain --- keep us from laying eyes on the glory, the evidence, of God’s presence with us. None of those shadows, though, none of them, keep the reality of God’s presence from us.

As we, then, whatever our stage of human or divine development, seek a sense of communion with Holiness, may we remember: seen or unseen, hidden or revealed, speaking or silent, God is with us, close as breath, holy.

...that kind of breathing

Breathe on me, Breath of God, fill me with life anew,

That I may love what Thou dost love,

And do what Thou wouldst do.

Breathe on me, Breath of God, until my heart is pure,

Until with Thee I will Thy will,

To do and to endure.

---Edwin Hatch, 1878

There is a holiness about a small child, snuggled under your chin, sleeping soundly. There is a deep, even, peaceful breathing that is like no other sound or sensation on this earth; and before you even realize it, you have fallen under its spell. Your breath pattern speeds or slows, shallows or deepens, and matches the child in your arms. In an elemental way, in that moment, you will what that child wills. A holy moment.

I wonder if perhaps hymnist Edwin Hatch had experienced such a high holy moment, whether he called it to remembrance as he penned these words. Imagine, if you can, matching your breath to the very breath of a living God. Breath that would enliven, empower, inspire, embolden. Breath that would draw you into communion with a God Who has been in love with you since the beginning of time, wanting nothing more than to breath in unison with you. Breath that would fill you like that. I could use some of that.

Breathe on me, Breath of God…

...the table that changes the world

Come and feast, for all are welcomed

at God’s table spread with love.

Come proclaim God’s grace and goodness

in, around us, and above.

---Larry E. Schultz, 2004

“Who else is invited?” “How big is the guest list?” “Is this the A list after-party, or the B list?” “If she is invited, it must not be a really good party.”

This party, this love feast that we call by the staid and decidedly more solemn Eucharist, communion, or Lord’s Supper, is the once-and-for-all call for all of humanity to share in the goodness of God. For here, at this table, in this meal, we are reconciled to God and to each other. At this table, in this meal, old scores are settled, new wounds healed. At this table, in this meal, an old love story seeks to dissolve new-sprung divisions. At this table, in this meal, anything can happen…and it does. It does.

The thing about this party, though, is this: just anyone is welcome to pull up a chair. Right next to you. Deserving or not. A list, B list, no list. It’s an everybody-come type of thing; and you never know who might show up at that kind of shindig.

This is the kind of feast that just might change the world. And if you are worried about who else might be on the guest list, you might just miss out.

And that, my friend, would be a shame.

...like a mother

Like a mother with her children You will comfort us each day,

giving guidance on our journey, as we seek to find our way.

When we walk through fiery trials, You will help us take a stand;

when we pass through troubled waters, You hold out Your tender hand.

---Jann Aldredge-Clanton, 2000

Motherhood is often a balancing act. When to insist on vegetables first at dinner, when to sneak a little dessert in? When to stretch that last bedtime story to two (or three, or…)? When to let the baby cry it out, when to gather her up in your arms and tuck her in beside you? When shorts pants and knickers, when blue jeans and khakis? When to protect, when to challenge? When to comfort, when to brush off? When to support, when to caution? When to hold on, when to let go?

The same could be said of fatherhood, I’m sure (don’t know, never been a father). The thing is, this holy dance of parenthood is a weaving, the weft and warp that colors the character of our children. And God, in whose image we are created, and our pattern in all things, models for us both the compassion and the courage of a mother or a father for us.

For God offers both comfort and guidance, each in appropriate measure and at appropriate time. And when flood waters or trial fires rise around us, God’s hand is reaching out --- ahead of us, to rescue us; or at our backs, to urge us on to our own brave action. Because, in our best moments, that’s what mothers, and fathers, do.

We can hear You gently saying, “Do not worry, do not fear;

for I’ll always go beside you; every moment I am near.”

... the unfilled turning

Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts,

thou fount of life, thou light of all,

From the best bliss that earth imparts,

We turn unfilled to hear thy call.

---Latin hymn, 12th cent.

Meh. Whatevs. idc. Mom, I’m bored. There are lots of ways, old and new, to express our ‘doneness’ with what life has to offer. Now, at some points in history, this may have been understandable. But look --- today most of us have access to libraries with thousands of volumes (or e-readers with access to even more), cable or satellite TV with hundreds of channels, and internet access that opens virtual doors to the world (with all that can walk in through those doors). It is easier than ever, with cell phones and social media, to keep in touch with friends near and far away. There are, at any given point in time, literally 1.65 zillion things to do. And lots of them are exciting, fun, super-cool things.

So, why do so many of us feel so empty so much of the time?

It just may be that, even when it offers us its best, this world only has the stuff of life to give. And the hunger in our souls, deep down, can’t be sated with stuff; if needs life itself. St. Augustine, in his Confessions, wrote, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.”

Even the best of the good life leaves us unfilled, seeking the abundance that hearing our call, and following, will bring.

...beyond the page

Break Thou the bread of life, dear Lord, to me,

As Thou didst break the loaves beside the sea;

Beyond the sacred page I seek Thee, Lord,

My spirit pants for Thee, O living Word.

---Mary A. Lathbury, 1877

Seeking Christ beyond the page. Sounds exciting, real detective-y stuff. But wait…we are “people of the Book”; how do we stay true to Scripture, and still venture beyond the sacred page when our spirits seek to know God more deeply?

Perhaps, first, we must know Christ in and through  the Scripture. We must know the stories of Jesus preserved for us in the Gospels, the teachings of Jesus in parable, and the example of kingdom living in his dealings with the world around him. We must know the Jesus of the Bible, and we must teach Jesus to our children. We must call that Jesus to remembrance in each other’s presence in sacred story, in chilling chant and holy harmony.

But then, oh then…we are privileged to seek Jesus beyond the page --- walking with us, bearing our burdens, urging us on toward maturity, our friend and brother.

The Bread of Life, broken for you.

...what you thought you wanted

Come, then, children, with your burdens --- life’s confusions, fears, and pain.

Leave them at the cross of Jesus, take instead His kingdom’s reign.

Bring your thirsts, for He will quench them --- He alone will satisfy.

All our longings find attainment when to self we gladly die.

---Marva J. Dawn, 1999

From pop culture to Protestant work ethic, from self-realization to prosperity gospel, even the loose cherry-picked readings of some of the New Testament’s “red letter writings” ---  all over, the universe seems to be sending us a message loud and clear: If you want it, come and get it. Take what you need. The desires of your heart are there for a reason. Seek and you will find. Work for what you want. God wants you to have nice things.

Here’s the thing, though. When we are invited, coaxed, beckoned, called by Jesus to walk in his path, we do hear “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find….For everyone who asks receives.” But I can’t help but look at Jesus’ life among the poor and broken and think that perpetual Christmas morning excess is not what he had in mind. I hear Jesus say, “When you lay down the distraction of what you thought you wanted, you can begin to focus on the real life of the spirit. And I will meet every need. And you will finally be able to stop striving, and running after, and grasping, and resenting. And then, friend, you will know what it is to live.”

Lay down your burdens at the cross.

...this wild symphony

This is my Father's world, and to my listening ears,

all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.

This is my Father's world, I rest me in the thought

of rocks and trees, of skies and seas; Your hand the wonders wrought.

---Maltbie D. Babcock, 1901

I am writing this Grace Note from Montreat Conference Center, where I am growing and learning at the annual Conference on Worship and Music. And friends, literally everything here is entrusted with a song! There is not a room, porch, or open space where the sounds of song, instrument, prayer, laughter, discourse, encouragement, children's games do not float on the breeze (even the breeze may be whispering!). Open windows and doors let the sounds blend and weave in delicious ways. I would swear to you that even the rhododendron leaves rubbing together in the night wind, the water spilling over the falls, the rocks being skipped in the lake are composing their own Foothills tune, secret and turning and hard to catch, but no less real. Physicists and astronomers tell us that the universe even vibrates in tune to its own pitch --- B-flat...that's right, the universe is singing!

What a world we people, where even nature sings! Whose mind could conceive, whose hand shape, whose presence bless a thrumming, vibrating, singing universe like ours?

This good God, Creator and Nurturer and Sustainer of this wild symphony, solar system to cell! Thanks be!

...widen the circle

Differently abled, differently labeled widen the circle round Jesus Christ;

Crutches and stigmas, cultures’ enigmas all come together round Jesus Christ.

Love will relate us --- color or status can’t segregate us, round Jesus Christ:

Family failings, human derailings --- all are accepted, round Jesus Christ.

---Shirley Erena Murray, 1991

“Us four, no more.” Sometimes, in certain circumstances, we believers can become experts at ‘narrowing the circle’. Whether we plan it that way, by setting up complicated orthodoxies and religious systems; or whether it does a slow creep, a score of small fissures over what feels comfortable or easy --- our human gathering tendency seems to be to draw the borders in tightly. Maybe we do it for protection, some leftover prehistoric preservationist impulse; maybe out of fear of the ‘other’ and the adaptation they might require of our comfortable lives. Has it always been this way? Human nature being what it is, probably so. Was the history of religious institution destined to be this way forever?

Probably so. Until into the circle stepped a most unusual man, who crashed every boundary like the world’s best Red Rover player. Race? Crash. Status? Crash. Culture? Crash. Historic prejudice? Crash. Stigma? Crash.

The crashing presence of Jesus changes things. The place will be crawling with failures, Plan B’s, and misfits. Thank God, we’ll all fit right in…around Jesus’ table.

...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.

...merciful, and mighty

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty!

Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee.

Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty!

God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

---Reginald Heber, 1826

I will admit it. I have always been a bit put off by descriptions of God as powerful. It seems in this world that being powerful is an invitation to mistreat or take advantage of the weak and poor. For every “good King Wenceslas”, there are hundreds of “Ivan the Terribles”. Power seems so intoxicating, and so easy to abuse. So my vision of a powerful, almighty God is colored by the lens of the world in which I live, and the one I read about in history books. Reginald Heber, in the mid-1800’s, caught the essence of God’s power with one short phrase: “merciful and mighty.” We worship a God who is strong and tender, who is limitless and approachable, who is Law and Love.

Merciful and mighty, God, we worship you.

...that's my sister

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord told him where to go to find a man named Saul, who'd been praying, and seen in a vision that a man named Ananias would lay hands on him and restore his sight.
But Ananias had heard the news about Saul already, how much evil he'd done the believers in Jerusalem, and how he had come to Damascus armed with authority from the chief priests to bind any and all who called themselves by Christ's name. There must be some misunderstanding about Ananias' task!
"Go on, Ananias," said the Lord, "for he is the one I've chosen to bring my name before Gentiles, and Israelites, and powers. I'll be the one to show him the suffering he'll endure for my name."
So Ananias went, and found the house where Saul was waiting, and laid his hands on him, and said, "Brother Saul..."
---Acts 9:10-17a (para. laca)

On what must have been the only true perfect day of spring, in the only patch of green in downtown Birmingham Alabama, it became clear to me.

Ananias went to Saul and 'brothered' him, while Saul still had Ananias' arrest warrant in his pocket, while Saul still held the power of life and death in his hands. Acknowledging Saul's kinship at a time before Ananias had reason to trust it created the kinship, paved the way for family.

Because I'll tell you right now, there are blind scholars, blind leaders, blind saints. Blind transformational giants, even.

But no one leads a family from the outside.

And until 'Saul' was 'Brother', he was no one.

There's your healing. There's your miracle.  There's your seismic shift. Because one Spirit-prompted human risked it, family formed in a new way that day. And every day since then.

In the face of evidence to the contrary, Ananias spoke the life-giving word. "Brother."

And in the absence of evidence, in that patch of green, a three-year-old girl with round cheeks and a broken butterfly headband came running to me, arms wide to embrace a friendly-looking, teary-eyed stranger under a tree ---

And spoke a life-giving word. "That's my sister."

There's your miracle.

...rich with surprise

God of Creation, all-powerful, all wise,

Lord of the universe rich with surprise,

Maker, Sustainer, and Ruler of all,

We are Your children --- You hear when we call.

---Margaret Clarkson, 1987

Back when I was young and could sleep on the ground, I often spent a weekend camping with friends in the mountains of north Georgia, enjoying scenes of rugged beauty around every bend and over every hill. Being carefree (I did mention that we were young, didn’t I?), we often knew only the general area we wanted to explore, and this led to lots of wondering. I don’t mean ‘wandering’; I mean ‘wondering’, as in, “I wonder where we are now?” One particular weekend we were more aimless than usual, and had gotten onto a one-and-a-half-lane road, headed almost straight up into the sky (no easy feat for a baby-blue Monte Carlo!). At a bend in the road, we met an oncoming van, and inched over as far as we dared to let it pass. As it did, the driver waved and greeted us; we asked what was up ahead. Now, what we meant was, “Is there a camping spot up ahead?” But he had a bigger answer in mind. “Man,’ he said earnestly, “you wouldn’t believe what’s up there! There’s trees, and mountains, and grass…”

That dude up on the mountain saw the world with a sense of wonder, with a delight I am usually too jaded to enjoy. In today’s hymn, Margaret Clarkson names the God of a creation ‘rich with surprise.’ As I meditate on the concept of a universe created teeming with delight and overflowing with mind-blowing creativity, I think of eclipses, lightning storms, giraffes…and grace. You wouldn’t believe what’s up there!

What a surprising God we serve!

...faint or full

Does sadness fill my mind? A solace here I find,

May Jesus Christ be praised!

Or fades my earthly bliss? My comfort still is this,

May Jesus Christ be praised!

---Katholisches Gesangbuch, 1828

Probably none of us, if we live long enough, will avoid the deep ache of sadness. Some may be fortunate, and experience only brief periods of “fadedness”. Others, through life circumstance or brain chemistry, may slog through long terms of depression and sadness. And, because Jesus walked this life fully human, we can surmise that he experienced every emotion common to humanity, including the dark cloud of sadness. This thought is so comforting to me --- to know that I can experience nothing that my Savior has not experienced first. And out of that comfort can come praise. In my darkest moment, I can cling to Christ, and sing my anguished, confused, joyful song of praise, faint or full though it may be.

May Jesus Christ be praised, and may praise do its transformative work in the world, and in me.

...all the yes

The hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred sweets,

Before we reach the heavenly fields,

Or walk the golden streets.

---Isaac Watts, 1707

#thisearthisnotmyhome #illflyaway #streetsofgold #homesickforheaven

At various times throughout Christian history, this world has not been a very hospitable place to live out life. This was sometimes true for most everyone walking the sod, and sometimes particularly for those folk of faith. It is easy, in times of hardship and earthly distress, to pin one’s hopes on a better tomorrow, a bright and shiny heaven to take the bitter edge off what seems a pale shadow-life lived out here on earth. Imagine the Twitter-life of those trapped in the flat reality of this existence, when they dreamt of, yearned for the richness of a hi-def heaven.

In Isaac Watts’ hymn from the turn of the 18^th century, the hymnist urges those who ‘love the Lord’ not to wait to start celebrating Kingdom life, but to let their joys be known. Yes, look forward to heaven, when the distractions of this world will be stripped away so that worship’s pure essence can be revealed, and those who will may dwell consciously in the presence of God.

But, yes! enjoy the thousand sacred sweets the hill of Zion has to offer before we ever reach those heavenly fields! And, yes! live abundantly here in this rich land where God also reigns! God didn’t create us for either/or; there is richness and abundance in this life for all time, and for all!

#alltheyes

...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.

...Light as gift

Light on the path, a lamp about our way,

Wisdom to lead us through the longest day,

Guiding our steps as once the Savior trod:

Here in the Scriptures is the Word of God.

---Timothy Dudley-Smith, 2008

Light. Lamp. Wisdom. Truth for the seeker. Bread for the hungry. Sword of the Spirit. Word of life. Treasure. Promise of mercy and love.

These are some of the gifts to be found in Holy Scripture, according to hymnist Timothy Dudley-Smith. And can you imagine the richness of life, were one to avail oneself of all of these gifts? The richness, even more, of life lived out in community, sharing these gifts together?

How amazing, to have the chance to gain glimpses into the life of the one we call Lord, just by picking up our Bible. To know Jesus better, to know God’s love story with humankind more intimately, because real people quieted themselves, and waited, and shared the moving of the Spirit for us, for the generations.

May we eagerly seek out opportunities to learn from this amazing record of the deep love between God and God’s people. And, rather than ever seeking to use Holy Writ as a weapon against another pilgrim on the path, or a lance against some windmill that needs tilting against, may we seek always to see Scripture used to build up and draw people to the God of Love.

Thanks be to God for Light on the path.