So It Begins

In my book, fall isn’t officially over until Thanksgiving. This means that the winter season can not officially begin until the leftovers are finished. Because I might love fall, but I pretty much hate winter.

The only thing I don’t hate about winter is Christmas. It is totally cliché, but I love Christmas. I love lights and garland and Christmas trees. And I especially love early evenings spent reading by a fireplace or watching one more holiday movie. (As always, I suggest: Elf.)

Christmas is one of the few protected holidays in my family. We don’t go anywhere. We make no plans. We simply get up, stay home, and practice being a family. I know that as my brother and I get older, we will eventually have families of our own and may want to start new traditions. But that only serves to make these remaining Christmas Days all the more special.

This year, Christmas falls on a Sunday. Now for you, that might not make you shake in your boots. In fact, you might think that sounds awfully nice, kind of fuzzy and warm, to celebrate Christmas Day on the traditional day of weekly worship. I would wager that you probably didn’t have a small panic attack when you looked at the calendar and in fact, it’s not unlikely you didn’t even know Christmas was on a Sunday until I just wrote it here.

Well not me.

I knew since last Christmas that this year’s Christmas was on a Sunday because I work at a church and Sundays are kind of our thing. I love the church at Christmas time. It feels warm and friendly; Christmas is the time when I’m reminded that the church still has hope, still has a chance to reach people, to help people, to be a good and tolerant place. But it’s also where I have an office during a crazy busy season.

Earlier in November when work was a relatively normal state of busy, I started to wonder if maybe I exaggerate the work load of the weeks leading up to Christmas. I mean, shouldn’t it really be one of the easiest seasons at a church? We basically do the same things as last year and the year before that. Jesus was born, away in a manger, while shepherds harked to herald angels on the very first noel. Joy to the world!

And I have another tradition each Christmas season – believing that this year won’t be so crazy. Each year I enter the season thinking that this is when I’ll get everything right. I won’t work long hours, won’t commit myself in too many places, won’t wait to do Christmas shopping until the week of Christmas. This year will be my year.

Basically that means my tradition is to lie to myself. But please don’t burst my Christmas bubble. I need some denial to get through the season.

So if we see each other, maybe we should just talk about blinking lights and frosted cookies. Maybe you shouldn’t mention that I have two concerts in as many weeks and don’t know the music to either. Or that my brother is moving away and this might be the last regular family Christmas we have. Or that our office is barely managing a schedule change for the New Year and I’m feeling pulled in so many directions I might actually fall apart. Or that I don’t know how I’ll afford any Christmas presents this year.

And when Christmas Sunday finally does arrive, maybe you could let me lean on you just a little bit. Maybe you could remind me that Jesus didn’t enter the world so that we could run faster through the check out lines or become trapped in traditions or exhaust ourselves for the bigger and the better.

Maybe on Christmas Sunday you could remind me that Jesus was about peace and love and rest. And if you feel like reminding me of any of those things a little early, that’d be okay too.

And who knows – maybe this really will be the year.

Do you find yourself overwhelmed during the Christmas season? Or is it a season of rest and renewal? How do you make time for family and traditions during Christmas?

Music.

All the songs quoted here are from Page CXVI, "Hymns - IV". I strongly encourage you to visit their site here to stream these songs live. If you do it now, you can even listen as you read!

\\ The air feels thin \ Hard to breathe \ Fill our lungs Lord, fill our lungs \ On darker days \ We lift our eyes \ We find a trace, we find a trace \\ Bursting through the sky with glory \ A savior comes to save the saints \ Redemptive eyes, we see your mercy \ You made the choice, you took our place \\ I’m coming home \ I’m coming home \ To a place, to a place \ Of love and mercy, truth and glory \ I’m home, I’m home \\ I’ve got a home in glory land \ Outshines the sun \ Outshines the sun \\ ("Song of the Saints", track 4)

This weekend has been a reminder that I’ve been missing something in my life. Music. On one hand, my every day is filled with nothing but the business of music. But just like the business of worship is not worship, the business of music is not music.

On Saturday, at a children’s festival, I saw anew the joy of experiencing music with one’s whole body. An amazing reminder that through music we praise a loving, living God, who revels in our dancing and loud clashing cymbals and full expression of the Creator-placed love within us.

Saturday night I went to support a friend’s band and was filled to overflowing with the peace of music, the way in which music can fill you with a feeling of contentedness. I was in exactly the right place, in need of nothing outside the music. His is an eclectic sound – a melting together of rhythms and melodies that speak into the night.

Music draws us together. It calls to a deep, ancient part of us that seeks connection and understanding. A part of us that acknowledges our lives continue only in relationship with those rhythms – internal, external and eternal.

\\ I will sing to you this song of thanks \ For giving me abundant grace \ You broke the stones around my heart \ In you I’ve been redeemed \\ Amazing grace how sweet the sound \ That saved a wretch like me \ I once was lost but now I am found \ Was blind but now I see \\ ("Amazing Grace", track 1)

In my world, I have a tendency to ask how music can serve others. So much so that it can become the only way I look at music – supply and demand. And in my experience, that is exactly the point at which music ceases to be. Music is never about supply and demand. We don’t sing along with our favorite song because it’s demanded of us. Most any musician would say that if they made music on a supply and demand schedule alone, they’d probably never make music.

But indeed music is my job, or at least a big part of my job. As such I get lots of emails and samples of new music to preview or download. Sometime earlier this year I received a sample of some new tracks by a band called Page CXVI and have become enamored by their collections. (Even as I type, I have my headphones on and find myself pausing every few minutes to close my eyes and rest in the sound.)

Maybe that is the center of what divides music from the business of music – rest.

\\ God is my shepherd \ I won’t be wanting, I won’t be wanting \ He makes me rest in fields of green \ With quiet streams \\ Even though I walk through \ Through the valley of death and dying \ I will not fear, ‘cause you are with me \ You’re always with me \\ Your shepherd staff comforts me \ In all my fears and the presence of enemies \ And surely goodness will follow me \ In the house of God forever \\ ("House of God Forever", track 6)

I have been reading and seeking a deeper meaning of rest. Of sacred, spiritual rest. Only very recently have I been rediscovering the power of music as mediator; its power to bring about this sacred rest.

I’ve been told that when people who self-mutilate are asked why they cut they respond that cutting makes sense of the pain. It gives the pain a center, a tangible location. And don’t we do this in less drastic ways all the time? Lash out at our friends, our children, our parents, our colleagues – ourselves. We find a center for the pain; a point to focus pain that otherwise confuses us and spins away.

\\ Don’t lose your heart \ To doubts and fears \ Take in his word \ And rest in his grace \\ He laid out a path for me \ That I may see \\ I sing because I’m happy \ I sing because I’m free \ For his eye is on the sparrow \ And I know he watches me \ Ah… \\ ("His Eye Is On the Sparrow", track 2)

The storm has begun to feel like a familiar place. In some ways, I suppose that’s just how it is sometimes. Certain times of our lives are stormy times. But there is a difference between the storms that surround us and the storms that are self-inflicted.

I spend hours upon hours in an attempt to control the chaos around me and maybe more to control the chaos within me. But music is my safety net. It offers me peace, a lullaby in the storm. It redeems me.

\\ I’m so glad I’ve learned to trust thee \ Precious Jesus, savior, friend \ And I know that thou art with me \ Wilt be with me ’til the end \\ Jesus, Jesus how I trust him \ How I’ve proved him o’er and o’er \  Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus \ Oh for grace to trust him more \\ Jesus, Jesus \ How I trust you \\ ("Tis So Sweet to Trust In Jesus", track 7)

I truly believe that music can heal us. Music speaks to our spirits, opens our hearts and purges our pain, nurtures our joy. In our creating, appreciating and resting in music we mirror a Great Comforter who creates, appreciates and rests.

In a complex, dissonant, sometimes cruel world, I am seeking just such simplicity. Heart to hand, breath to lips, fingers to dancing.

Tis a gift.

\\ When I feel lost and clouds arise \ I long for a home \ As hope within me dies \\ Jesus is my portion \ He sets me free \\ I sing because I’m happy \ I sing because I’m free \ For his eye is on the sparrow \ And I know he watches me \\ ("His Eye Is On the Sparrow", track 2)

Mud.

I vaguely remember being on a community soccer team when I was in elementary school. And every practice or game was a reminder that I am not cut out for such things.

I remember playing once after it had just rained; it was miserable and wet and muddy. And I hated it. All I wanted was for the game to be over. I honestly felt with all my might that I could actually die in the middle of a stupid soccer field while my miserable, wet parents looked on.

In an unusually athletic(ish) maneuver, I tried to kick the ball away from an approaching player – and failed – landing instead on my wet and muddy rear end, while the game went on without me. I remember sitting there, thinking:  This. This is what my life is at this moment. I think I hate this. Why am I DOING this?

Well, mud; I’m back.

Half a year and many moons ago, I wrote what I foolishly thought could be a final chapter on weight loss. And for such a significant part of the year, I felt a new-found sense of control over food. But if that was a peak, then the rest of it has been a muddy ditch. And once again I repeat:  This. This is what my life is at this moment. I think I hate this. Why am I DOING this?

In the game of weight loss and new-life living, I can't really pinpoint any one moment of failure. I can't even tell you when I peaked because, not knowing I was about to slip, I didn't think to notice. All I know is that somehow I lost my footing and slid down to here. Again.

In an attempt to grab some traction, I recently quit my second job. It was a logical, intellectual decision about time and Sabbath and living a sacred lifestyle, but in those silent moments that I've created, I don't know what to do with myself. So I end up watching episodes of CSI or Bones or Ugly Betty. I sleep a lot or build villages with the help of computer-generated pirates. (None of which is very sacred.)

Truth? What I want is a brand-new me: a brand new start and a brand new life. I don’t want to figure out how to live this new life; I want to have lived a different life. Before writing this, I read someone else’s blog that said something like:  People sell the idea of going from misery to happiness in three simple steps. But really, it takes more like a million steps.

I guess the part they don’t want to tell you is how many of those steps are going backward.

Life is a lot more like ‘Chutes and Ladders’ than a three-step self-help book anyway. You exhaust yourself trying to climb up to yet another vantage point, trying to stay in control despite the unknown spin that may or may not move you on to the finish line. And then, just when you’re so close, you slip and go all the way back down to some stupid square you already passed by three times.

My brain gets it. It gets that my life is not so bad. It gets that what I choose to do or not do with my time is ultimately up to me. It gets the logical reality of cause and effect, decision and consequence. But sometimes I feel more like I’m back to playing a game I never wanted to play. And I want some assurances that if I do climb back up, there won't be some surprising fall again.

But, sigh, there are no assurances.

There is just the next roll or spin; the moment after you fall on your ass in the rain. Not the moment when the world closes in and not even the moment when you slap at the helping hand of your friend or coach or teammate. It’s not the moment when you lose your breath; it’s the moment when you find it. When you put your hand on the ground and push up into the rain. Into the miserable reality that in fact the game isn’t over yet. And maybe you aren’t the best player, but you can sure do damn better than sitting in the mud.

Have you ever fallen and given serious thought to just staying down?