Seeking Advent

My wonderfully insightful friend Jeff Nelson has been recording a daily Advent video reflection. He’s encouraging others to join in his conversation – this is my response.

Each year, I struggle to journey through the dual realities of Advent: what it is and what it should be. I suppose I’m seeking to find where those two sides of Advent overlap. And how that overlap might change my understanding of what the event of Christmas was and who the person of Christ is.

As each day draws me nearer to Christmas, I find that my heart is just a little more open, just a little more vulnerable, just a little more willing to see the joy and beauty and simplicity of a world that welcomes babies every day. And also a little more easily hurt, a little more easily broken. Sometimes in the midst of the hurt, I can’t see beyond that. But God isn’t breaking my heart, God is opening my heart.

If broken is what Advent is then open is what Advent should be.

I’m in the midst of reading and teaching from Adam Hamilton’s book, “The Journey”. He includes a DVD segment each week filmed on location in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the surrounding countryside. Nine months ago I stood in the same places that I see in his video footage. I walked alongside the same buildings and looked into the same scenes.

What I learned from being on the ground of that place is that it is not so different from any other place. It is not covered in the shadow of angels’ wings or the soft sparkle of star light. There are wise men, but also dumb men and mean men and just average men. There are new mothers and old mothers, scared mothers and those who would be mothers. It is an every day kind of place where families have lived for generations. For these people, in this place, the Holy Land is not a place to deepen a theology but a place to find a husband, to build a home, to build a life.

If miraculous is what Advent was then normal and everyday is what Advent should be.

As I wrote about last week, I find the joy of Christmas is often overshadowed by long hours and impossible expectations. Some of us in ministry – myself included – are the worst offenders. We pick and prod at each other, complaining about lighting and greeters and poinsettia arrangements. The season should thrill us with excitement and energy. But we seem to spend most of our time exhausted.

In the last three years, I’ve watched three close friends each experience the joy, surprise, and pain of pregnancy. In each circumstance, the waiting and expectation began long before a pregnancy was confirmed. Each one spent months, even years, praying for a child, hoping for a future full of new life. These women have taught me that our time of waiting and our desire for new life often begins before we even know what we’re waiting for. And often continues long after we’ve prayed and wished and begged for it to become reality.

If desperate is how Advent leaves us feeling then hope is what Advent should inspire us to seek.

From one seeker to another – don’t allow the bright lights of Christmas to drown out that more important inner light that Advent provides. The wisemen, the shepherds, the seekers and the dreamers who sought a baby they hoped would be king didn’t do so because all the stars in the heavens pointed the way. They sought one star, one direction, one truth. They sought a difficult and winding path because of the light in their own hearts.

Be merry. Be joyful and full of laughter. Rejoice in the bright reality of Christmas. But also keep your heart open, live simply and have hope that the true shining light at the summit of the season is a light that remains in you always.

Faith. Hope. Love. But the greatest of these is love.

Moments.

There are moments on those gray afternoons when clouds seem to fight just to contain themselves and my one small piece of creation seems filled with tension. Moments before the rain falls when you can still leave the door open and hear sounds of far-off wind chimes and rustling leaves through the screen. Deep within that place and those moments, I can hear the whispers of ideas that I want to tell to the world. Whispers of wonderful thoughts, creatively and musically spun together so that if I were to just listen a little more carefully, it might change who I am on the outside.

But soon the tension eases and the rain stops and the clouds gather themselves up again. And the trees and wind chimes are still and I’m distracted by other sounds. Sounds that turn my head ever so slightly until I’ve all but lost those soft, soul-murmurs and I’m left with the fleeting sensation that I brushed up against something important.

And so these are moments I’m searching for. These missing moments, which, though brief, are like melodies you can’t get out of your head or the taste you can’t quite name which lies so ironically on the tip of your tongue. Or maybe a face in a crowd that looks just like someone you’re so sure you should know. Or have known and maybe don’t know anymore. And isn’t it sad that you just can’t quite remember.

These are my missing moments.

Some are gentle and peaceful, bright white like the color of dandelion seeds after they’ve turned all fluffy and soft. A moment like this seems to linger and settle and fill my mind with such peace that all the sounds in the world around me seem to melt together. As if they had all been made by God or by man for that one moment alone.

Others are like memories, dark yellow and deep like the walls of my mother’s kitchen, inspired by paintings of Tuscan sunsets and Spanish pottery. Colored by ancient brushstrokes along the surfaces in swirling, wandering patterns of age.

You should know that if you see them—my moments—you may mistake them for things quite ordinary. Perhaps that’s why so often they stay just out of reach, away from my sharply cynical and critical world. My moments are wise and crafty and they know me well.

So today I type with my eyes closed and the door open. And I work at letting go. Peeling away the fear and rejection so that my moments will know me when they see me, recognize me as the one they belong with. Because there are moments—faithful, Spirit-brushing moments that are meant just for each of us.

They fill the spaces, the cracks within us in such a way that no room is left for doubt. There is a truth that lies in the center of our moments, glimpses of a creator-God who has weaved us and wrapped us around those Spirit-pieces. Of a father-God who smells of earth and rain. Who has given us life in such a way that we are not just of Him, but also within Him. Of a mother-God who has brushed the insides of our souls with a color uniquely our own.

We have stood and stumbled and sprinted in these bodies, and She has held open Her arms. Wrapping tightly with a love both fierce and faithful. Waiting for those moments to rise and be recognized.

So to all my missing moments – I’m sorry. I had forgotten that you aren’t really mine; that you don’t belong to me. And I’m sorry that I am the one who left, but I’m grateful that you have stayed. I may lose you again or misplace you, but I have seen you and heard your truth, and I will keep looking. Be faithful moments; be kind and merciful and forgiving. Be growing moments of greatness so that I am filled with only these moments.

Thank you for my dreams and for my words and for this life. Thank you for graceful whispers of truth and thank you for love. Thank you for this moment and for all my moments.

And now rise up. Let this be, for someone, a new moment. Your moment.

cel•e•brate

cel·e·brate – to make known publicly; to proclaim; to praise widely or to present to widespread and favorable public notice; to have or participate in a party

What if every moment of worship was a celebration? Imagine if each praised-filled moment we spent with him was filled with games and balloons and cotton candy. And spinning round and round with our arms stretched straight out until we fell and looked up at the twirling world around us.

Sometimes all that we see is that swirling, twirling, out of control world. We can be distracted from the calm and beauty and grace of the flowers on the trees and the colors on each bird and the music within us and around us. Yet still we are invited into this daily celebration! Every moment—alone or together, in the front or falling back, happy or hurried—every moment is an invitation to join the party.

Bring your friends and your family and your gifts and feel the rush of worship around you! Sing or dance or clap your hands! Laugh and love and learn—and don’t forget the joy of spinning round and round with your arms stretched out. And of falling into arms that will catch you and cradle you with love.

Simply put

I think when I started this blog it was as a way for me to practice getting thoughts in order on 'paper' (or in this case a computer screen). Honestly, I'm not exactly sure what compelled me, but I wanted a new blog.

It's like that feeling you get when you buy a new notebook and write on the very first page--anything seems possible at the beginning--'maybe this notebook will be the one I finally write a book on' or 'surely this notebook will help me organize my schedules.' In school it was more about the start of classes or a new subject. Always it was the beginning and what would follow was unknown.

With a blog there isn't really a road-map the way there was in school. Instead, I pressure myself when it comes to a blog. Is it a diary? Is it a place for 'innermost thoughts'? I don't think so, because let's be honest. This is one of the most public forums available. Depending on your settings, anyone in the world can access these thoughts. Anyone who uses an online blog as a diary is setting themselves up.

Instead, perhaps this is a soapbox? (As in, get down off your soapbox!) If that's the case, than there aren't any rules, outside of my own, and I get to be right about everything. While that appeals to me as much as the next person, I don't think I want a place where I can be right about everything. (No really - that's true!)

For me, my grand hope for a blog (this one or any other) is that I can make it a jumping off point for my thoughts about the world around me. How do I fit? Where are the moments that clarify for me what my place is? Still, at other times, this is a place to land. A place to put down the answers I might have found that day. Perhaps the answers won't be 'permanent' but I don't think much in life is permanent.

I guess what I'm saying is this; if I use a voice that is too strong at times or hold a position that seems too immovable or judgmental--well, I hope I won't. I'm not an immovable or judgmental person, but the written word is awfully different from the hands-flailing type of communication I normally participate in. I just know that I am tired of being diplomatic. I'm tired of having strong thoughts but watered-down speech.

So, should anyone ever actually read this, I hope you'll give me a chance.

Renting a Room

Every Tuesday I meet with four other women at my church to discuss a redesign project for our church website. We just started about a month ago on what is proving to be a big project. (Who knew I'd have to explain that "site map" is not some phrase I made up?)

Anyway, yesterday when we met we brought with us some pros & cons we've found browsing around the beloved world wide web. My favorite: One church website included a link to "Rentals." Announced across the top of the page--

"My Father's house has many rooms....
Some of those rooms are for rent."

I found this hilarious. As I thought of it later during my car ride home, I remembered this Audio Adrenaline song "Big House":

All I know, it's a big ol' house with rooms for everyone.
All I know, it's lots of land where we can play and run.
All I know is you need love and I've got a family.
All I know is you're all alone, so why not come with me?

The theme here being that there is a place for everyone in God's house. I've always looked at this passage as one of those after-life, heavenward, i'n't-that-so-sweet-with-the-angels-singin' metaphors. What if instead we thought of our God-rooms as in the here and now?

I've recently been rearranging furniture in my house. Spring always causes me to 'nest.' Whenever I rearrange a room, I feel a renewal each time I'm in the space. My bedroom is always first. Waking up to a new view after so many dreary, gray winter mornings makes a remarkable change in the way I face each day.

I think we could all use a little 'rearranging' after a long time with the same view. If you were to peek at your room in that party-house in Heaven, what do you suppose it would look like? What posters would line the walls? Maybe they'd be full of pictures, blue ribbons, coloring book pages, deer heads, those fuzzy paint-by-number things.... Perhaps you'd take a page from HDTV and have a boldly painted 'accent wall' and tastefully decorated, feng-shuied space.

Certainly there isn't any right or wrong answer (although the deer head thing is a little icky). I think more importantly the question is do we, as the church-link infers, think of our rooms--our 'rentals'--as rooms in the Father's house? In our houses of worship and spiritual spaces, do we take stock as a visitor or an owner?

Perhaps one person on this earth who truly understood what it was to be a visitor was Jesus. He was undeniably a visitor each day of his last years on earth, as he traveled from city to city, household to household. Before his trial and ultimate execution, Jesus spoke to his disciples and in an effort to comfort them, was recorded as saying this:

"...There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.
If this were not so, would I have told you that
I am going to prepare a place for you?
When everything is ready, I will come and get you,
so that you will always be with me where I am."
-John 14:2-3 (New Living Translation)

I like this statement of there being 'more than enough room' for everyone. We find ourselves in a bankrupt climate of mortgage crises, poor real estate markets and remarkably high rental prices. Now, as always, it is so important to have a clear view of the 'house' that is God's house. In God's house, there are many, many rooms; there are rooms even beyond what are needed--more than enough room. It is a big, big house where you find love and family. Do our church homes hold true to that standard? Do we find room for everyone?

If indeed we are just visitors, as Christ was, and trust that he has gone ahead to prepare a place for us, is it so much to think that we should work as hard to prepare a place for him? Each year more and more people turn away from what is seen as 'the church' because it's become dilapidated housing. It is no longer a comforting shelter from the storm or a welcoming beacon in the night. I'm not so sure we've 'kept a light on' for seekers so much as we've slapped up a No Vacancy sign.

We most definitely do not invite visitors to slap up some wallpaper, hang up their favorite posters, paint little blue checks on the ceiling, or even, dare I say, nail up one of those singing fish things. Metaphorically speaking, I don't think we ask or expect people to 'make themselves at home.'

As Christ-followers who should strive to be seeker-friendly, that is just what we should invite people to do. Who knows? Maybe that next person with the 'crazy' ideas will do just the rearranging we need for a clear, refreshing view. Certainly if God can hold a room for each of us in his house, we can make room for a few more in ours.