Christmas

I'm soooo excited! Tomorrow night, Paul and I and our friends will meet at church at 10:30 p.m. We'll sing carols as more people gather, and we'll have the accompaniment of our choir, and the organ, and a brass section helping out. We'll get bulletins and candles from the ushers, and hug people and smile at newcomers, and wish them Merry Christmas. And at the end of the service, around midnight, we'll light our candles, the church will go dark, and we'll sing Silent Night as we kneel in the circles of light that glow from our candles.

I'll probably cry, as much from the feeling of being surrounded in God's love and the love of those we gather with as from knowing that this baby boy who was born, and is born in each person, came for me. I can barely remember most of the people I went to high school with, but God knew all of us before we were ever conceived. He came for me, and you, and all the people of the world. People who don't know Him and maybe have never heard of Him. People who have forgotten they once knew Him. People who know Him, but are in pain looking for Him, or worse, ignoring Him. He came for me even though I was a pain-in-the-ass kid who lied constantly and ruined a Christmas snooping for presents with my four year-old sister. He came even though I'd spend years thinking He was no more real than Greek gods were to the Greeks. He came even though I still sometimes act like a stupid kid, or don't do what's right out of some sense of spite. He's here with me now and always, even when I forget it. And it's that way for everyone.

I'll cry because this event is so run-of-the-mill and yet so special. Babies have been born for thousands of years, and His birth was no different. Mary probably cried and screamed and moaned and wondered what the heck she was thinking saying, "Yes," to an angel. She couldn't blame Joseph, but did she get a little mad at God for choosing her, giving her so much pain? Jesus was born in the same mess as all of us, cleaned up and wrapped in fabric. It's normal and ordinary, and yet every mother will tell you that birth is a miracle. He would later perform miracles, but isn't this the biggest one of all? God and man? Wow.

I'll cry because of the times I missed Christmas, when I was an angry teenager, when I was in college searching for something that was already there, when I was too drawn up in myself to care about what was going on with other people in the world. I'll cry because of the joy that those times are behind me and I can go ahead in life with my head up and aware and full of prayer. Most of the time.

I'll cry for the people who don't have all that I do, who aren't surrounded by love and friends and family, who don't have a house or apartment or a room, who don't have enough to eat. I'll go home to a warm house with barking dogs greeting me, and a bed and a shower and blueberry french toast after opening a few presents in the morning. There are people who give a finger for a good candle to light their way in whatever darkness they have to live with, and all I have to do is move my finger to be surrounded in light.

I pray that everyone gets a tear of joy and one of just a little sadness too, this Christmas. I know I'll be busy with friends and family inn the next few days, and I pray that you will be too. But remember there are people, like Jesus, who are huddled and alone, who face living in an uncertain world that is hostile to them, who were babies once, just like you, me and Him.

Advent

Christ is coming!

One of the strange things to me about religion is some of the ritual. Christ is long gone from our world. He was born, he died, he rose. All past tense. But we are awaiting his coming, which is present progressive tense. Remember, I'm an English teacher. And it's not like we talk about this as the second coming during this time of year, but the birth as if it were happening again.

I also have a good imagination, and understand that we are pretending, acting out the coming birth in Advent, just as we will act out his death in just a few months. I can go along with this, but still, it's just a little weird how we Christians reenact the emotions that go along with these events. I'm not saying we shouldn't be emotional, just that...well... God made us into some pretty interesting beings, no?

I am always excited about Christmas coming. I love the decorations. I have trees and Nativities all over my house. I get choked up seeing the lights all over the city. I love the movies, and got choked up last night at the Music Box Theater's annual double feature. My husband, Paul, wrote about it better than I could. I love the music and carols, or most of them, and the way that people get a little friendlier. Midwesterners are pretty friendly folks all year long, but they open up more with the bell ringers, and cold weather and other things that we all share as we go about our days. And I am excited knowing that Christ was born a beautiful baby boy, even as I will grow sad in a few months knowing he must die a horrible death to save all of us.

There are all the cliches about keeping Christmas all year long and remembering what/who Christmas is all about. In past years our church bulletins and announcements have used the title "ChristMass" which is closer to the Middle English spelling and was probably used as subtle reminder to us to remember where our priorities should lie. (Again, English professors love etymology as much as verb tenses.) There are bumper stickers about "Keeping Christ in Christmas" and people who lament that Christmas has become all about gift giving. Even Lucy in the Peanuts comic back in the 1960s noted that Christmas has become a "big commercial racket." It's nothing new. Even the idea that Christmas shouldn't be a holiday is silly. Holiday comes from the words "holy" and "day." We just forget that too.

So this week, I'll be getting the last-minute wrapping done, and picking up the holiday ham, and hoping I haven't forgotten anything. And I'll be smiling at people, like I do all year long. But I'll be adding some "Merry Christmas" greetings in there, and putting some money in the Salvation Army pots. But what I'm really looking forward to is Christmas Eve Mass, feeling that closeness to my family and friends, celebrating the joy of a new baby coming into the world, one who probably smelled of fresh hay and wool blankets, who blinked his new baby eyes and had those cute pink baby lips made for sucking at his mother's breast. One who had such a big job to do, but whose mother and father protected and loved him, even as they wondered what would be happening in his future. Even though we know the story, we can share that wonder too.

But seriously folks....

I’ve been a little off-hand in some of my posts, and I just wanted to assure everyone that I know this calling is serious stuff. I did grow up in a serious Catholic Church, Our Mother of Sorrows, so I know about being serious. If that’s not a serious name to be under for all of one’s formative years, I don’t want to know the name of the church that could beat it.

Last week’s Gospel reading was about God’s call to Mary. And during his sermon, Fr. Charlie spoke about how Mary took her call so seriously and without any ducking around it. So many of the people in the Bible who got calls said things like, “Hey, I’m not the guy for this job,” or, “Are you really serious?” in the lingo of their day. Only Mary says that she will do God’s will without so much as a shrug or a look to see if she was the one being spoken to. Sometimes I’ve thought that if a talking bush or cloud or an angel would show up for me, it would make things so much easier. In fact, that is one of the funniest things to me about the Old Testament. One character asks God to perform three tasks to make sure that it’s really God’s voice he’s hearing. It would be akin to me hearing a voice coming through my ceiling and my saying, “Okay, if you’re really God, when I get home from work, I expect the carpet to be vacuumed,” and when I get home, the place is spotless. Then, I say, “Okay, so just to make sure, when I get tomorrow, I want this place to look like about 15 dogs had a shedding party,” and behold, my house is covered in fur the next evening. But then I’m stuck with a mess, so I ask one more time for God to vacuum, and He does. As if the whole voice from above wasn’t enough, I now have a really clean house. How could anyone doubt that voice as God’s?

Anyway, this call is serious partially because we don’t have so many burning bushes, voices from clouds or people with wings sprouting from their shoulders showing up at our doors. I really have to listen, and I need others to listen with me. This isn’t a voice we can all hear when we just light some candles, sit really quietly and stop breathing. This is the same voice that we all ask for when we need something. And we’ve all seen the bumper sticker that reads, “If you’re not hearing an answer to your prayers, the answer might be, ‘No’.” But a call isn’t a yes or no question. There’s no divining rod, Ouija board or Magic 8 Ball to consult.

But this is also magic, in the best sense. It’s mystical, spiritual, and awe-some. And right now it’s Christmas, a season full of those very qualities. People who never pray, never go to church, never think about God, hear bells ringing that ask them to help those who are less fortunate, and they give what they can. People who don’t think of themselves as spiritual have their breath taken away by the beauty of a world awash in sparkling white. People who don’t usually attend worship take time out to go, if only for tradition’s sake, but their hearts might swell with the glory of a baby being born who will save the world. A baby saving the world. A person. Someone who smelled like babies do, who squirmed and gurgled and had those funny crossed eyes babies have. Someone whose mother loved him and rocked him and fed him at her breast. Someone whose father looked down at him and marveled that something so small could be so strong. Someone who would hear stories about men traveling over the country to come see him when he was born, stories about a magical star over his birthplace, just like we hear stories about ourselves as babies, only without strangers showing up with really expensive presents, I’m guessing.

So please, during this time of magic and wonder, fill your heart with a child-like sense of God’s love. Listen for that quiet voice that tells you of that love. Pray that others might hear it too. Pray for me, and know that I’ll be praying for you.