Lessons from a Stocking.

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In the food chain of stockings, it's nothing special, but something deep within stirred when my mother recently sent this childhood relic. Making her way through some long-ignored Christmas box, no doubt, she found this glimpse of Christmas past and decided to send it to her 54 year-old little boy. Like few other objects, it carried me back to the Dr. Denton mornings of rushing to the fireplace in my parents’ room at first light where my stocking hung, farthest on the right.

 Such time travel can lead to stifling nostalgia, but it can also feed an adult’s soul. To remember when life was not so complicated, when the content of a stocking was a great concern, can renew one’s heart. To feel again the joy and happiness that is uniquely Christmas can awaken one to the years of debris that now clouds our spiritual receptors. 

I was told by a reliable source that if I am to receive the Kingdom of God, I am to become like a child. It was a lesson heard too early, before I could understand it’s meaning, but the stocking now hanging on our mantle teaches the lesson anew. 

So bring on the lights . . . turn up the carols . . . and hold on tight to the people and traditions that speak to your heart! 

Let’s go back, if only for a moment. Let’s stop squinting at the world and open our eyes wide again. Let’s lift our burdened shoulders and dance. Let’s race our children to Christmas morning, where hanging on the mantle is all we need to know.

Practicing Incarnation

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Advent I: Practicing Incarnation

A seasonal shift in religious focus is both a good and bad thing. It’s good because changing spiritual gears and traveling in a new way renews our focus. The problem comes when our heightened focus suggests God is active only in particular ways at particular times. The resurrection we celebrate at Easter is not unique to spring. It happens every day, in tombs of all shapes and sizes. So, too, the wonder of incarnation uniquely honored at Christmas happens in all sorts of “stables” throughout the year.

With that in mind, I wonder what it would look like if we did not wait for December 25th to celebrate the incarnation – Emmanuel or God-with-us. What if the gift of Christmas arrived early this year because we called forth the presence of God in our daily lives . . . in the conversations we have with strangers and loved ones . . . in time spent with our children or work colleagues . . . in the gifts made or notes written?

Practicing incarnation could be a wonderful way to prepare for Christmas. I know God does not need us to become present in the world. Actually, I think it’s the other way around. 

Facing Death

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When my father died, I stood in the hallway. 

After a summer of ups and downs, it was clear that this would be his last night. Friends escorted my mother down the wall to wait, and I stood outside as the doctors and nurses worked frantically in the room to save him. Watching his vital signs on a screen by the nurses’ station, and listening to the chorus of beeps and buzzers, I stood waiting until the one important line on the screen went flat before heading down the hallway to tell my mother.

Recently, I found myself in a hauntingly familiar situation. A beloved friend and valued mentor was in the hospital in a coma and not likely to survive. Although there was nothing I could do, I traveled to Washington to see him. The hallway smells and sounds were the same, but, when I arrived at the nurses’ station, I did not stop. I entered his room.

He was hardly recognizable, and it took time for me to accept the man lying in the bed was my friend. I shared with him my utter love for him, appreciation for all the experiences we shared, then gave him permission to go. Reaching over the metal railing on his bead, I placed my hand on his head and said an impromptu version of Last Rites, then kissed him goodbye.

 “You’ve been through this before,” my friend’s wife said softly when she arrived. It was true. The sounds and smells were identical, as was the overwhelming sadness. There was one difference, though. This time I wasn’t standing out in the hallway; I was in the room. I wasn’t watching a screen; I was touching and kissing a friend. 

I grew up avoiding death, and practically every other type of pain. Life was all white picket fences, symmetrically planted flowers, and birds singing harmonious melodies. It was a peaceful way to grow up, but it wasn’t real. When the other side of life showed up, I usually ran or crawled into places of refuge. In other words, I always stood at a distance, in the various hallways, to avoid direct contact with the pain of life.

This time, I entered the room. With knees quaking, and heart beating at a suffocating rate, I crossed the threshold. I’m beginning to realize it’s inside that real life is found, where love is expressed in all its imperfections, and where the presence of the one who gave us life in the first place is most keenly felt.  

Driving home, I vowed to remember this lesson the next time I need to enter a room . . . or take an unwanted phone call, open an ominous windowed envelop, have a difficult conversation, or make a paralyzing decision.  I wasn’t alone in the hospital room, nor will I be alone in any other room.