Advent IV: Great Tidings to All People

Mangers come in all shapes and sizes, and are found in unlikely places, still.

On a bleak November morning in 1932, a bewildered soul, with shaky hands and blood-shot eyes, sat at his kitchen table waiting for his childhood friend, and regular drinking buddy, to arrive.

Opening the door, however, the man could see his friend was different. He was now sober, he explained, and politely refused the invitation for a morning nip. Instead, he spoke to his friend about the presence of God he’d found and the transformative power of that presence. No longer struggling in the dark, longing for something to fill the emptiness within, the Christmas message of God being with us came early that year and became personal.

Years later, the man across the table described his impressions:

“That floored me. It began to look as though religious people were right after all. Here was something at work in a human heart which had done the impossible. My ideas about miracles were drastically revised right then. Never mind the musty past; here sat a miracle directly across the kitchen table. He shouted great tidings.” (Page 11 The Big Book)

That morning, a remarkable movement began for all people, or at least for those who need it. Begun at a kitchen table, of all places, two gathered like wise men with gifts - one bringing deep hunger, the other great tidings. As happened 2,000 years ago (and just the other day, and, most likely, later today and tomorrow) a presence came and changed the world, yet again.

Mangers come in all shapes and sizes, and are found in unlikely places, still.

Advent III: The Curtain

Everyone has memories of childhood Christmases.  Remembering special traditions, the looks and smells of our decorated houses, hearing particular music, and watching favorite movies can bring us back to cherished Christmas, to places deep within, places that feed our souls each year.

One of the most vivid memories I have is of a carol sing held at a huge house down the road from ours. I think the entire town was invited, or at least it felt that way, and food and drink abounded.

At a specific moment, two men gathered in front of the piano in the grand living room, while my father sat at the keys. Together, the three would lead us through the nativity story with carols sung throughout. Their telling of the familiar story brought it new life, and the carols filled the room and our hearts with deep joy. It made me want to sing loud, but I was too embarrassed to sing at all.

One year, I realized the windowsills behind the elegant curtains were two feet deep, wide enough for me to sit in cloistered safety and hear the story and sing the carols with no one seeing or hearing me. It felt as if I had God all to myself, and that spiritual intimacy behind the curtain is something I long for still.

Looking back, I wonder if that moment didn't influence my faith more than I realized. Today, when sitting quietly each morning, trying to get myself together spiritually, I wonder if I’m not trying to recreate the feelings behind the curtain, of having God to myself. Such intimacy is something to be treasured, for sure, but our lives of faith call us to more than private time with God, as this season vividly reminds us.

We are called to stand where people can see us, sing so people can hear us. In other words, we are called to come out from behind the curtain and join others in telling the tale and singing the song.

This Christmas (and beyond), may we do just that!

Advent II: The Door

It was a definitive moment. The soon-to-be-grown-up daughter exited her room, shut the door, and looked at her mother and said: “I can’t do it anymore.” With further discussion, the mother learned her daughter meant she could no longer live in her make believe world. Her time playing with dolls had come to an end, playing house was a thing of the past, and dressing up as a princess was over as well. In other words, she could no longer live in a world of magic, wonder, and mystery.

It was a sudden, dramatic declaration, but I suppose each of us has reached such a moment when we, too, have walked away from magic, wonder, and mystery into a world of fact, logic and reason (also referred to as “the real world"). The door from fanciful childhood dreams into the sensible thinking of adulthood was open to us all at some point, and, in one way or another, we went through, closed the door, and walked down the hall, leaving the deepest longing of our hearts behind.

And why not? Life is hard and challenges us in countless ways, leaving no time for dreams. Life is not as simple as we once hoped, our simplistic black and white world becomes a confusing, often unfair, grey. Life’s limits bring our optimistic horizons closer, and we’re left wondering if this is all there is to life? Faced with such a world, it’s no wonder we pull the door closed.

This season, however, offers the invitation to open the door once again. It speaks of a world beyond our imagination, one where angels sing, shepherds kneel, and wise men offer gifts. It is not a story that denies the grey of life, but enters the grey with the primary colors of childhood in ways we will never fully understand.

Emmanuel, God with us, is a promise that seems too good to be true. It’s like magic lighting darkness with a star, like wonder being wrapped in swaddling clothes, and mystery curling its finger as if to invite us down the hall to open the door once again.