Making Room

The waitress comes to fill my coffee before I’ve had a chance to take a sip. With my mug full of my old coffee, there was no room for the new. Christmas carols play above, and I listen clinging to my mug with both hands and listening to the music as if kneeling at an altar rail.

The Christmas season can be like juggling emotional hand grenades. The highs are so high, and lows so low. The songs that surround us, many of which are set in minor keys, invite us into a seasonal descent toward thoughts and feelings we often ignore, or deny. Rather than avoid such a melancholy pilgrimage, I dive in, dive down and think about the people I miss and the memories that feel too distant. It’s like reaching into my soul with an ice cream scoop and removing the sediment that’s built up over time. It’s not easy work, nor comfortable, which is probably why people avoid it with stretched smiles, artificially stimulated joy, and calendars too full to reflect. 

There’s a strange relief on the other side, however. It’s as if my soul has more room to breathe when I clear out the old and make room for the new. 

The waitress returns and, this time, there’s room in my mug.

1. Do you ever have melancholy thoughts during this time of year? If so, do you ignore or deny them, or do you allow yourself to feel the feelings?

2. In what way can you make time this season to make room inside?

3. Pick one of your favorite Christmas songs and sit still for the whole thing, letting your heart and mind go where they will.

Beyond the Yes

The season of Advent begins with Mary and her “yes” to God. Given the emotional and theological sediment that has built up over two thousand years, it’s hard to grasp the magnitude of what was being asked of her. You’re going to bring God into the world, the angel said in whatever way an angel coveys such news.  I have no doubt Mary was stunned, shocked, and scared in ways the Bible account does not come close to capturing, but it does contain the most important fact: Mary said “yes.” Because of her yes, the world has never been the same.

For years, I’ve focused my attention and gratitude on Mary’s courageous yes, but now I see that what followed it was equally, if not more, remarkable. There’s the yes, then there’s life beyond the yes. Mary is to be venerated not only for agreeing to go along with God’s plan, but all she did after. If only we could follow her example.

I happen to believe we are visited by angels often and they always seem to be asking each of us to bring God into the world in some way. It may be through an act of service, the creation of a work of art, the giving of a gift, or some other incarnational act, but the invitations abound. Many of us say yes in our own way, but saying yes is nothing to what follows. The hard part is life beyond the yes.

I’ve always had a thing for yeses. They’re fun and exciting, particularly for people with my personality. All the newness and infinite possibilities fill my soul like nothing else. My struggle always comes after the yes, and, I suspect I’m not unique. Suddenly, we find ourselves as uncomfortable as Mary riding on a donkey, as surprised by our surroundings as Mary giving birth in a stable, and as challenged as she must have been at the foot of the cross. Life on the other side of yes is never easy, never what we expect, but that’s life beyond the yes, I suppose. 

Like God, life beyond the yes surpasses all human understanding, but, if we’re willing to go along and do our part, we might end up bringing God into the world, and that’s something that makes angels sing.

1. Think of a time when you were invited to bring God into the world. Did you say yes, or make an excuse to say no?

2. For those times when you said yes, what was life like beyond the yes?

An Advent Point of View

It felt like he was in a Hollywood production, like the camera of his heart was pulling back from the table where the people he loved most were devouring the meal surrounded by endless banter. He was there at the head of the table, close enough to smell his aging mother’s perfume, but removed enough to watch and listen as if floating above.

Pulling the camera closer, he could see the sadness in his son’s eyes. It had been a long year and he was still thinking of the girl who left him last summer. His daughter and husband look happy, now, but there was a time this year he wondered if they were going to make it. His mother’s shaking hand and loose grasp of memories reminds him that they are all heading into difficult waters.

But, pulling the camera back he sees a collage of his life that is an overflowing stream of blessings. How blessed he is to have his mother at the table at all. Watching his wife reach over and gently touch their son’s hand, as if to awaken him from his trance, he never tires of watching the mystery of a mother’s instinct. From this angle, he can see not only those at the table but his father’s portrait on the wall as if waiting for a seat at the table. 

It is this further angle of life I seek this Advent, the one that sees beyond the details to the theme, the ordinary to the mystical. I want to see beyond someone’s late arrival to hear the joyful greeting. I want to turn off the TV that tears at the fabric of my soul to the music that mends. I want to look not to the gift a person may or may not like but to the abundant love within me that caused me to go beyond my Christmas budget, again. 

It is a camera angle I control. This Advent, may I direct it beyond the here and now, to the there and not yet. May I use the camera to see and hear what truly matters.

If music helps you change your camera angle, check out my mix “A Meditative Christmas” on Spotify. Recommended with coffee (or wine).