To Remember

The boy scored his first basket.

The girl has a solo.

I sorted the Lego.

We laughed at dinner.

It was so boring and normal and we were happy, except when we weren't, and then we were fine not being okay for a while.

This was a glorious weekend.

What Must Be Done

There is nothing to do than that which must be done. That's one of the truisms of adulthood and on the day that that which must be done is hard, it's a truism that sucks.

Today has to be hard. Today had fillings in it for one of the kids and so I sat in the hallway and cried while a kind man filled a couple of the many holes in that kid's mouth. There was nothing to do but get it done, but the doing was hard - there is no sedation offered mothers (a short-coming of the system I suggest). I'm tired now.

Today has Phase 2 grief in it over the fire trucks. Or is it Phase 97? Not sure, but today is the day after learning the first option, and that means today is sad because the first option sucks. It just does. It wouldn't have mattered too much what that option was - it was destined to suck, and therefore today was destined to suck. There's nothing to do but live with the truth that option A sucks and probably it's going to be a few days or weeks or months before option B and C and D make themselves known, before we know whether or not they suck too. Before we trip across the option that does not suck, that brings life.

On days like today, I am tempted to try to create things to do that do not suck. That are not hard. That don't make me cry.

But another truism of adulthood is that the hard days won't leave you alone. Until you make space for them, they'll just keep tapping on your shoulder, demanding to be borne. They can be delayed, but they can't be avoided.

So today I'm all in on doing what must be done. I'm going to cry a lot and indulge in the bleaks. And in the morning, maybe that which must done will be smile-making, joy-giving. Or maybe it will be plain. Don't know. I'll do it then.

Chased.

I have decided that I am optimistic about 2016. Despite the first day's repeating of several challenges that I was sure I had decided I was leaving in 2015, I end this first day of the year all kinds of certain that I'll be swimming in a deep ocean of goodness for the next twelve months.

There is one teeny, tiny obstacle to bathing in all this goodness: my fondness for fear. I have long been expert at keeping fear folded in my wallet, ready for any excuse to be pulled out and shown to any and all. When I was 8, it was fear of fire. When I was 10, it was fear of nuclear war. Lately I seem to like my fear of climate change and/or earthquakes quite a bit. I've also collected a fair number of more existential fears: fear that we are not who we think we are; fear that we have failed The One Test That Matters; fear that the stakes are higher than I thought; fear that I misunderstood it all.

Oh fear, what a faithful friend you have been.

However, I am really, really committed to my plans for 2016 so I must be caught. Because of course, I have been chased. Or at least, I'm willing to believe that it is truth-ish that Perfect Love chases out fear, and that I have been outrunning said perfect love for a while now, fuelled as I was by all that fear. And so I'm going to believe that having been chased, I can slow up enough to be caught and let all my fear get chased out.

Obviously, this has been an option for a while. But 2015 taught me that fear served me not at all - the worst things happened, and the anticipatory fear I'd borne didn't make those things any easier to manage. It was so irrelevant. It just didn't matter. Hard things were happening and we were doing them, and doing them actually made them a lot less terrible than fear had told me they would be. Fear is such a fucking liar. Anyway, if fear isn't going to equip me to handle all the terrible that is surely still to come, I think I'd like to just put it down. It has been so heavy.

I'm going to try to throw a bit more hope in my wallet instead, and then just go hunting for the goodness. Good morning day, I'll say. What goodness do you bring? That's what I'll say this year.

I think it's going to be awesome. Getting caught by Perfect Love is probably pretty great.

Waiting is Hoping

The gift of 45 minutes alone, unplanned, unspent, un-agenda'd.

The pressure of 45 minutes alone, unplanned, unspent, un-agenda'd.

Today I read somewhere, The Christmas you struggle with is not Christmas at all. And my heart said Amen. Because my Christmas, the one I love, is the one where we work at watching for Light. We watch for it in all the dark places of our lives and we really devote ourselves to spying the spots twinkling in the distance and if grace allows, perhaps we even realize they are not all that distant after all. The Christmas I love is the one where Hope is promised and The Wait is the point. It is one where we remember that the end will be the end - all there is is right now and what we are hoping for right now. Our Hope is the Present.

The rest - the frenzy and the consuming and the dreading and the pushing and relating and the pressure... none of that is Christmas. All of that is just a box with the wrong label on it. That is something else altogether. That is a big mess of ugly that has nothing to do with Christmas.

Waiting for that part to be over... well, that is part of it too. We move through it full of Hope that we will not be ruined. That goodness may rise from the ashes of a burnt out relationship, that the gift given will in fact be a gift needed, that our generosity will be spent in the right directions and that at the end of it all, our real Christmas will be bigger and more memorable than the rest of whatever was packed in that box.

The gift and the pressure - always wrapped together. But grace is seeing the gift and smirking at the pressure.

Wishes

"May this year be one of alignment, heart-fuel, and gentle courage."

Today I was given ostrich socks and a coupon for a hug a day. Someone bought me lunch and Starbucks bought me breakfast. I have a new-to-me-Pokemon card and only somewhat misshapen Mars bar.

Yesterday was the last day of 41. It was the last day of hoping for firetrucks. It was the last day of pretending not to be ambitious at work. Some big things ended yesterday, and there were tears and tender, weary togetherness and a subtle adjustment of the compass heading.

This morning we woke with puffy eyes yes, but maybe clearer vision. I went to yoga and moved through surrendered heart to the sweet balance between the mystery of what lies beyond our sight and the certain support of what lies beneath our feet. So much balancing - half moons and eagles and warriors; so much aligning left and right, above and below, heart and body, soul and sole. A practice that last week left me rageous (!!), this week left me joy-full and rested.

The rest of the day has been quietly lovely. Kindnesses at every turn, and of course the Facebook love that is a sweet gift. The last message has been from my friend Lisa who wished me the wish above. Alignment. Heart-fuel. Gentle Courage. They were today's words but I didn't have them until she gave them and once I got them, I knew they had been with me all day. They were the heartbeat of my practice this morning. They are the words for the year ahead. They affirm and confirm our best hopes about how this world works, about who the Creator might be and how we are loved.

As one year gave way to the next, I was reminded over and over and over again that we are not forgotten. That somehow, in some way that matters, we are noticed and known. We are not alone.

Happy Birthday to me.

Jack

Jack died.

Jack is our neighbour across the lane. He died last week at the age of 69, not enough years but years lived fully. His wife Rosa is heart-broken, and surrounded by her daughters and their children, but still so, so lonely.

Yesterday there was a mass for Jack at the sweet little Catholic church down the road. I had a nice cry of gratitude that the church offers so much solace and rite and ritual for grief. There are words and actions for everybody to follow as they work their way through the loss and get to the other side of death, where Life continues for all, even Jack if we've guessed right.

For most certainly, a funeral reminds me that we are gazing into a darkened mirror, and all of this is guessing. We're of course reminded that we do best to guess in the direction of love. We've got hope, faith and love and love is the very best of the three. We can hope like crazy, and choose faith like we're crazy, but in the end, loving is where we'll lose our crazy. Oh, love.

Raising kids on love is some damned hard work though.

This week, I'd have preferred to be raising kids with JOY!! or FUN!! or AWESOME!! But those have been in such short supply around here. We are in the depths and we don't know up from down most days. We hope like crazy that this isn't going to sink us. We are faking faith when we can't summon up the real thing. And we're choosing love as often as we can. But love is... steady. Sturdy maybe. But not necessarily light-hearted. Not hilarious particularly. Our worn-out, tired love feels a bit threadbare.

The hope and faith is that the love remains. That it is fuelled by source that is eternal and unending.

I just kind of wish that instead it was fuelled by cotton candy and Red Bull. We need some of that too-sweet-love. The kind that rots your teeth, but feels so good.

The thing is, it isn't cotton candy, Red Bull love that Rosa is weeping over tonight. She's not missing how FUN!! and AWESOME!! Jack was. She's missing the sureness of him. The slow, steady certainly that he was hers.

Sigh.

Indeed

Our wandering away from the habits of church and Christianity is almost always a peaceful wander. Our settledness with being Jesus-y at our best, and vaguely hopeful at our worst is almost always fine. Except for the days when it's not. And Easter Sunday is most assuredly a day when it's not.

I am not dying to be at church. I do not miss my messy judgey heart at the beachside baptisms. My faith in the resurrection would not be strengthened by passing a basket - a basket of bread, a basket of eggs, a basket for tithes. In fact, all of those make me angry.

And yet. And yet. And yet.

I am sad, so sad, that I don't have it in me to be giving my smalls what I was given: the storybook faith that grew and evolved to this place. For how can they get here, a place I love being almost every other day of the year, if they don't first travel through there? Through all the places I went first? How will they know about light overcoming dark? How will they know that death has no victory, no sting? How will they know that Life Wins, every time, because Jesus won, that one time?

The corner of my heart that believes in a God that notices each of us, that notices me - that corner believes that God notices my smalls, knows them and loves them and will bring them to where they need to be. But the corner of my heart that scoffs at that other corner is certain if not me, then... then they're fucked. Oddly, that corner is also the corner where the faith I am glad I outgrew lives. The corner where I've packed away the part where we believed we could somehow get something so catastrophically wrong that eternity would shift. Why do I unpack that box? Ever? Sigh.

This weekend, we celebrated the marriage of a friend. She has married her beloved, another woman we have come to know, and for whom we are thankful. And as they agreed in front of us, and their friends and their family, I cried as I so often do at weddings. But I cried, not just moved by the hope that each twosome brings to each wedding, but moved by the miracle that these two women could choose each other, and in public, in front of anyone who cared to join, be legally married. When I was my children's ages, this was impossible. Impossible. But yesterday it wasn't.

Those who chose not to celebrate with our friends - people who should have been in the middle of it, dancing with their daughter, cheering this love - they chose not to believing that's what God thinks they should do. They missed out on the sweet joy of yesterday because... because in their time and their world, God would rather they quit on their own sweet girl than carry on with her if she's going to love another sweet girl.

This isn't why we don't do church or Christianity anymore. Not exactly.

And yet. And yet. And yet.

It is the part (a part) of the story I don't want my smalls to learn. A part of their inheritance that they'd best not be bequeathed.

This weekend was all kinds of light and dark, all kinds of dead and nearly dead. And so today, I cling to my heart's belief that the resurrection is real, that Life Wins. That whoever Jesus is, his story is still True (if not accurate), and therefore, the story I'll build my hope around. The story I'll hope my own life finds a way to tell to our smalls, in its own small way.

One way or the other, this Sunday, it still matters: He is Risen.

It's [still] All About Me

So I thought something new.

As one... matures, these moments are less frequent and all the more noteworthy. When the new thing brings Life and Peace and Rest, I like to say that it's God speaking, but I'm never exactly sure if that's true. If my new thought turns out to be life-stealing for someone else, I'd hate to make God its author, you know?

Regardless of the genesis for this particular thought, it has indeed brought Life and Peace and Rest for my own heart and so I'm writing it down, the best way I know to remember it.

Parenting was extra-hard this last weekend. My boy was being jerky in front of friends and my beloved and I had run out of ways to respond. When we run out like this, we resort to our baseline terrible: for me it's a quiet quitting with hint of "you're not worth it" and for him it's a loud anger with strong undertones of "someone needs to put you in your place". Both are kind of gross, and most often leave us angry with the kid and with each other. The awful of these moments is magnified by an audience, and in this case, an audience of friends who love us and love our kids and also are comfortable enough to agree that the kid's a jerk and that we should probably do something to fix it. The impulse to agree with us is appreciated, but to be honest, in that moment I probably need more to hear that our kid is unusually great and that we're doing exactly what we need to in the moment.

Sigh.

The next 48 hours were full of interwebbing and wallowing in self-questioning-despair and of course a Moxieverse check-in. I could not stop wondering if I should really be meaner, stronger, stricter; if I had somehow enabled this 67 month old child to become a raging egomaniac incapable of self-regulation or decent manners. Over and over this: maybe we wrecked him.

And then yesterday, an epiphany (and I'll quote from my Moxie post): Parenting is all about me (obviously). I'm not parenting for who I want my kids to be when they're older. I'm parenting for who I want to be when I'm older. I don't want to look back and think, I wish I'd loved more/laughed more/caved more/been ridiculous more. If my kids are a bit messed up because I was inconsistent and sometimes too lax and sometimes freaked the fuck out, so be it. But if I can look back and say I'm glad I got to do that, win. Win. Holy shit. That feels SO much better.

Since this moment, there has been Life and Peace and Rest in my heart, and in my home. I am experiencing them in my own heart, and witnessing it in my children's rhythms. We are quieter today, and kinder and bouncing back from the quotidian set-backs that make up a day. It will all go to shit eventually, but there is fruit in these first hours and I'm deeply grateful.

As parents I think we think often about who we're raising and who we want them to be when they grow-up. We imagine them as teenagers and university students and newly-weds and maybe even as parents themselves. But I don't know that we very often think about who we will be when we grow up - aren't we supposed to be grown-up already? And yet there is much life still to be lived (God-willing) and as ever, the choices we make in the present are shaping our future. Future me wants to be invited to participate in my kids' life events, big and small. Future me wants to celebrate victories and mourn losses with these people. Future me wants to look over to Future Scott and still like the guy, and be able to see bits and pieces of his character and skill and love lurking in the hearts of my then-grown children. Future me wants to be able to look at a life that has moved towards more love, more kindness, more generosity, more grace, a life that choose Goodness as often as it can.

Living this way, focused on my outcomes instead of (or maybe, in addition to) theirs, frees me up SO much. Their behaviour is no longer a measuring stick of MY success or failure as a parent - MY behaviour is the only one worth measuring. Certainly I am the only one I can change in the short-term.

Perhaps this is too selfish, too self-centered. Probably it is. And yet. The upshot is that the change in focus lets me see others a bit more kindly. More love, less judgment. Those children and those grown-ups doing all kind of awful living? they're just not done growing up yet.

Parent-focused parenting. Maybe I'll start doing workshops. :)

The End

2013 ends and I carved out an hour to be thoughtful about it and make note of what ends with it. I even made time to imagine what 2014 might bring in. Oddly, I did all of this with pen and paper. I haven't written that way in many moons, and it has been a lovely discipline these last two days, to feel the urgency of the words reflected in my grip of the pen. I forgot that word/body connection that comes with hand-writing.

I have now given myself 15 minutes to share with you, my writing-reading friends, a few selected thoughts. The place of my more public-private writing in my life is a sweet one, and what it has mostly brought is a tiny sliver of not-so-lonely, knowing that these words of mine land in places I do not know, but are carried by a few others for a minute or two. The you of you making space for my words over these last years has been a great gift to me, and I'm deeply thankful for it. By giving you these words too, I invite you into the circle of accountability that is invisible to be sure, but nonetheless powerful for this heart.

The close of 2013 is the close of a few important things: our financial life as we knew it, our formal churching, and my 30s.  Those are big goodbyes in obvious ways, but there is not much in the way of sadness for me in this. Just a relieved gratitude really. In each of those spaces, there was so much goodness for so long, but in their closing there is now space for something new to show up. I am bidding them each adieu with fondness I guess. At least I am today. I was weeping about each of them at some point in the last year...

Tonight, we will end 2013 and if we can make it, start 2014 with our neighbours. We will share a meal and share opinions and share drinks and shares giggles and probably share a few curse words. I like it so much because I am so hopeful that neighbouring will continue to take up more and more space in my life in the year(s) to come.

As I've thought about the rest of what the year to come could bring, I've kept tripping across the word brave. I won't say more about that now, but that's where I'll end. Be Brave. Do it even when fear is lingering nearby. Do it anyway.  The its are yet to be named, although they are sometimes imagined. But they are there waiting to be done.

Stay tuned. And of course, a very Happy New Year.

Advent 22

This afternoon, my beloved forwarded an email from his chaplain. It's true - there are two or three places left in this world that believe spiritual care for the troops is worthwhile. In this case, the chaplain is a guy I really like, formerly a pastor with a story full of hurt and disappointment and faith and do-overs. He works on the floor with all those other people and I don't think he's too chaplain-y most days.

But today he sat down and wrote a letter to his co-workers. A letter that reminded each of them that this season, full though it may be with icky bits, demands a bit of thoughtfulness maybe. He reminded them that the offer this Advent is hope, peace, joy and love. That all the insanity of the season has at its root a shared hunger for those things and a shared desire to somehow provide them: "Advent is the anticipation of these ingredients being totally full in each of our hearts and in all the people we care about." 

I cried a bit.


Mostly because this afternoon, I ran out of hope. I couldn't find peace anywhere and joy seemed long gone. Happily love was lingering in the living room, but that seemed accidental.

For those in the know, it will not be a surprise that SJ's workplace is about this last place any of us should expect The Light to show up, least of all for me. But alas, from that most unexpected place - in the Bethlehem of our family's world - light shone.

I can't say more about this without being maudlin and over-stating things - I'm in that kind of mood. So I will let the chaplain end it for us. May these words bless you as they blessed me:

May Hope fill your thoughts

May Peace form your actions

May Joy be in your conversations and

May Love enrich everything you see

(But seriously! My husband received these words from someone he works with at his [holy-fuck-has-it-been-bad-there] job! I am astounded. This makes me believe God may love me more than just about anything else this week. Or maybe even year. I am floored.)

Advent 13

I think about what it means to be Jesus-y a lot. I talk about it a fair bit too, with all kinds of people. At work, at parties, at playgrounds... I like hearing what other people think it must mean, and I like hearing what I think it must mean as I puzzle it out with them.  I also like wondering about who God is, and what God is up to. They're not the same to me, God and Jesus. Jesus is the bodied expression of who God is, and the person who's Life and Death and Life Again makes knowing God possible and worthwhile. I probably believe that somehow what we call the Spirit is the animated back and forth between me and that Creator God and that Alive Again Jesus. That all three are all sewn up together into a trinity of something Other and Divine.

I was talking about who God might be with my friend Laura this week. She wondered about praying for what is impossible when it is sometimes nicer to just pray for what is possible instead. There's less disappointment in hoping for what's possible generally speaking. But as she wondered on about daring to ask the Creator of All for what cannot be if we're in charge, for what can only be if God's in charge, she remembered words from Brene Brown. They were words for us to use when we've heard another's heart - "I don't know what to say, but I'm so glad you told me."  And suddenly Laura and I were quite caught up in the image of a God who sits across the table over coffee and says, I'm so glad you told me.

Whether we have poured out the darkest, bleakest, sinniest thoughts about those whom we thought we'd love, or gone on and on with our list of demands for our friends and beloveds and our own broken selves, or maybe waxed eloquent in overwhelmed gratitude for unexpected goodness, God nods slowly and says, I'm so glad you told me.

That's really the only answer to prayer that I can imagine is worth hearing.

Advent 10

I guess it was different before Jesus showed up. David hadn't seen the fishes and loaves being multiplied. He didn't hear about how the Kingdom of God was for anyone. He didn't know that God's mercy would go nuts like that.

I guess that's why the Psalms are full of David asking God to not let him be like "all those other people who are super bad".  That's not really a quote, by the way. But it's pretty much what he says, over and over and over again.

God, all those other people who aren't like me, who don't think like me, who want to hurt me and who just make me mad and afraid?? Do those people in God, and let me be okay and happy and rich and strong please.

I guess God got tired of it. Who knows why really. We just know that the whole chosen/not chosen thing kind of falls apart eventually and that something about Jesus showing up opens the whole of the Kingdom to the whole of humanity.

Even the people who aren't like me.

Psalm 26

Of David.

¹ Vindicate me, Lord,
    for I have led a blameless life;
I have trusted in the Lord
    and have not faltered.
² Test me, Lord, and try me,
    examine my heart and my mind;
³ for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love
    and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.

⁴ I do not sit with the deceitful,
    nor do I associate with hypocrites.
⁵ I abhor the assembly of evildoers
    and refuse to sit with the wicked.
⁶ I wash my hands in innocence,
    and go about your altar, Lord,
⁷ proclaiming aloud your praise
    and telling of all your wonderful deeds.

⁸ Lord, I love the house where you live,
    the place where your glory dwells.
⁹ Do not take away my soul along with sinners,
    my life with those who are bloodthirsty,
¹⁰ in whose hands are wicked schemes,
    whose right hands are full of bribes.
¹¹ I lead a blameless life;
    deliver me and be merciful to me.

¹² My feet stand on level ground;
    in the great congregation I will praise the Lord.

Advent 9

We advented with our friends last night. We fed the kids first, and lit a candle with them and wondered a bit about peace. Then we sent the kids downstairs and wondered as grown-ups about peace - if Jesus showed up with peace this Advent, what would we want that to look like?

All the busy-ness is difficult to avoid - I think I trip across a half-dozen "How To Hate Christmas Less" articles a day, all of them counselling that we just say no to a few more things this year. But I think maybe they're missing the point. I mean, yes, we ought to avoid the Too Muchness of the season, and there's very little wrong with simplifying.

But the Jesus story isn't that Jesus showed up and suddenly the world got quieter. The dis-ease and conflict of his time didn't ease up. There weren't fewer weddings or synagogue meetings. The pace didn't relent. What changed was that Jesus was there. In midst of all the silly, there was the Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

This season brings demands that can be too expensive. But the chaos has its place in the story. In the middle of all that we can't afford, we are given the gift of Jesus. The one who brings the hope and the peace and the joy and the love - the currency needed to bear the cost of it all.

I'm sure it's wise and good to look for ways to limit the chaos. But I think this year, I'm going to put my energy into collecting the peace that is promised instead. The peace that is big enough for it all.

Advent Six

Today we read several Psalms, all written by David. It is good to read them in batches like this, to remember that David was a big batch of crazypants, while at the same time having to remember that it was apparently super important that the Saviour of the Whole World be one of his descendants. David who in Psalm 16 says "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places" but says in Psalm 22, "I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by people."

I have said before and will say again, David's Psalms are in the Cannon to remind us that if that guy can be the great hero of the Old Testament, then there is room for ALL of us in the Kingdom of God.

I think that must be what made Jesus so mad so often in all the new testament stories. The religious leaders were so intent on counting people out for all kinds of awful reasons: your body doesn't work right leper; your mind doesn't work right possessed man; you're bleeding ma'am; your alms aren't enough old lady. Had they forgotten David's story? Forgotten how he was too young? then too lusty? then too afraid? then too weepy? Had they forgotten that the great love of G-d's life had been a mess? Good grief. Jesus must have sworn so much...

Jesus comes to remind us that we don't get to choose who isn't "in" - we don't get to count anyone out, not even our own selves.

Psalm 16

A miktam^[a] of David.

¹ Keep me safe, my God,
    for in you I take refuge.

² I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
    apart from you I have no good thing.”
³ I say of the holy people who are in the land,
    “They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”
⁴ Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.
    I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods
    or take up their names on my lips.

⁵ Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
    you make my lot secure.
⁶ The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    surely I have a delightful inheritance.
⁷ I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
    even at night my heart instructs me.
⁸ I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
    With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

⁹ Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
    my body also will rest secure,
¹⁰ because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
    nor will you let your faithful^[b] one see decay.
¹¹ You make known to me the path of life;
    you will fill me with joy in your presence,
    with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Psalm 22^[a]

For the director of music. To the tune of “The Doe of the Morning.” A psalm of David.

¹ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
² My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest.^[b]

³ Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
    you are the one Israel praises.^[c]
4 In you our ancestors put their trust;
    they trusted and you delivered them.
⁵ To you they cried out and were saved;
    in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

⁶ But I am a worm and not a man,
    scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
⁷ All who see me mock me;
    they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
⁸ “He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
    “let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
    since he delights in him.”

⁹ Yet you brought me out of the womb;
    you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
¹⁰ From birth I was cast on you;
    from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

¹¹ Do not be far from me,
    for trouble is near
    and there is no one to help.

¹² Many bulls surround me;
    strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
¹³ Roaring lions that tear their prey
    open their mouths wide against me.
¹⁴ I am poured out like water,
    and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
    it has melted within me.
¹⁵ My mouth^[d] is dried up like a potsherd,
    and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
    you lay me in the dust of death.

¹⁶ Dogs surround me,
    a pack of villains encircles me;
    they pierce^[e] my hands and my feet.
¹⁷ All my bones are on display;
    people stare and gloat over me.
¹⁸ They divide my clothes among them
    and cast lots for my garment.

¹⁹ But you, Lord, do not be far from me.
    You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
²⁰ Deliver me from the sword,
    my precious life from the power of the dogs.
²¹ Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
    save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

²² I will declare your name to my people;
    in the assembly I will praise you.
²³ You who fear the Lord, praise him!
    All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
    Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
²⁴ For he has not despised or scorned
    the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
    but has listened to his cry for help.

²⁵ From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
    before those who fear you^[f] I will fulfill my vows.
²⁶ The poor will eat and be satisfied;
    those who seek the Lord will praise him—
    may your hearts live forever!

²⁷ All the ends of the earth
    will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
    will bow down before him,
²⁸ for dominion belongs to the Lord
    and he rules over the nations.

²⁹ All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
    all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
    those who cannot keep themselves alive.
³⁰ Posterity will serve him;
    future generations will be told about the Lord.
³¹ They will proclaim his righteousness,
    declaring to a people yet unborn:
    He has done it!

Advent Four

I am finding this Advent more difficult, partly because it is so much easier this year. The last several years of angst-fuelled instrospection and reading and writing has borne good fruit - namely clarity and peace.

To be frank, much was simplified when my beloved's mother died - with her died much of the expectation and obligation that was a poison, and now what lingers is only her generous love of the season. I don't pull out all of her wall-hangings and Santa paintings and trimmings in pissy ill-will anymore, but with the deep pleasure of being able to share and remember the very best parts of their grandmother with her son and our two smalls. It is difficult to face how unwilling I was to accept her very best as her very best until it was too late. It is, and I'll accept the responsibility for it as part of what this season requires: remembering why we need a Saviour in the first place.

Also trickifying things this year is the direction my faith is moving - ever-increasingly away from church and the pillars of what has been my religious practice of the past. I guess almost a wholesale rejection of the religion part, with an equally-increasing peace with the pursuit of Jesus-y-ness being an adequate expression of faith. My community of faith doesn't meet weekly and tithe and sing and do Sunday School but does linger over coffees together sometimes. I do have a sweet homegroup that remains a source of at-home-ness in all seasons and I might despair if that disappeared. My beloved and I really love talking about who Jesus is too, and that is a sweetness. But I am not satisfied with this and still wrestle with the best way to grow in faith without building my own religion, while at the same time letting go of the religiosity that has shown itself to be empty and life-less.

Doing this while feeling the responsibility for giving children the gift of faith is fraught. I want for them fluency in faith so that they can grow up able to explore that land ably and with ease. I want them to know, deep in their hearts, that there is a Creator God who loves them and loves their neighbour and who asks that they in turn love God and love their neighbour and who's presence is a balm and source of peace through this life. I want them to know who Jesus is and agree that Jesus' words are the best reflection of who we believe God to be and the best guides for living a life full of Life and Light. But it seems wise to not take this on by myself - it seems like having a community to share all this work with would be smart. Surely there are other examples for doing this without a Sunday-morning-with-guitars-and-announcements meeting? Anybody?

And so this is an odd Advent. I don't wait for Jesus to make himself known in a new way, but instead I find myself out in the fields, wondering how to respond to the herald angels. I find myself following a star, unsure of what arriving at the destination will require.  There is no hesitation to receive the gift given, but there is equally no clarity about what is to be done with the gift.

In this way, I am not much different from the chief priests and elders in Matthew who keep asking questions of Jesus, hoping for an answer that will let things remain as they are. Tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of us, to be sure - all who are eager for everything to change will. But there are a number of us wanting Jesus' answer to be "Nope, you're finished changing. It's all good. Rest at home now." And for us, things are trickier.

Matthew 21:28-32

New International Version (NIV)

The Parable of the Two Sons

²⁸ “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
²⁹ “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
³⁰ “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
³¹ “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. ³² For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.