everchanging view

An Advent Prayer; Joy for every longing heart

one part of my job at Lake Forest Church during this season of Advent has been to write our Advent readings and prayers.
here's what we read and prayed together this morning.

ONE:

today is the third Sunday in Advent and we celebrate JOY.

yet, how can we celebrate Joy when there is so much sorrow, evil, and death in our world? Today we lament the loss of so many precious lives to this week’s unfathomable tragedy; we ask why? We wonder how long will evil abound.

in the world is unrest.

in the world is struggle.

in the world is sorrow.

yet into the unrest, struggle and sorrow, God sent his only Son, quietly, humbly, unconventionally-as a babe who would give His life to redeem the world who would ask as He hung on the cross,

‘my God, my God, why have You forsaken me?’

today we pray our pain and our fear as Jesus did. Let us take a moment of silence to pray for those who are in the midst of overwhelming loss.

we invite Jesus, the Redeemer, into our questions, our pain and fear.

and we wait.

we hope.

we rejoice that He has overcome the world.

and we long for Him to come to earth and make that a reality.

until then, together we sing

of Love come down,

of Hope for the World,

of Joy for every longing heart.

ALL:

Joy to the world, the Lord is come.

Let earth receive her king

Let every heart, let my heart, prepare Him room.

Jesus, We prepare room for You in our lives, not just as the babe in the manger but as the King who will come and redeem us all, bringing an everlasting joy, a joy that completes and renews us, a joy that is Your presence in and among us. Unspeakable joy.

Deep and satisfying Joy.

Joy from the One who is Love, come to dwell with us.

Amen.

like a uniform

a few years ago i stumbled across a book that has rocked my world repeatedly, challenging me and my various whacked points of view: listening to your life by frederick buechner.
the reading for monday was this:
'what if anything have you and i done to battle against the great darkness of things?
as parents and the children of parents,
as wives and husbands and friends and lovers,
as players of whatever parts we have chosen to play in this world,
as wielders of whatever kind of power,
as possessors of whatever kind of wealth,
what other human selves have we sacrificed something of our own sweet selves to help and heal?'

even now, as i type this, i can feel my heart lurch inside my chest,
what HAVE i done?
what AM i doing?
now, i help the poor and all that jazz. i volunteer and serve and give.
but what does it cost me? what have i sacrificed of my own sweet self???
AND (dang it, frederick) he starts with parents and children and husbands and wives and friends...not the poor homeless people out there to whom we can write a check, put it in an envelope and send it on. (please know that i'm not discounting that at all; write that check and send it)
instead he asks how am i sacrificing (not just giving...there is a marked difference) of my own sweet self to those that are closest to me? for me, sometimes it's easiest to give to those who aren't as close to me, who don't piss me off or hurt my feelings or diss me. but when it's the ones who day in and day out are up in my face....
that's hard. and i suck at it.

i have a friend whose mom is staying with her. her mom is sick. and high maintenance. and self absorbed. she abdicated self care years ago both physically and emotionally so she's feeble and frail. in body and spirit. and even though my friend is struggling herself with acute and chronic back pain, i watched her tenderly care for her mom; sacrifice of her sweet self to help and heal. quietly, like the widow dropping her mite in the offering plate, fixing her mom's plate, giving her medicine, changing a bandage on a wound that is slow to heal.

buechner goes on to quote a traditional advent prayer: 'give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light.'
put on the light like a garment. like a uniform.

this, this giving of our sweet selves in order to battle against the great darkness of things, is the meaning of Christmas to me. choosing to give because Christ chose to give. following His example of giving up his God-dom (or whatever) to put on human skin and flawed humanity among those who had no use for him, who didn't recognize who he was or what he was saying.
who dissed him.

when i think about my life, it's so freakin' easy to be selfish, to let myself off the hook, to cling to my rights. but i want to wear the uniform. so today i'm putting it on. and we'll see about tomorrow...

divided highway

it's stunning how polarized we are about the upcoming election.
that's a newsflash huh?? nothing like stating the obvious.

i'm saddened by it all.
the name calling.
the faith doubting.
the sheer ugliness of our society towards one another. it's not civil.
we forget we are on the same side.
not Romney's side.
or Obama's side.
but the side of America. the UNITED states of America.

my husband and i disagree on some political issues.
i'm not gonna lie to you. last election was hard for us.
but this time around we've had better conversations, civil discussions, heated at times, but civil.
on many things we've just had to agree to disagree.
and there are issues where he thinks i'm flat out wrong and tells me so.
and visa versa.
but ultimately our disagreements remain about the issues. it's not personal with us. i don't doubt his character or his faith or his intelligence because we don't agree about everything.
and visa versa.
cause ultimately we are going the same direction. we just disagree on the best route to take. and at the end of the day, life is more than, bigger than who sits in the oval office.
and that's something algie and me definitely agree on.