Archive for December 2011

i'm learning something. and it's a hard lesson.

everything changes. (you think i'd know that...blog title and all)

for example, my kids...
when my family was younger, i didn't notice it as much and i probably wasn't as disturbed by it because some changes i was looking forward to...wearing a belt again after having a baby, not carrying a diaper bag, no car seats, not having to hire a sitter...you get the picture.
but as my family has grown up and the changes move them out of my house and daily life, i've struggled. but it's not only with family that changes have come. friendship is the place where i am most struggling these days. i read two blog posts today as i finally caught up on email. in all honesty, i believe they are providentially meant for me.
one from the Nester on friendship. it's been a long time since i've actually worked at being a friend. to both old friends and new ones. i need to be open to making new, close friends. i have lots of people that i like, really like but i haven't let them into the 'inner friend zone.' that's been exclusively reserved for just a few friends. probably because they've known me the longest and i really love them. they've seen me at my best and my worst. and they still loved me. back to the changing part of the story. as much as i've hated every second of it, these friendships have changed. no one moved away or hates my guts but they have changed.
enter the second God-sent blog: Rachel Held Evans on faith and friendship. many of my friendships have come out of the church for various reasons...i work there, for starters. but as some of my closest friends are struggling with the church (being hurt by people in the church, struggling with theology that is taught, and just with the organized church in general) the friendships change. we don't see each other. maybe we don't believe the same things anymore. and this all matters to me. and i've been mad. distressed. and perhaps judgemental.
so i'm writing this post to declare that i am going to try to embrace the changes.
to love the people where they are.
to make new friends and open myself up to what the future holds.

advent reading today. excerpts below. comments following. italicized comments mine.

'we create holy ground and give birth to Christ not by doing but by believing and loving the Infinite One who stirs within. (this requires paying attention to the stirring, if there even IS stirring) This requires trust that something of great and saving importance is growing and kicking its heels in you. The angel summoned Mary, betrothed to Joseph, from the rather safe place of conventional wisdom to a realm where few of the old rules would make much sense. She entered that unknown called 'virgin territory.' She was on her own there. No one else could judge for her the validity of her experience.

She can measure her reality against Scripture, the teachings of her tradition, her reason and intellect, and the counsel of wise friends. But finally it is up to her. The redemption of the creation is resting on the consent-the choice of this mortal woman to believe that what she is experiencing is true.'

'Mary offered only space, love, and belief...in the end when other human gifts have met their inevitable limitation, it is the recollected one, the bold virgin with a heart in love with God who makes a sanctuary of her life, who delivers Christ, who then delivers us.''what if by instead of doing something, we were to be something special. Be a womb. Be a dwelling for God. Be surprised.'

i decided to write about this here season after reading a blog by the Screaming Kettle that i found through my friend Michelle. he's funny and has a cute wife and baby. and i need to write this.

i'm trying to be open minded about christmas and what can be gained from celebrating it. i don't want to miss something. i mean, there's gotta be something, right? i just heard that Target is staying open til 9pm on christmas eve. so obviously they think it's about shopping. gifts. buying. spending.

i am rehearsing for a christmas eve service at work. and buying christmas presents from the comfort of my bed online (thank you God for the internet.) and trying to find a simple cool way to decorate my house. (don't judge me. it's important to me and i hate doing the same thing every year. right now i have a tree with lights on it. that's it.)
and i can't just check out. i can't say 'i'm not going to decorate or buy gifts or work or go to christmas parties. so how can i celebrate?

i'm doing a lot of doing. but i'm not being...not even sure how to be. just ask anyone who knows me. but i want to be. i want to make room for Jesus to live in me, to live through me. to find balance and joy in the craziness. so i'm going to try to find time everyday to BE.

i love this reflection on advent. comes from a book i'm reading with friends called 'Watch for the Light.'
too many times this season comes and goes and its all about work for me. these readings change my perspective. i'm happy about that. i need that. i want to be awed by the fact of Emmanuel...God with us.

A Sky Full of Children
Madeleine L'Engle

I walk out onto the deck of my cottage, looking up at the great river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky. A sliver of a moon hangs in the southwest, with the evening star gently in the curve.
Evening. Evening of this day. Evening of my own life.
I look at the stars and wonder. How old is the universe? All kinds of estimates have been made and, as far as we can tell, not one is accurate. All we know is that once upon a time or, rather, once before time, Christ called everything into being in a great breath of creativity - waters, land, green growing things, birds and beasts, and finally human creatures - the beginning, the genesis, not in ordinary Earth days; the Bible makes it quite clear that God's time is different from our time. A thousand years for us is no more than the blink of an eye to God. But in God's good time the universe came into being, opening up from a tiny flower of nothingness to great clouds of hydrogen gas to swirling galaxies. In God's good time came solar systems and planets and ultimately this planet on which I stand on this autumn evening as the Earth makes its graceful dance around the sun. It takes one Earth day, one Earth night, to make a full turn, part of the intricate pattern of the universe. And God called it good, very good.

A sky full of God's children! Each galaxy, each star, each living creature, every particle and subatomic particle of creation, we are all children of the Maker. From a subatomic particle with a life span of a few seconds, to a galaxy with a life span of billions of years, to us human creatures somewhere in the middle in size and age, we are made in God's image, male and female, and we are, as Christ promised us, God's children by adoption and grace.

Children of God, made in God's image. How? Genesis gives no explanations, but we do know instinctively that it is not a physical image. God's explanation is to send Jesus, the incarnate One, God enfleshed. Don't try to explain the Incarnation to me! It is further from being explainable than the furthest star in the furthest galaxy. It is love, God's limitless love enfleshing that love into the form of a human being, Jesus, the Christ, fully human and fully divine.

Was there a moment, known only to God, when all the stars held their breath, when the galaxies paused in their dance for a fraction of a second, and the Word, who had called it all into being, went with all his love into the womb of a young girl, and the universe started to breathe again, and the ancient harmonies resumed their song, and the angels clapped their hands for joy?

Power. Greater power than we can imagine, abandoned, as the Word knew the powerlessness of the unborn child, still unformed, taking up almost no space in the great ocean of amniotic fluid, unseeing, unhearing, unknowing. Slowly growing, as any human embryo grows, arms and legs and a head, eyes, mouth, nose, slowly swimming into life until the ocean in the womb is no longer large enough, and it is time for birth.
Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ, the Maker of the universe or perhaps many universes, willingly and lovingly leaving all that power and coming to this poor, sin-filled planet to live with us for a few years to show us what we ought to be and could be. Christ came to us as Jesus of Nazareth, wholly human and wholly divine, to show us what it means to be made in God's image.

Jesus, as Paul reminds us, was the firstborn of many brethren.
I stand on the deck of my cottage, looking at the sky full of God's children, and know that I am one of them.

everchanging view

eureka! ...dammit.

be

the morning star...