A thought as Advent ends

"In deepest night, in darkest days,
When harps are hung, no songs we raise.
When silence must suffice as praise,
Yet sounding in us quietly, there is the song of God."

~~ Susan Palo Cherwien, "In Deepest Night"

Quote for the day: Begin it early enough, hold it long enough

"Never before within our memory has it seemed so important to keep the Long Christmas; to begin early enough and hold the festival long enough to feel the deep, moving significance of it. For Christmas is a state of mind quite as much as a festival; and who can establish and maintain a state of mind in the rush and turmoil of a single day, or two days? Around no other time of year has been built so much of faith, of beauty…It is a time when man walks abroad in the full stature of his humanity and in the true image of God. He walks with grace, with laughter, and a great awareness of brotherhood." ~~ Ruth Sawyer, The Long Christmas (1941)

From the archives: A non-stupid Christmas

First posted December 2009; edited slightly.

The one thing I've noticed about typical Christmas celebrations is that there are very few typical Christmas celebrations...especially among those whose Christian beliefs have played a larger-than-normal part in how they celebrate. (Think about the irony of that...) Or don't. Sometimes that makes for very surprising variations--devout Christians who don't "do" Christmas at all, or those who celebrate Christmas for fun but don't pretend it's the birth of Jesus, or those who plan the whole thing as a big birthday party for Jesus, or who celebrate the Old Testament holidays in the autumn, or those whose Christmas does center around church but who also include secular customs like Santa and stockings.

And then there are the Charlie Browns who are just tired of the "whole commercial racket," wish the whole thing was over, and take everybody to the beach for Christmas.

I'm thinking about something we saw a bit of on TV once called "Christmas Confidential," about the dreadful holiday excesses and National-Lampoon-style house decorations and inflatable nativity scenes and spangled office-party outfits (makeup to match) and Santa Claus bikinis and church performances with more cast members than a small town and people stampeding at shopping malls and food, food, food...

All that seems kind of far removed from our Crayons' excursion to the thrift shop (everybody got tiny stuffed toys, figurines, and Mama Squirrel got a bell that she's threatening to ring for school time)...or the bead bracelet that Ponytails made me...or the Voskamps' "praying to be a womb for God" around a wooden Nativity spiral...or Bread and Honey's musings on "Pretending to be Mary." Or families who give just one present apiece (because they have ten children), or three presents (because that's what Jesus got), or no presents. 

Or from the reality of those who are having very quiet holidays (or barely noticed them) because of family griefs, illnesses and other stresses. Or people who have to work on Christmas or who are exhausted from the last week behind a cash register or a shampoo chair. 

The fact that we barely set foot in a shopping mall this past month doesn't make our Christmas any holier than anybody else's. It's an everybody-makes-their-own-choices kind of culture now anyway...and I guess in some ways that's good, it means that the Neighbourhood Decorating Committee isn't going to harass us about our lack of lights, and it means that it's okay to have frozen green beans with Christmas dinner instead of that thing with the french fried onions. Who's going to tell? But I will continue to plug for a non-stupid Christmas.

Whatever that means to you.

On the third Sunday of Advent: Come, hidden Wisdom

On the third Sunday of Advent, I invite you to wander over to Malcolm Guite's website, and enjoy his poem "O Sapienta."  (It's at the end of the post, along with a sound clip.)

"Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring,
Come to me now, disguised as everything."

Something to read today (it could change your Decembers forever)

In Defense of Advent, by Greg Wilbur, on the CIRCE blog.

2022 Updated link

A sample:

"Imagine the difference this type of celebration makes. Instead of endless gatherings, fighting traffic at the mall, retrieving the daily stacks of catalogs from the mail, and the family pressures and stress, these four Sundays and the weeks in between are intended as a quiet and reflective time to examine your heart, make peace with God and your neighbor, seek reconciliation and repentance for sin, and make room for Christ."

Treehouse Archives: All I Want For Christmas

First posted December 2013.

Some people can make a story, or a sermon, out of just about anything.  So here's an anything for today.

Actually it happened yesterday.  Mr. Fixit was having a checkup at the dentist's, and across the hall the other dentist was examining an emergency case: a young hockey player who had broken off four or five teeth in a game.  Not with a stick in the mouth, but by hitting a guard rail.

Hurray for our national pastime.

They brought his teeth along in a bag, but they were in too many pieces to put back together.  The dentist said the choices were between pulling all that remained of the broken teeth, and giving the boy a bridge, or doing implants.  They decided to go with the implants, but it will take about eight months to complete them.  (Mr. Fixit got the full benefit of this from across the hall.)

The cost?  Thousands of dollars.  Not covered by health care or work benefits.

Ouch, and again ouch.

So we have a ready-made example of our fragmented lives and hearts.  Like the shattered plaster angel in Jan Karon's Shepherds Abiding, sometimes there seem to be too many parts to put back together.  Sometimes the consequences of our mistakes and sins will be felt for the rest of our lives.  Like the mother bemoaning the cost of the repairs, sometimes we have no idea how we are even going to start making things right.

The long dark night of the teeth.

And yet the people walking in darkness have seen a great light (Isaiah 9:2).  There is something...Someone...that transcends, that heals the shattered, feeds the hungry, fills the empty.

Anticipating that...is Advent.

It's Advent Not Christmas, Day 20

(Quotes continued from O Come Emmanuel, by Gordon Giles.)

"God sent his Son Jesus Christ as the harmonic resolution of the discord and cacophony of human sin.  Yet the glories of incarnation produced only a partial resolution, interrupted and tainted by crucifixion and redeemed through resurrection.  This closure...has yet to be fully realized.  There are notes still to be played, chords yet to sound...This is what Advent is about, and it is what impels us to sing, at any time of year, "O come, O come, Emmanuel!"

This is the last post in this series.  Advent isn't quite over yet, but Christmas is almost here!

It's Advent Not Christmas, Day 19

Gordon Giles, vicar of St. Mary Magdalene's Church, Enfield, North London, wrote an Advent devotional book a few years ago titled O Come Emmanuel.  In the reading for December 17th, he remembers the first time he preached in St. Paul's Cathedral, on a text from St. Luke's gospel about the Incarnation. The posts for today and tomorrow come from that reading.

"As is the usual custom in large cathedrals, the Gospel book is carried down the nave, so that it is read from within the body of the congregation after the Alleluias have been sung.  This done, the small procession makes its way back to the altar, and the preacher climbs the steps to the pulpit...While these very practical liturgical movements are taking place, it is traditional for the organist to improvise...

"On this August day in question, John Scott, organist at the time, was playing, and as the procession returned to the altar...he played gently, but recognizably, the first few notes of the tune of 'O come, O come, Emmanuel.' The congregation would have been taken by surprise, undoubtedly, it being summertime, but then the music moved away from the theme and built up, until after about two minutes the theme returned, with other notes flying all around, a trumpet blazing 'O come, O come, Emmanuel' through sparkling notes of summer...By this time, I was in the pulpit...looking down the length of St. Paul's, [and] I wondered if there really was any point in saying anything, for in a way it had already all been said with the voice of the organ."

It's Advent Not Christmas, Day 18: Annoying Radio Things, and an MCC Christmas Card

Three years ago I posted an annoying "Helpful Holiday Hint" that I heard on the radio: that the "hot decor theme" that year was silver and gold.  It just bugged me.  Not that I wanted to be a wet blanket on the shiny happy decorations, but it did make me think of Charlie Brown hollering "Neigbourhood lights and display contest?  Arrrgh!"

I have a new one for this year.  I've heard it twice already.  How do you cope with holiday stress?  The answer is...co-ordinate your wardrobe.

Besides that, you should Prioritize Your Parties and Projects, and also take Powernaps before the Parties.

If it weren't so Ludicrous, I'd just Laugh Loudly.

But I have a better response.



(A note on viewing the video:  because of the narrow frames, you may not be able to see the full pictures unless you click through and watch it on You-tube.  Sorry about that.)

It's Advent Not Christmas, Day 17: All I Want For Christmas

Some people can make a story, or a sermon, out of just about anything.  So here's an anything for today.

Actually it happened yesterday.  Mr. Fixit was having a checkup at the dentist's, and across the hall the other dentist was examining an emergency case: a young hockey player who had broken off four or five teeth in a game.  Not with a stick in the mouth, but by hitting a guard rail.

Hurray for our national pastime.

They brought his teeth along in a bag, but they were in too many pieces to put back together.  The dentist said the choices were between pulling all that remained of the broken teeth, and giving the boy a bridge, or doing implants.  They decided to go with the implants, but it will take about eight months to complete them.  (Mr. Fixit got the full benefit of this from across the hall.)

The cost?  Thousands of dollars.  Not covered by health care or work benefits.

Ouch, and again ouch.

So we have a ready-made example of our fragmented lives and hearts.  Like the shattered plaster angel in Jan Karon's Shepherds Abiding, sometimes there seem to be too many parts to put back together.  Sometimes the consequences of our mistakes and sins will be felt for the rest of our lives.  Like the mother bemoaning the cost of the repairs, sometimes we have no idea how we are even going to start making things right.

The long dark night of the teeth.

And yet the people walking in darkness have seen a great light (Isaiah 9:2).  There is something...Someone...that transcends, that heals the shattered, feeds the hungry, fills the empty.

Anticipating that...is Advent.

It's Advent Not Christmas, Day 16

Why, yes, it is.

But my Advent pen is dry tonight.  I'll post something tomorrow.

It's Advent Not Christmas, Day 15: Advent as a Fast?

C.S. Lewis said that just because another philosophy or religion does not know Christ, it does not follow that every single thing it teaches is wrong.  That is in the same sense that all truth is God's truth, and it can be found in unlikely places.  I used to find that much more difficult to accept; if something was not a hundred per cent right as I understood it, I found it hard to believe that it could still be worth steering past the mistakes in search of a possible truth about life or about God.

Actually I find that easier to understand when I think about fiction, or art, or even something I've seen in a movie or T.V. show.  I've seen parallels to Christian thought in T.V. sitcoms and dramas, even foolish ones. As Charlotte Mason pointed out repeatedly, our hearts are affected much more readily, and often much more lastingly, by a story.

So all that is to say that I've been thinking about the early history of Advent, when it began as a time of preparation and fasting, and took place over an even longer period of time than today; it used to be a forty-day fast from meat and poultry as well as from other fancy foods and frivolities.  In Rumer Godden's novel In This House of Brede, set in the 1950's and '60's in a Benedictine convent, the nuns go to Midnight Mass on Christmas and then have a special meal of chicken soup, the first chicken they have had in weeks.

One's first reaction might be to remark on the seeming needlessness of it all.  In terms of economy it might be advantageous to have a period of extremely frugal eating and abstention from other pleasures, but how does it benefit anyone spiritually?  Even most of us now who like to think that it's "Advent not Christmas" don't necessarily pull back on physical comforts during this time.  It's a cold, dark season, and it seems like the last thing we want is to feel hungry as well. Does that mean no Christmas cookies before the 24th?  Not in our house.  Not at this point.  In most of the Christian church, the fasting aspect of Advent was dropped long ago, although we still think of it as a time of preparation and contemplation.

But maybe that is what we need.  In one way or another.  We do need to hunger, to want to be filled, to understand joy that is more than just a bowl of chicken soup.

And that's why I mentioned finding truth in strange places.  Because all that made me think of the Muslims around us here who observe Ramadan.  The truth I'm seeing is not in the teaching, but in the practice.  In the acknowledgement of our emptiness.

In recent years, some churches have begun observing the "Longest Night" on December 21st, offering a quiet, sober service especially for those who are lonely, grieving or suffering.  It's a reminder that not everything is jolly-holiday for everyone.  It seems innovative, but it's actually, I think, one of the oldest things we can do to make sense of Advent.

It's Advent Not Christmas, Day 14: One Year Ago

"Confronted with a cancer or a slum the Pantheist can say, 'If you could only see it from the divine point of view, you would realize that this also is God.' The Christian replies, 'Don't talk d--d nonsense....'  For Christianity is a fighting religion....it also thinks that a great many things have gone wrong with the world that God made and that God insists, and insists very loudly, on our putting them right again." ~~ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

It's Advent Not Christmas, Day 13: On God's Trail

"How could I explain that God, like Jesus, had been like them?

"Suddenly I remembered one of their legends about a man who had become an ant.  He had been sitting on the trail after a hunt and had noticed some ants trying to build a home.  He'd wanted to help them make a good home... But because he was so big and so unknown, the ants had been afraid and had run away.

"Then, quite miraculously, he had become an ant.  He thought like an ant, looked like an ant and spoke the language of an ant.  He lived with the ants, and they came to trust him....It was a perfect parallel for what God had done in Jesus....So I took the word for 'becoming like an ant' and used it for incarnation.  'God is incarnated into man,' I said.

"They gasped.  There was a tense, hushed silence....

"'Where did he walk?' the witch doctor asked in a whisper.

"Every Motilone has his own trail.  It is his personal point of identity.  You walk on someone's trail if you want to find him.  God would have a trail, too.  If you want to find God, you walk on his trail.

"My blood was racing, my heart pounding.  'Jesus Christ is God become man,' I said. 'He can show you God's trail."

~~ Bruce Olson, Bruchko.

Old photo of little Dollygirl by Mr. Fixit.  Copyright Dewey's Treehouse.

It's Advent Not Christmas, Day Twelve

Good day and welcome to Day 12.  (Bob and Doug McKenzie, "Twelve Days of Christmas.")

I have been crocheting and sewing my little fingers to the bone, and it's been fun, but I'm almost finished with all the makings.  However, my tired fingers and my tired brain are not coming up with much to say about Advent tonight.

Can you wait until Friday the 13th?

It's Advent Not Christmas (Day 11): If you're not simply having a wonderful Christmas time, at least you're not hauling frozen ropes...right?

If the moving finger writes, and having writ moves on, to quote Omar Khayyam and Rudolph's Shiny New Year...sometimes it's a GOOD thing that we can't bring back the past.  Because some of it, we wouldn't want to.

Like sitting in your great-aunt's living room, opening Christmas presents, wearing a big horizontal-striped top (with a boatneck, natch), accessorized with big hair and braces.  Some of that 1982ishness, we don't need to bring back.

Or a holiday season that, for whatever reason, was really bad.  Really lonely, really scary, or really hopeless. Maybe by the next year things were better, but that particular December--no, that's not the kind people write songs about.

Or maybe they do.  Starting with Elvis and Blue Christmas...moving through whatever teary song is playing on the country station or even the Christian station (can you say Christmas Shoes?), through the depressing lyrics of John Lennon ("So this is Christmas, and what have you done?, another year over...") and Band-Aid ("Do they know it's Christmas?").  I have to tell you, a whole lot of years ago I was in a very small music group, and we wrote our own Christmas song, about lonely people needing love.  For a long time afterwards I was kind of embarrassed even to remember that song, thinking it was pretty maudlin and wasn't very good...but considering some of the stuff I've heard on all-Christmas radio, it probably could have held its own.

But anyway, if you want to cheer up and think about all the ways that your December holidays--past or present--could be worse...you really need to listen to Sting's version of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Christmas at Sea."  A sample of the lyrics:

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.

It's Advent Not Christmas (but it's getting there!), Day 10

Charles Coffin was a French educator who wrote Latin poetry and hymns; most of his hymns were published in a collection in 1736. This hymn wasn't translated into English for another hundred years, and it's not one we often sing now, even in a church where four-part hymn singing is common. I think Douglas Bond's "Mr. Pipes" would approve of it, though; it goes beyond the "baby in a manger" imagery and manages to work in redemption, Christ's return, and even a doxology in the last verse.

Unfortunately, Charles Coffin ran into trouble with church authority. Hymntime.com says that "Due to his per­sist­ence in ap­peal­ing against the pa­pal Con­sti­tu­tion Un­i­gen­i­tus of 1713, the par­ish rec­tor of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont re­fused to ad­min­is­ter last rites to him, or give him a Chris­tian bur­i­al." I am imagining him finally meeting Jesus "on His road with hymns of holy joy," one of the "scattered saints" united in Heaven.

The advent of our God
Our prayers must now employ,
And we must meet Him on His road
With hymns of holy joy.

The everlasting Son
Incarnate deigns to be;
Himself a servant’s form puts on
To set His people free.

Daughter of Zion, rise
To meet thy lowly king,
Nor let thy faithless heart despise
 The peace He comes to bring.

As judge, on clouds of light,
He soon will come again,
And all His scattered saints unite
With Him in Heaven to reign.

Before the dawning day
Let sin’s dark deeds be gone;
The old man all be put away,
The new man all put on.

All glory to the Son
Who comes to set us free,
With Father, Spirit, ever One,
Through all eternity.

From Hymntime.com.

It's Advent Not Christmas (Day Nine): Eliminating P-Waste

Mr. Fixit was at the Large Chain Store today and noticed a familiar face behind the counter: a young man who used to work at the Large Office Store down the road.  He got this job during a reorganization.  He lost his old job in a similar reorganization, and it took him months to find a new one.  This is someone with a degree in software engineering.  Yeah, I know, you've heard it all before.

But this is the kicker: at the store where he worked previously, no one gets to stay more than two years.  Even managers.  They get shuffled out, made part time, made redundant.

Two years.  Your job will probably expire before the toasters or printers you sell.

Then Mr. Fixit ran into someone else he hadn't seen in awhile.  This friend is a machinist.  For the last while, he's worked a series of jobs either cleaning parts or painting parts.  It's not what he was trained to do, but he says he's working with other similarly overqualified tradespeople, and it's all they can get.  He says the teenager behind the coffee counter is probably getting paid close to what he makes, plus the coffee cashier doesn't have to inhale paint fumes.  Oh, and his wife lost all her work benefits in a series of company mergers.

Nothing comes with a lifetime guarantee.  Not a degree, not a job.  Companies disappear.  Whole industries disappear.  One day you think you're set, the next you're redundant.

We live in a society that, more and more, treats people as disposable.  Instead of E-Waste, maybe we could call it P-Waste.

This is why Jesus came into the world.

No, not to get us jobs at Stuff-mart or to organize unions or to guarantee employment until 65.  But to end the belief that any single person...born or preborn, over-or-under qualified, mentally healthy or not so much, born into an overcrowded country or not...you fill in the blanks...doesn't matter.  Is expendable.

So the message of Advent speaks:  no more P-Waste.  That is the Good News.

It's Advent Not Christmas, Day Eight: "Some?"

"Christmas isn't just about giving. It's about getting and about God's Son Emmanuel." ~~ Young Squirreling in Dewey's Treehouse, December 2005

Every family has its own "home words" and shortcuts.  One of ours is "some?"  It sprouted when the Squirrelings were little and would ask for "some?"  Meaning a polite "I don't know exactly what that is you have there, Daddy, but it sure looks good, so can I have some?"  Or, on occasion, "Gimme, gimme some or I'll have a meltdown!"  It also reminds Mama Squirrel of the story her own mother used to repeat on every family occasion involving pumpkin pie, of the time that Very Little Mama Squirrel's daddy was slicing her a small piece of pie, and when he turned away for a moment to find her a plate, she took the rest of it and left him the small slice.

Over the years, the use of that single word has morphed from an asking word into an offering.  Mr. Fixit, particularly, still proffers the plate of toast or whatever with the word "Some?"

It occurs to me that the late philosopher and teacher Dallas Willard might have found use for our word "Some," in his thinking on the Divine Conspiracy.  Think of the scenes you've seen on T.V., where someone says, "I'll have some of whatever they're having."  It's been used in every sense from the most vulgar to the most literal, and I hesitate even to describe it that way, but it's an image that's worked itself into our culture.  Is it possible to think of the Divine Conspiracy as an offering of "Some?"  God offers us "Some?"  Then we offer Some of What We're Having to those outside the circle?  I don't mean so much physical aid, although that's in there; I mean God's gift of Himself.  One word only.  An asking, or an offering.

It also occurs to me that when we're unsure of "our" gift of the Gospel being accepted or rejected by others, it may be because we think of it as "ours." C.S Lewis describes a small child who asks his father for sixpence to buy him a gift; the father of course is pleased with the gift, and, Lewis says, that's as it should be; but in terms of finances, it all came from the father to start with, right?  We make the gift and the giving too complicated.

Maybe all we ever need to offer, or to ask for, is "Some?"

It's Advent Not Christmas (Day Seven)

We are taking a break from posting today to do some in-real-life Advent-keeping.  Back tomorrow.