It Comes to Us All (Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama)

 "Beauty that
we left behind
how shall we
tomorrow find

Set aside
our weight in sin
so that we
can live again"  -Ben Harper

Hopeful. Tired. Expectant. Regretful. Anxious. Suffering. Celebrating. Sorrowing. We stand on the threshold. Whatever the journey of the last year entailed for us, however we come to it, tonight we will step across, out of the old year and into the new.

Some of us will mark this passing in the company of friends and family, some in huge celebratory crowds, life’s demands will cause others to mark the occasion while at work, or in hospitals and still others will pass the night in church. Regardless of where we are tonight, whether we limp, crawl, run or skip into it, the New Year will come to us all. We will together meet it at 12:00 AM.

As we do at the dawning of each new year, we turn toward possibility, we breathe deeply of hope and remember that the baby of the manger came to make all things new, that what is lost may be found again, what is broken may be repaired, that the world can be changed.

But most of all today, at AMP we want to remember that we walk into the New Year together. This is a great hope. For within one another lie innumerable possibilities-- for support, companionship, solidarity, tenacity, creativity to heal our hearts, hold us up, pull us forward, feed our hungers, and transform us and the world in which we live.  The divine gift of possibility, of hope, dwells richly in us when we are community.

full lyrics here. 

Today’s music selection sings through moments of struggle and fatigue, of wondering about the future, of hopefulness and rebirth;  all of them hemmed in by choruses that speak of reaching out in faith and that assert “I shall not walk alone.”  As we end this season of the Advent Music Project, this is the message that we hope carries us through in the New Year: we do not walk alone.

The New Year meets us all together, may we know in our selves the power of that together-ness as we walk into this next year.   

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. -Romans 15:13

Thank you for journeying with us through Advent and peace to you in the coming year.               

-Anna and Lindsey

When the Morning Comes (Ok Go)

The year is old. Maybe we're feeling a little "old"  too, with all the cares and regrets, all the changes and worries of the past year weighing on us. There's been a share of tragedy in this past year for some of us, individually and collectively.

There have been good things, too. Maybe it's been a Red Letter Year for us. Either way, what has been, has been.

Maybe it's time to have more fun. Today's song reminds us to just "let it go." Not as a judgment or as a way of denying the past or the difficulties, but as a way of admitting that "when morning comes" we recognize that all things transform in time, and that with the new year, we are offered opportunities for renewal, for hope, for - dare we say it? - dancing. 

As the year bends and turns toward renewal, may you remember the good things and the difficulties, letting go what can be released and welcoming renewal as the new year dawns.

Love Song (Jars of Clay)

 

 

 

Love Came Down at Christmas is one of the songs that I find myself singing throughout the season.  For me it is a reminder when I get overwhelmed with the preparations of advent or when I look up in the days after Christmas and think what was that all for, really? This song cuts right to the heart of it: love. Love. Love was born. Love shall be our token, Love be yours and Love be mine.

 

 

 

 

This version of the song by Jars of Clay is, well...whimsical, but what can I say, it's our last saturday. Bring on the giraff-icorn.

 

 
 

May Love cling to you, may Love hold you fast and may Love be the light you carry forward into the New Year.

 

 

-Lindsey

Christmas (TM) - James Brown

Branding has become a huge deal in the last few years. Apple computers is a prime example of a company that has created a loyal base of users, mostly because of the excellence of their products, but also because of the consumer experience and "brand identity" they create. Buying Apple products says something about a person's good aesthetics, demand for quality, and uniqueness... or at least that's what Apple's marketing tells you.

We also have a Christmas "brand" in U.S. culture. Buying into Christmas (TM) says something about our basic goodwill towards others, our thoughtfulness, and even sometimes our faithfulness. Here's the problem with branding: it's mostly about surfaces. 

What would it look like to take the "branding" out of Christmas? Stop doing the "shoulds" like parties and cookies, obligatory gifts and endless kitschy decorations.  Not only leave Santa behind, but leave behind any smug "Christian" concepts like judging the 'Christmas and Easter' church crowds or getting miffed when people don't wish you a Merry Christmas. Open ourselves to the possibility that our agendas (our "Christmas (TM) brand-identities) are helping us skate across the surface of Christmastide without really being changed.

Somehow, for observant Christians, while there's a sense that Lent and Easter should be a transformational experience in our faith lives, we think of Christmas as a mirror that reflects back to us all the things we love most about ourselves and our lives... and when the mirror doesn't work, when things don't match, or are chaotic or discordant, we get upset.

This is no way to observe the birth of the Christ child. Most of us have already moved on into the preparations for the new year. Meantime, the Christ child asks to be born anew in us, asks to be allowed to go deeper, below the glitttery branding of Christmas (TM), and into our hearts.

What would it look like to really allow Christmas to dwell into us, to mean something significant in our lives this year?

May the mirror of these post-Christmas days become a doorway into a deeper experience of dwelling with the newborn Christ in this season of renewal and transformation.

Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year - James Brown

                                                         
                                                                                                    - Anna

Keeping Christmas (Over the Rhine)

“When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flock, the work of Christmas begins: 
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers and sisters,
To make music in the heart."

-Howard Thurman

“Christmastide,” or the days that come after Christmas, always feel a little strange to me. I want to remain in the peace and joy of the manger, but find I am quickly pulled on as life rolls forward towards a new year.

But Jesus didn’t stay in the manger either. In fact, we lose the importance of Christmas if we forget that the baby of Christmas Eve grew into a man. The man Jesus took the peace, joy and love that are the banner over our Christmas manger and lived them in radical ways.  Ways of living that welcomed outcasts, advocated for the poor and upended the social order for the cause of justice; bringing him to a death, in the end, that's antithetical to the peace and love we celebrate at his beginning.

Today, Over the Rhine sings for us a common experience: our Christmas ideals, songs, tidings run headlong into the reality of our world. They sing (as do we in the traditional hymn) about the light shining in the streets of Bethlehem, while in reality violence and oppression now scar the streets of Jesus’ birth-town.  In the face of such conflict, we may be tempted to pack up our hope and joy with our Christmas tree and decorations, boxed in basements or attics til next year.

 

Little Town by Over the Rhine

Or, as the song suggests, we can follow the baby of the manger into adulthood, listening to what his life has to say to us. And like him, we can carry the light, in our hands, in our actual, tangible choices and actions. We cannot keep Christmas alive within us in the form of feelings or nostalgia or an ideal, but  we can live to build, in our world, the realities which Christmas proclaims: hope, joy, peace and love, here in our midst.

May we welcome the outcast, to make real our hope in this world.

May we stand with the poor, to make real our joy in this world.

May we surrender our power for humility, to make real our peace in this world.

May we open our hearts to be transformed, to make real our love in this world.

 

 

-Lindsey

The Power of 'Maybe' (Ron Sexsmith)

Maybe can be a powerful word. It's a word of opening... of possibility. It can lift us from a place of cynicism or calm our unrealistic expectations of what a day can do in our lives.

Christmas isn't a day or even a season, it's a radical event that changes everything. From that change we are invited to make our own transformations: in how we act, in how we love, in how we hope.

Ron Sexsmith puts it this way:


Maybe this Christmas will mean something more
Maybe this year 
Love will appear 
Deeper than ever before 
And maybe forgiveness will ask us to call 
Someone we've loved 

Someone we've lost 

For reasons we can't quite recall 

Maybe this Chistmas

Maybe there'll be an open door 

Maybe the star that's shown before 

Will shine once more 

And maybe this Christmas will find us at last 

In heavenly peace

Grateful, at least, 

For the love we've been shown in the past 

Maybe this Christmas 

Maybe this Christmas

May you trust what may be this Christmas season, allowing Christmas to mean something more than just a day that's already come and gone -- to open yourself again to the opportunity for new birth our God, Emmanuel, offers in his own.

                                                                         - Anna

Merry Christmas, from the Children (Sufjan Stevens)

This post starts out sad, but, much like Advent, turns into Christmas: Advent didn't end softly in my world. Yesterday, Christmas Eve, I sat with a family whose otherwise healthy child became dangerously ill that same morning. So instead of the normal last-minute holiday wrapping, cooking, and planning, the family gathered at the hospital and tearfully kept vigil over the balance between life and death of a toddler. And I sat with them.

This story could be another apt illustration of Advent need and lament. But to leave it as lament ignores that there is so much more that our faith offers. At the very least, what a strange wonder that this same night Christians the world over would celebrate the birth of the Christ child, God-with-us. That is: God-with-us here, in this, right now. In our joy and our pain.

Lindsey and I both have a soft spot for this tender little song, the Friendly Beasts, with its child-like language about Jesus' birth. Given all the sad news about children this year, from Sandy Hook all the way to this toddler's sudden illness, it seems only appropriate to let the children carry the lead in the music department today, because we could stand to re-learn from the wonder, the joy, the magic, and the play of how children experience the Christmas story.

Yet children aren't immune to the pain of life. Each family I visited on Christmas Eve in the children's hospital was accompanied by the young patients' siblings, worrying, but also wondering aloud about other important issues... like how Santa would leave presents in the hospital. Unsure and scared about their families, yes, but also hoping and joyful about the promises of this Christmas day. Filled with possibilities and magic, dreams and wild imaginings for what Christmas Day might bring to their lives in so many ways.

May it be so, truly so, for you and yours today.

All We Can Say (Tracy Chapman)

While they were there, the time came for Mary to have her baby.  She gave birth to her firstborn child, a son, wrapped him snugly, and laid him in a manger... 

 -Luke 2

Here they are, the usual characters, ushered into our consciousness on this day, as we hear once more the story of travel-weary parents-to-be, lowly shepherds, glorious angels, kings, wise ones, various farm animals and, of course, the babyGod. They remind us that God comes, once more, to be born among us; among the weak, the powerful, the ordinary, the violent, the fearful, the cynical, the innocent… among us.

In the stables of our lives- the lowly and cold places, the messy, chaotic places, the unsuitable and unexpected places-God emerges.  Through the voices of these familiar characters God proclaims, into our time, hope that makes us unafraid, peace and joy that reach out across creation, and Love that has come to save us all.

What can we do on Christmas Eve, but agree?  In today’s song, Tracy Chapman infuses the familiar Christmas hymn with the beautiful and gentle refrain of “Mmmhmm.” What more can we say as we stare again into the manger’s soft light, as again we are embraced by a love that is bigger than we understand? What is left but our awe and a quiet “Yes,” “Let it be so,” or “Mmhmm”?

The wondrous answer to our broken Advent cries of “Come, Lord Jesus,” God’s answer of Love, rushes with possibility all around us. As Shawna Bowman, pastor at Friendship Community Church, writes, “God’s expansive love bellows ‘yes’ through eternity… and it joins us where we are. It is magnified by our own yes – our willingness to love in the same way God loved - to live hard into love in the midst of our messy human god-filled lives.”

So, this Christmas Eve may our spirits answer back "yes." As we spiral again around the luminous mystery, may we dwell in the wonder of the moment when God, in whom all things hold together, became a small baby and reached out to embrace all things in the hold of grace. Yes, we say together, Love has come. Mmhmm, Love has come for us all.

Holy One, let us meet you tonight, in wonder that unfolds and opens our souls and in Love that sounds our depths and echoes through our very being.

-Lindsey

Welcome the Light! (Feist and Little Wings)

I like words. I like poetry and song lyrics and having good conversations. But I've also learned that some things - the very deeply difficult or profoundly joyful things - are beyond words.

In the best moments, before we simply fall silent in wonder, all we can manage is to exclaim. To shout for joy. To murmur in disbelief. To babble in delight.

Look!, we say. O, what a wonder...

Look at What the Light Did Now is a song I like without quite knowing why. It's nonsensical lyrics have no real thread of meaning, but play with words in a way that reminds me of Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky poem:

Look at what the light did now
Taste the taste I taste 'til it's tasted
                                                  Look at what the light did now

                                                                            Bought it like a boast that burly beaming
                                                                            Look at what the light did now

There's no direct meaning in this song, except for the repeated refrain: "Look at what the light did now!"

This is our week to look. Our week to fill our eyes with the wonder that happened so long ago in the Incarnation, in the God-With-Us still manifesting in our world today. We Welcome the Light this week, first of all, by exclaiming, "Look, look what The Light did now!" 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was with God in the beginning. All things came into being through him; and without him not once thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. ... And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.  - John 1: 1-4, 14

And we have seen his glory. Sometimes in a glimpse, as from the corner of our eye, and sometimes straight on, as on a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day when we are lost in wonder, love and praise, speaking nonsense words of joy, or cooing like a mother, a father, bending over their miracle of a newborn. A strange song of hope rises anew in us as we recognize again that the power of God lies in vulnerability, the triumph of God lies in profound peace, and the reign of God lies in the absurdity of a newborn baby sleeping on straw with sheep.

Look at what The Light did now!

Look at What the Light Did Now by Little Wings feat. Feist. Lyrics HERE.

May The Light born at Christmas continue to dawn in you today, inspiring glorious nonsense, joyful noise, and songs of renewed hope.

Light-hearts' Playlist

Alright, it's time for a little joy, some laughter, maybe even a little silliness. Come on, don't front, we all know there are just some songs that we love, in spite of ourselves. So today, AMP offers you a few of our favorites, not because of their depth of meaning or advent-themes but just because they make us laugh and sing and dance.

 

 

 

Please share some of your favorite songs in the comments below. Share a little brightness and let your heart be light.

 

 

 

Because it's magical...

 

 

Because everyone needs a good sing-a-long...

 

 

Because dancing is good...

Because it's the best...

 

 

 

 

 

 

How We Tell the End (The Softlightes)

Welcome to the end of the world. Turns out, everything looks basically the same.

The question isn't really whether the Mayan calendar got it right or wrong, it's what imagining our own endings does for us and in us. In our Christian tradition, the dramatic words of John's Revelation or the enigmatic predictions of Christ and the writers of the epistles can either fascinate us... or make us squirm, inspire us... or invite dread. 

What are the stories we tell about our endings, and our rebirths? Are they stories that affirm basic goodness, or relish in fallenness? Are they stories that believe in finality, or renewal? Often, our imaginations about the end of the world (or our acceptance of the imaginations of others) tell us more about ourselves than they do about factual future realities. 

Maybe that's why this song by the SoftLightes works for me: it balances the fear of ending ("there's a fire burning and demanding") and the desire for transformation ("but if I change, Love, who will I be, Love?") with a sense that it's worth just enjoying the moment, the present, this Christmas - whether its our last or not. 


The Last Christmas On Earth from SoftLightes on Myspace.


I love it that there's a suggestion at the end that even as we dance like it's our last Christmas this time, we'll keep doing that every year "as the times chance and my hair turns gray..." So each year we'll practice the present like our lives depend on it. We'll dwell deeply into the moments and relish the experiences of silliness and delight, tenderness and revelry, trusting that as we do, we make one of the deepest theological statements there is: that the Love that Came Down at Christmas didn't come to destroy but to create, not to punish but to bring hope. That same Love promised to come again with justice and peace, gathering all in to Godself.

"Nothing accursed will be found there anymore. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever."       - Rev. 22: 3-5

Whether it's the Mayan calendar or the tales of endings and new beginning written in our own tradition, what matters most isn't being right or wrong, accurate or mistaken: it's how the story we're telling ourselves makes our present days worthwhile, beautiful, profound, and holy... and how we are called to make it peaceful and meaningful for all people and all creation as we are able.

In these final days of Advent, may the story you tell yourself out of your traditions be one filled with grace and hope, a word of peace for all creation that imbues your present with meaning and purpose, delight and dancing.

                                                - Anna

Just Breathing (the Cinematic Orchestra ft. Fontella Bass)

Oh that song is singin,' singin' into me.
Over everything I used to be.
Oh, that song is singin,' singin' into me.
Slow and sweet, it carries me...

...Breathe into me
Breathe out through me
Breathe into me. (Cinematic Orchestra)

The giggly excitement of the shepherds and kings quieted, as one little angel stood up to deliver her carefully memorized lines.  I noticed, as I watched her, that I was holding my breath; perhaps in anticipation of what would surely be the cutest thing I’d seen all year, or perhaps remembering the nerve-wrecking pageant performances of my own childhood.  

There are many moments, in this season, when we might hold our breath: walking into a room full of strangers at a Christmas party, Uncle Joe starting a political debate over turkey dinner, turning around at the Christmas eve service to see everyone’s faces lighted only by candles, hearing that strange song on the radio that grandma loved so much when she was alive…

Today’s song offers us an important reminder in these last days before Christmas: Breathe.  Just breathe, in and out. Whether in a state of anxiety, stress, fatigue, wonder, the reminder of this song is that in all of these moments there is space for us, grace for us, to just be, to dwell in each moment, to breathe. 

 

In the varied moments and emotions of these days, in the rushing and in the quiet, there is a steady grace singing over us, reminding us that Love has come for us, just as we are. Or as the angel sang “I bring good news of great joy for all the people,” not just for people who have it together, not only for those who are full of Christmas cheer, not only for those who identify as Christians, but good news for ALL people.  

At the root of this story (and of our faith) is this grace: Love came to be born among us, and seeks still to enter our lives, to be born in each of us, all of us, every day. When we are quieted from the rushing, the expectations, the judgments, when we take a moment to just dwell in this grace, what song will we hear singin’ over us?

May it be a song of love, a breath of grace, carrying us, breathing into us and out through us.

-Lindsey

As swimmers dare

to lie face to the sky

and water bears them

as hawks rest upon air

and air sustains them,

so would I learn to attain

freefall, and float

into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,

knowing no effort earns

that all-surrounding grace.

-Denise Levertov, The Avowal

Lost in Translation (Bruce Cockburn)

Dau yishyeh sta atyaun errdautau 'ndi Yisus

avwa tateh dn-deh Tishyaun stanshi teya wennyau
aha yaunna torrehntehn yataun katsyaun skehnn
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia

As they entered and saw Jesus they praised his name,
They oiled his scalp many times, anointing his head
with the oil of the sunflower
                                                                                                              Jesus, he is born

There's a magic to each language, a special way of talking about and describing the world that can't quite translate into the framework of another tongue. We forget that this is true of the Bible as well, and so when we read the Bible in translation we miss some of the depth of meaning and texture of the original. 

The Huron Carol was originally written in Wyandot (also called Wendat) the language of the Wyandot/Huron people of the Ontario region of North America. The carol was a French missionary's way of communicating the message of Christ in terms more familiar to the context of the Wyandot people.

It speaks of Christ who has come to ransom humanity from bad spirits, and the "sky people," (whom we call angels and the Biblical Greek called "messengers") who are here to ask us to rejoice -- literally in Wyandot, to "be on top of life."

It's both sad and interesting, therefore, that this carol got turned into a sentimental hymn about imagining Christ if he were born as an Indigenous American. There's nothing wrong with imagining Christ as being born among other peoples, or honoring the specific ways in which each nation imagines Christ to be "one of us." What doesn't work is when we do this imagining on our terms, in our cultural language instead of trying to understand another's.

So sometimes it's better to dwell in the mystery of words that are foreign to our tongues, terms and ideas that don't quite make sense in translation, and recognize that it is precisely in these places of static and imperfect understanding where the true beauty and mystery of our experience of the incarnation lies.




Jesus Ahatonnia (The Huron Carol from Bruce Cockburn on Myspace.



The incarnation is, in the end, deeply cultural and deeply personal. If we truly believe Christ came for all of us, then there will be ways in which the mystery of the incarnation becomes embedded in another culture that don't make sense to us. ... or, that illuminate our own understanding of the incarnation in a way we'd never come to on our own.

In the common English translation of this carol, God is referred to as Gitchie Manitou, which is actually an Ojibway term meaning, roughly, Great Spirit. Yet the word 'manitou' isn't so easy to describe as simply, "spirit." The "character" of the word manitou is itself changeable meaning sometimes talent... attribute... spirit... potential... potency... substance... essence... mystery.

Even if in the wrong language, I like that embedded in the awkward English translation of this hymn is a word that calls us back to unknowing: the mystery of Christ, the potency he carried even into his birth, the spirit and attributes he embodied even as a young person and into adulthood.  These are the core mysteries of the incarnation, and whether they dwell with us through the medium of another tongue or our own, they offer themselves to our wonder, our reverence, and our great joy in a God who knows no boundaries of language or culture for the Incarnation speaks the native tongue of each and all in slightly different ways.

May you experience the awe of the God Who Comes in a language and culture you know as the same God Who Comes to others in ways that sometimes remain unintelligible... and yet offer the blessing of unknowing, of an experience of God outside language where the heart must guide us Home.

                                                                                              - Anna

An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.  

- Luke 2: 9-12

Choosing Danger (Sounds of Blackness)

There are no Christmas cards about courage, have you noticed? Peace, Joy, Goodwill to All... check, not much mention of courage. But if the Christmas story is about anything it is about the angels’ oft-repeated message: Do Not Be Afraid. And if anything is antithetical to the message of Christmas, it's fear.

Today, Sounds of Blackness sing these words into our consciousness:

What a lowly place to be born
What a lowly place to be born
Like a stranger, not far from danger
He was born in a manger: My Lord

This song reminds us that God chose to be born into a lowly place: born to refugee parents, of the underclass, homeless at the time of his birth. More than that, God chose to be born into danger, the very real dangers of poverty and oppression, and, later, the danger of an infant genocide sparked by the fear of a ruler.

We believe that this kind of birth, God breaking into the world in this way, reveals to us God’s deep concern for those on the margins of society.  The lowly birth of our God, and the ensuing life of Jesus, lived in solidarity with those on the edges of community, tell us that God stands with the suffering, the oppressed, the victims of injustice in every time.

Born In A Manger from Sounds of Blackness on Myspace.



This brings many of us to the discomfort of today's song: In the grand view of our country’s population (let alone the world’s population) most of us have received enough privilege to make the above theological claims feel a little dangerous.  Following a God who choses to stand with those on the margins, has implications for our own lives that might make us feel a little afraid.

Can we find the courage to question our own social privilege, our own wealth in order to be found, like our God, on the side of the lowly? Do we have the heart to wonder, as love is born again and again each year at Christmas, if there's a danger into which we are called to follow the lowly babe in the manger? Will we follow if the danger threatens our comfort, our image, our lifestyle as we seek to follow the God who stands with the marginalized and loves the lowly?



Let's hear, today, this Christmas message: 

Courage. 

Do not be afraid. 

For the Divine Love that was born in Bethlehem turned the world upside down to bring justice, peace, and fullness of life; and that Divine Love, seeks to do the same, as it is born anew in every time and place and heart (even ours’).

                                                                                                      - Lindsey

Too Much To Believe (The New Pornographers)

Joseph really doesn't get a lot of airtime in the Christmas story, or in Christmas music in general. So I love the depiction of Joseph in today's song as a worried, harried, slightly outcast partner, trying to decide if he can "be cool" with this whole Son-of-God Born-of-a-Virgin 'Christmas' thing. 

We know from Matthew's gospel that Joseph has a change of heart about his role with Mary (and therefore Jesus) after being visited by the Angel Gabriel in a dream, but I imagine this song taking place in the time before that strange dream, as Joseph wandered the streets, brooding, wondering what would become of his life plans. The song illustrates his thoughts like this: 

I know this child was sent here

to heal our broken time

and some things are bigger than we know

You're asking me to believe too many things

You're asking me to believe too many things...

Joseph Who Understood by The New Pornographers - Lyrics HERE.

How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God.

How vast is the sum of them!

I try to count them -- they outnumber the grains of sand;

I come to the end -- I am still with you.

- Psalm 139: 17-18

One of the ways we often find ourselves holding the mystery as Advent draws us toward Christmas is when our intellectual doubts and our need for control rub up against the incomprehensibility of God. We find ourselves trying to believe too many things: that God became fully human in Christ; that this Jesus has something to do with us today; that God has not abandoned the world; that God cares at all about our puny, messy lives; that Christ will come again to reconcile and make new... it's all very heady stuff.

Luckily, believing isn't just about our minds. The root of the word 'believe' means "to give one's heart to." In the end, we are faced with one simple question: can we give our heart to this story of God Incarnate, of a mewling baby who will become the messiah of an upside-down kingdom of grace?

This is no small question. To give our hearts to this story asks something of us: we are called to wrestle a blessing from it, just as Joseph struggles in this song to wrestle a blessing from his strange circumstances. In the song he symbolizes more than just the Biblical character, but many doubting partners, many doubting hearts, asking, "Mary, is he mine?"

Is this small Christ, this someday-revolutionary, mine? Ours?  Not ours to own, but to cherish and wrestle with, to question and ponder, to hold in wonder and awe.  

What does your heart say as you venture deeper into the Christmas story?

May you find your heart captivated by a story to which you can give your heart anew each day, with awe and curiosity, creativity and hope.

                                                                                                 - Anna

Hold the Mystery

Some days the words just will not come. They are dried up under our scorching sadness, they are snatched away by the shock of tragedy, disjointed by the world in which we feel like strangers, or simply fatigued by deep lamenting through the dark night. Some days our words are just not sufficient, a paltry vocabulary to try and name the vast Mysteries.

This weekend the sadness of many precious lives lost, overwhelmed me. The responses of tongues wagging and fingers pointing (including my own) exhausted me. The anger over our collective unwillingness to build peace, burned through me. And now I have nothing left, no words, only sadness and fatigue and the ever-encroaching desire to forget, to simplify, to move on.

This week AMP will look at ways in which we Hold the Mystery. A theme originally chosen (at least for my part) with an eye toward the Divine mysteries of the season, the wonder, the amazement, the parts of our story that are just beyond us.  But, today, in light of the tragic events of this weekend, I must confess that I am having trouble accessing that kind of mystery.

That sense of benevolent mystery, that other-worldly peace of the starry darkness, the wonder of God incarnate in a baby: those are not what I am feeling today.  I find, instead, that I am stuck on more immediate mysteries. There is so much about this world that I do not understand: suffering and apathy, brokenness, violence and our human need to hold on to these things so tightly, cutting ourselves every which way but loose from their grasp on us.

We cannot escape the realization that part of the mystery of this season is painful. Because between the evening news and the candlelight Christmas Eve service, between the reality of the world and the hope of God making the world new, there is a crushing sense that things should not, and cannot, be this way.  Between these counter points there is a void, a space where we cannot fully understand, cannot even fully name our dual reality; a space of sighs, it empties us, again and again, as we wait there for the advent of our hope realized.

There are moments in this space where the mystery, the un-knowing, the incomprehensibility are greater than our words, there are moments in which music and melodies move us powerfully, as words cannot; and moments beyond even our musical expression, moments in which all we may do is fall silent.

And so we do fall silent today. I chose today’s video because there is no sound. I invite you to give yourself to the silence for a few moments today, trusting it to help us hold the mysteries. May we find something solid about silence, something stable, restful. May it be a place of realigning ourselves, a place where that which is within us may rise to the surface and find release. May the silence lead us to dwell with the heavy questions, the deep despair, the neediness of creation; even as we dwell with the mysteries of Advent, of God moving in creation, breathing in the deep silences, slowly, steadily, in time with our heartbeat, as together we wait.

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Thou, who breathed in the womb

who dwelt in the tomb

mercy, have mercy

on us who wait.*

-Lindsey

*prayer by Jan Richardson