Wednesday, December 25, 2013

On Christmas Day (a playlist)




May this Christmas Day bring you hope and joy, celebrations full of  love, laughter, and dancing. 

Speaking of which: may the dancing commence... now!







Thanks for journeying with us through Advent once again -- 

Merry Christmas!



                                                                                  -- Lindsey and Anna



Tuesday, December 24, 2013

The Possibility of 'Enough' (Hannah Rand)




"It was cold that night,
just like tonight,
the stars were burning bright
like angels taking flight

But nothing in the world --
nothing in our world --
nothing in the world felt really right"



What to do when everything is full of beauty and it's still all wrong? The creche is ready to welcome Jesus, it's "O Holy Night" time, and we're still squirming in our own skin, or keeping vigil over a deathbed, or rushing to some finish line we can't quite define. 

But maybe that's exactly as it always happens at Christmas, and we just normally don't see it. Brené Brown reflects:

"I went back [to church] for the wrong reasons. I really went back because [in my breakdown] I was like 'This is hard, this hurts' and I went back to church thinking that it would be like an epidural, like it would take the pain away... [but] faith and church was not like an epidural for me at all. It was like a midwife, who just stood next to me, and said:
'Push. This is supposed to hurt a little bit.'


Advent, as it brings us right to the threshold of Christmas, is supposed to hurt a little. All our wild longings, our needs, the brokenness and violence of the world... there are no insta-tools to answer and fix these. Jesus doesn't come with a super easy cure for sorrow or a quick-fix for fear. He comes with nothing 'obvious' at all, born simply from the blood and tears and determination of his mother, the faithfulness and hopefulness of his father... into a little nowhere place in a nowhere town.


"you came with nothing
you came with nothing but love
you came to show us:
love might be enough"

Lindsey: I often wonder about the familiar characters of the Christmas story, whether they experienced the signs and wonders of angels and a star, and God’s movement among us, with the same bewildered, uncertain curiosity that I sometimes feel when I glimpse God moving. Frequently, when I experience God, I am not quite sure what is happening, or if I am imagining things, but I try to be able to say, maybe, just maybe, God is up to something here

Perhaps Mary and Joseph and the shepherds knew exactly what was going on -- how huge and important this moment was. Perhaps. Or perhaps in the midst of the uncertainty, in the tension between the expected Messiah and the stable birth, in the company of this strange cast of characters, they rested in what might be. Perhaps for them, as for us, the simple miracle is that in the glowing light of that manger, we can open ourselves to the possibility, give our hearts to the idea, choose to believe together that Love might be enough.  



  
With Nothing by Hannah Rand and Me, You & Her 
(HERE for more album info and free download from the artists!)

Anna: In reality, we are midwifed into Christmas by the Advent season: pushing through our layers of worry and waiting, hope, doubt, rage, desire, grief, and finally...perhaps... we fall silent in wonder at the inconceivable determination God has to just love us throughout history, straight into the flesh and blood of life... to be with us in the midst of everything.

"sing alleluia
sing alleluia
sing alleluia
let love be enough"

Is Love enough? If it's just the really sweet, peaceful, comforting, warm feelings we want at Christmas, I'm not really sure it is. But let's remember that it's this same exact Love that years later wakes up the fishermen, Peter and Andrew, from their lakeside nets, the same exact Love that shakes up the Pharisees and the tax collectors and the townspeople, that same. exact. Love. that shows up so clear and so strong that eventually we just had to look away and cover our ears and...

But no one wants to go there at Christmas. We want to stick with the epidural version of love, even when we all know that often "nothing in the world feels really right." We want to flee to the Christmas Eve candlelight, or the chaos of the children's nativity reenactment, and be charmed or soothed into Christmas, even though we also know that for love to truly be "enough" to speak to the hurt in this world it can't just lull us to sleep.

Yet what might be happening in the midst of the actual chaos of this world is that instead of singing us lullabies, God might be saying "Push." God might be asking us to participate in the birth of Christ in a way we normally don't dare imagine: not as spectator or shepherd, but as Mary herself, living in the pain and the unknowing and the chaos of the present-tense. Choosing to believe that God-in-Christ might indeed be born within all this mess -- and that Love is, indeed, enough.

It will be cold and dark where we live tonight. We will arrive at the Eve of the Light's Coming worn out or confused, unready or joy-filled. The point is: no matter how we come, if we are willing to live into the discomfort and the doubt enough to PUSH --- we can allow Christ to be born again, a little more fully, in us again tonight.



May your courage open you to what is being born anew tonight in the world and in yourself. May your hope guide you to look for where Love is dawning. May you shine on, shine on, on this blessed Christmas Eve.

Sing Alleluia!!


-- Lindsey and Anna

"The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
    on them light has shined.
You have multiplied the nation,
    you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
    as with joy at the harvest,
    as people exult when dividing plunder.
For the yoke of their burden,
    and the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor,
    you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For all the boots of the tramping warriors
    and all the garments rolled in blood
    shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
For a child has been born for us,
    a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
    and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority shall grow continually,
    and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
    He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
    from this time onward and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this."
- Isaiah 9: 2-7







Monday, December 23, 2013

Keep Holding On (Danny Mitchell)


"earth is white 
ground is cold 
its hard to see the seeds you've sown 
all our life and love 
buried beneath the snow 

days are short, 
the dark is deep 
move along on cautious feet..."


In these last days before Christmas, a song that is a simple prayer, a meditation, and a promise:

"be still, my love, 
keep holding on 
through the cold December gray
we will
have faith, 
'cause there's a Savior on the --
a Savior on the way."


Savior on the Way (acoustic, 2012) by Danny Mitchell

"so turn your eyes dead east 
and be the very first to see 
the rising sun"


May your feet carry you forward with trust, may your eyes be open to the Light. 
Shine on.



Friday, December 20, 2013

Why We Do It Again, and Again (Frightened Rabbit)

Graffiti Alley by AshtonPal
"It's Christmas so we'll stop 
It's on with the lights to warm the dark 
- It can go elsewhere -
As the rot stops for today
Let the rot stop just for one day"


What if the incarnation doesn't happen this year? Not literally, of course, but in the secret ways we hope for: the change in perspective, the prayer answered, the possibilities fulfilled... the tangible ways in which we are desperate to feel God moving today, now. 


What if they don't happen? What if we don't feel anything and nothing changes? Why do this Christmas nonsense at all, then?

This is a deeply uncomfortable question, because I do believe that celebrating Christmas is more than just a nice ritual or quaint historical remembrance. I believe the incarnation of Christ has power to turn this world entirely upside down every single year. 

But no matter what I think, the fact is: there is ZERO evidence that this happens. Families fall apart, or beloved friends die, or things just stay as screwed up as ever. Meth labs operate on Christmas. People get raped on Christmas. Children get killed and terrible memories get made just like the nice ones.


And the day after, or twelve days after, we put away the tinsel and... nothing. Life goes back to what it was. 

Maybe I sound like a Christmas depressive, wanting to join Frightened Rabbit in both their hopes and prayers in this song to "let the rot stop just for one day" and then realizing that "the tree lights brightened the rodent's eyes." 

But here's the difference between this song and what I believe: I believe this song is 100% true (rats and all) and believe that the incarnation is right here anyway.


Do you hear it?


Frightened Rabbit - It's Christmas So We'll Stop


I didn't hear anything but sadness the first ten times I listened to this song, because on the surface of these lyrics, there are only dashed hopes. But when we live into the Incarnation -- I mean, not politely, but free fall, base jump, hang glide, deep plunge into the Incarnation -- we agree to go way past the surface of things and risk sounding a little unrealistic and a lot strange. We agree to give our hearts to nutso stories of God coming as a baby, and we agree to act like these are more than just interesting symbolic ideas. We agree to believe, in the face of all facts and reality, that the world has fundamentally changed because of God's drawing-near. We agree to live in trust that opportunity, transformation, and redemption lie behind even the most ugly, inhumane realities.

Because Incarnation happens in the ugliness. Incarnation happens in the lostness, and sin, and deepest, most bone-shattering grief we can imagine. And these places don't get fixed. They don't, maybe, even seem to change at all. And yet, Incarnation is there. 

This belief isn't just some self-reassuring treacle to make me feel better on Christmas morning -- in fact, this knowledge should make me more uncomfortable than ever. Can I really begin to perceive the world like this without trying to gloss over the pain of others, or become complacent to need? Can I live like this song is true and like God-made-flesh is true, too?


I don't know. Probably not, most of the time.


So this is why I practice. 

Every. 
Single. 
Year. 

I drag out the lights and sing the songs and make the food not because any of this is required, but because, within reason, these rituals force me to consider how important all this baby Jesus nonsense is to me after all. 


Is it worth doing again, this Christmas thing?


I say yes, and again: YES. Because I need this revolutionary story for myself as much as anyone, and because this is the core of how we Shine On. 

As Advent draws down into the particularity of Christmas, we Shine On into the world's unmet expectations and unclear hopes and unanswered needs with joy-filled defiance, with humor and clear-eyed hope. We Shine On with the bizarre and still totally passionate belief that this small being, this Christ child, is, for now and always, the fulcrum on which the whole world spins, is the only power that matters, and the only hope worth following. 


"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ...For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things..." 
- Colossians 1: 15-17, 19-20


So I Shine On this Christmas. And onward again, until there is a time when I can hold this song and my Advent hopes together and do full honor to both (on any given day) and know that Christ is being born again in me right now, Incarnate, humble, divine.


May you radiate passion and compassion in these days, 
may you mirror the truth of the world and the Truth of God, 
may you shine onward with defiance and grace 
and a beautiful broke-down hope 
as you participate in this messy, gorgeous world 
and look beyond the surface 
for the Incarnation that holds it all together.


                                                                                    -- Anna





Thursday, December 19, 2013

The Baby Rebel (Jackson Browne)


"And the families hurrying to their homes
As the sky darkens and freezes 
They'll be gathering around the hearths and tales 
Giving thanks for all god's graces 
And the birth of the rebel Jesus." 



My brother makes fun of me, for many things (I know, that's what kid brothers do). But specifically at this time of year, he is annually hilarified by my chronic inability to remember the lyrics of Christmas songs. The carols my family has been singing every year since I was able to talk, those ones that get stuck in your head for days and weeks, yep, those. I can't remember their words, or more accurately I will mix them up, combine them in weird ways, sometimes make things up.

My defense is usually that they are hard to keep straight, many of them say very similar (really lovely) things about peace and joy, night, sleep, glory and light (I do really love Christmas hymns, but I can't just roll over when my brother makes fun, you understand) and besides they have old-timey language and phrases, like the one that led me to believe that "Hark the Herald" was a verb phrase for many years of my life. 

In contrast, today's song is pretty straight up, just putting it out there with the plain speak of every day life, which might be part of why I like it. Also, because it is the only Christmas song I know (or remember) that refers to the babe of the manger as The Rebel Jesus. 


Full lyrics here.


The lyrics don't pull any punches, the singer's not mincing words, but saying exactly what's on his mind. There are some lyrics that I am not sure I like, and some that make me wonder about the singer's perspective and then about my own, but that is why it stays on my Advent playlist. It is evocative, there are several ideas, phrases, words that raise questions for me, that elicit reactions and bring me up short. In the end, maybe Jackson Browne captures the spirit of the rebel Jesus pretty well, that baby rebel about whom the prophet said: 

“This boy is assigned to be the cause of the falling and rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that generates opposition so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.” 
Luke 2:34

...that baby who grew up to turn the status quo inside-out, who answered questions with questions, and redrew all the lines; that rebel who still challenges us, makes us think, trips us up.




So today, friends, I am throwing it back to you. What does this song evoke for you? Which lyrics catch you? What questions do they ask you? 




-Lindsey

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

What Turns Up (The New Pornographers)

image courtesy aphotoshooter (Flikr)

"What's love, 
what's love, 
what's love,
but what turns up in the dark?"

In these days closing in on the winter solstice, what I want to do is grow meditative with the darkness, but I often catch myself just resenting the long nights, like I'm racing to complete as much as possible before the last blue seeps from the sky.

Fact is, everything about how I live (cell phone, work schedule, holiday list) resists a meaningful way to move in harmony with the rhythms of light and dark, life and death, at this time of year. I know this, and yet I can't always stop myself. My cultural training is to think of the darkness as ending, as loss, as emptiness. After all, when people say, "she's carrying a lot of darkness in her" they usually don't mean that as a good thing.

"Up in the Dark" feels like a song about this sort of negative darkness: secrets and hiding. Fear and deception. And yet in the midst of all these "dark" emotions, love shows up. Not what I expected from an Indie pop song. 'Desire,' maybe, 'hopelessness,' possibly, but in fact, the refrain suggests that love, by definition, is 'what turns up in the dark'. 

First question: When has Love shown up for you "in the dark?"


Up in the Dark from The New Pornographers on Myspace.

Yet as much as the prevailing culture around me has taught me to understand darkness in only one way, I have also learned that darkness is where the roots grow. Even during this dark season, as the plants and trees sleep, a greening energy is moving deep within the heart of things. Life is stripped to its core so that it may return renewed. Darkness deepens life.

"What turns up in the dark?
What turns up in the dark?"

Second question: When have you discovered Love waiting for you in the shelter of darkness?

Could it be true that not only does Love not abandon us to the darkness, 
but a sheltering and peaceful darkness is what can help Love grow strongest? Could it be true that befriending the darkness, where it doesn't threaten to engulf us, could be a way to understand our belovedness more fully, to understand God as our Ground-of-All-Being more totally? Could it be true that in the dark all the exhausting running and hiding and games can end, the veil can be dropped, and we can encounter our vulnerability and truth within community and with God?

You who live in the shelter of the Most High,
    who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress;
    my God, in whom I trust.” 
- Psalm 91: 1-2



So as we dwell in the shadows of some of the darkest days of the year, may we hold the paradox of this space well: the possibility and the difficulty, the life and the death. May we remember that in this solstice darkness we are invited to die to old ways of clinging and lying, hiding and fearing, while also inviting our deepest wholeness and renewal in that very same darkness. May we remember that Christ dwells in this Advent space, in this almost-Christmas space, ready to be born in darkness, ready to be encountered in darkness, ready to be fully revealed in light.

All we need is this time in the dark.



Shine on.

                                                                                    -- Anna

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Find A Way Home (Hem)


"Cause it's colder than hell
Out here on your own
But I'm moving fast
I'm almost home."

Home is a slippery concept for me. There have been places I've lived for months and years that never quite felt like home, and other places where I still feel like I am part of the very earth, though I haven't lived there in a long time. I have visited places in which I have felt more at home in one visit than I have at others, after a life time of visiting. What is it that tells us when we've found home?

General wisdom would suggest that feelings of being home are more about the people you are with than the place you are in. More about our level of belonging and comfort, how well we feel ourselves known and accepted in these home-places. This makes it harder to predict, I think: some of us find a sense of home with our relatives and some with chosen family, some in places of deep familiarity and some on sojourn or many worlds away from where we originated. And sometimes it changes, and we lose our sense of home or find it anew.


Christmas time brings to the surface the power of home, which christmas-pop-culture is happy to reduce into the jolly hallmark images of perfect families laughing over train sets or singing at pianos or sipping hot cocoa by a fire. But what comes up for most of us is more complex than that, it's fraught with joy and disappointment, nostalgia and regret, loneliness and our deep longings, all the brokenness and the blessedness that can be mixed up in going, or thinking about or missing home at Christmas time. 

Today's song names both the longing and the hope. Singing not only about a desire "to be with you for Christmas," but also about the belief that the miles of the journey will "lead to the day you let go of the past, where there's joy inside and there's peace at last."




The lyrics remind us that in this season which heralds Peace on Earth, part of our hope is that that peace might come to our personal lives too, to our families, our relationships, the places we make home; and more importantly to our hearts as we navigate those places and relationships, however we find them from year to year.   

As we were reminded yesterday, Christmas' only requirement is that we show up at the stable. When we do, we see the ragtag group that is assembled at God's birth: dirty, poor, rejected, foreign, laying before the Christ child whatever strange gifts we have carried in from our journey.  We gaze upon this assembly and see the good news of Christ's coming, that like that motley crew gathered in the manger, there is a place for each one of us in the chosen family of God. For God invites everyone into the warm light of that manger, to be assembled into a home of sorts, a welcome space for all people.



"...like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house..." 
-1Peter 2:5



God our Mother, God our Father, guide us as we journey toward home. Draw us all to the light of peace and let us find family among those who gather there. 

-Lindsey


Monday, December 16, 2013

Come As You Are (Man Man)


"Hold on to your heart
Hold it high above flood waters
Hold on to your heart
Never let nobody drag it under...
Hold on to your heart
Never let nobody take it over 
Ever take it over 
Ever take it over from you"

Christmas is not a "feel good" time. Any good Blue Christmas service will remind us of this, but it bear repeating: Yes, there is joy at Christmas. Wonder. Delight, even. But "happy?" "Feel-good?" Not requirements.

The only real 'requirement' of Christmas is that we show up at the stable. That's it. It's a pretty come-as-you-are day, actually. If we really, truly believed this, maybe more of us would arrive in tears, or yelling our heads off, or totally confused and wondering if we took a left-turn somewhere around Damascus. Instead we (I) tend to turn up like fake-smiling robots, maybe trying to get presents wrapped in time or trying to get kids to smile during the pageant or trying not to blow up at Aunt Margaret or trying not to say too much about how our life feels like its fraying at the edges... So, really, we don't show up at Christmas at all - our game-face does, but not us

We have a shadow-side (which we don't like to talk about) that keeps us from being fully present to life, others, God... even at Christmas. What I love about Man Man's "Head On" is that it acknowledges and owns this shadow side that so terrifies us, without anxiety, without giving in, and with a great deal of compassion.

"Are you dreaming of death?
Are there ghosts in your chest?
Are you always so restless?
Yes, you are --
Is that hard?

Hold on to your heart..."





Lyrics HERE



When we Shine On during Advent, though, we show up for life and accept our shadows, even at the stable of Christ's birth. We acknowledge pain and disillusionment, grief and fear... and we give our hearts to the world anyway. We give our hearts for and with each other, and we hold the hearts of others with care. We live with courage -- full heart.


"Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart...We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed..." 
- 2 Corinthians 4: 1, 7

To be full-hearted, we confront the shadows within us that cast themselves long over this season of short days. We hold on to our hearts; we persevere in love and trust. We agree to be vulnerable to grief and hope, to pain and confusion, and we consent to bring these strange riches right into the manger on Christmas and lay them at Jesus' feet. 

Because, after all, that infant is Jesus, who was the most full-hearted person ever to have lived. His deeply humane, rich, compassionate, authentic life could be an invitation: to live into the shadows and the light of Christmas fearlessly, head-on, and with joyful defiance of our cultural norms for a feel-good, 'picture-perfect' Christmas. 

And in the end, we do this because we know that what matters most at Christmas is that you and I are actually there, in-the-flesh, in-the-heart.


May you be brilliant in the truthfulness of your life, with others and with God. May you Shine On in rebellion against all that would stifle your heart. May you remember the God who invites you to the stable in love and in truth.

                                                                                    -- Anna

Friday, December 13, 2013

It All Falls Down (Sufjan Stevens)

image courtesy Alejandro Heredia
"One mother rises
Pulling the sheets from the crib
All the disguises
Wandering stars, what she did.
All the king's horns
All the kings men
Saddled and worn...
Raise the dead.
Holy, an infant
He came to raise up the dead"

Sometimes a song is Advent down to its bones... even if I can't figure out why. This was the case for last year's Mogwai song I featured on A.M.P., as well as for today's "All the King's Horns." Certainly, a Sufjan Stevens song seems like a safe bet, given its' presence on his 2003 "Songs for Christmas" album, but when I really listen to the lyrics... I'm not sure what I'm listening to. Is this a hopeful song? An omen? Is it even mostly about Christmas at all?





If I could rename this song, it would be called "It All Falls Down." What I hear are portents of things to come, the unrest of nations and the victims of violence brought back to life. I hear the heavens rearranging themselves, and the turning upside-down of all things. I hear "shapeless surprises" in all forms. I hear not just Christmas, that historical event, but Advent.

Basically, I hear this: 

My soul glorifies the Lord
    and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
    of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
    for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
    holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
    from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
    but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things

    but has sent the rich away empty."
                          - Luke 1: 46b-53

In Mary's words, Advent and Christmas truly embrace. Some have noted that her words are in the past tense, suggesting that even before Christ's birth, Mary was intimately aware that something was already moving, things were already upending... Humpty Dumpty had already been toppled, and not even all the kings horses, and all the king's men...

It All Falls Down. This could sound like a sentence of doom, but when we are confronted with powers and principalities of this world that seem all too solid, when we are faced with injustice and violence, poverty and brokeness seemingly without end -- it might be a word of profoundest comfort to remember that all of it, all of it, will one day come tumbling down through the astonishing grace of God-in-Christ. 

I choose to believe that this is a song about hope. The difficult, messy kind that isn't totally harmonious. Not all the lyrics of a hope like this seem to make sense, but taken as a whole...what you get is a baby that topples rulers, born in the midst of unrest and portents of his own future death. A baby born to a fierce and faithful mother who said one tremendous yes that helped change everything from that day forward (it's what she did). A Christ who continues revealing this revolution started over 2,000 years ago even now. Even in me. Even in you.

What you get is Advent.



Today may you shine with a messy, illogical hope that moves mountains and topples principalities. May you co-create with God in Christ for the upending of all things. May you trust that you, too, are being re-created this Advent toward the renewal of all things.


Shine on.

                                                                                             -- Anna






Thursday, December 12, 2013

Star of Wondering (Anne Trenning)


The best Advent Bible study I have ever been to was with a bunch of 5-7 year olds. Sorry colleagues and friends, sorry pastors and teachers. And to be clear, I have participated in some excellent advent-themed discussions and studies. But my favorite, by far, was one cold Sunday morning, gathered around a table with twelve little hands passing between them figurines of Mary, Joseph and a donkey, while the teacher told the story of their long journey to Bethlehem and of Jesus' birth.

After the story the teacher said "Let's imagine about that long journey, what are some things you wonder about?" And slowly but surely the wonders started to emerge, "I wonder what a donkey feels like?" "Did Mary get cold?" "Did God wish he could hold Baby Jesus when he was born?" The wise teacher didn't answer the wonderings, but just let them hang in the air, sparking our imaginations. 

Advent is a time to wonder. A time when we are confronted with unabashed mysteries and questions whose answers dance just at the edge of our understanding.
A time for small wonders and big wonders, wonders that warm our spirits and those born of our deep longing- 
What do donkeys feel like? 
How do reindeer fly? 
How does selfless love come to us? 
How did such a big God fit into such a tiny baby? 
How can a person's heart change after so long a time? 
Will peace ever come? 

We hold the questions, we visit and revisit them, not as a theological exercise per say (although theologies are fine things to work on) but we hold them in a different way in this season. Maybe they are bathed in the light of hope or ringing an echo of Mary's assertion that all things are possible with God, or maybe they have just been dusted with the magical whimsy of our Christmas culture, a la It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street

Even so, there is something in that story of a starlit manger, of God breaking into the world in such a way, that pulls us toward a deeper sense of wonder: that mix of awe and mystery and hope, that unsteady, tiptoed longing, reaching, imagining, marveling. Like a child who imagines Santa's trip around the world in one night or someone who open themselves to the mystery of a Love Incarnate. For this season promises one of the greatest wonders of all, that in the midst of our questioning and wondering and longing, Christ comes to dwell.


Today's song has no words. Instead I would encourage you to take these moments to wonder, to question, to marvel at this story, this promise, this hope to which we give our hearts year after year...




Please share with us some of your 'wonders' this season in the comments below.





-Lindsey