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

Sun Jan. 1 - Happy New Year: Go. Do. (Jonsi)

Go Do by Jonsi  (lyrics HERE)

What 

will 

you 

 see?

Where will you go?

Who are you becoming?

Blessings for the journey...and may God the Friend walk with you.

Wed Dec. 28 Days of Possibility (Susan McKeown)

At the turn of the year when all hope seems to fade
deep within the bleak chill icy cold
comes a voice in our ear for to be unafraid
and have faith all that's lost shall be found...

...no more dwell in sadness but do trust in our hearts
that the New Year will right everything
We do say with one voice we do pray with one heart
for the promise that Christmas doth bring.
-Song of Forgetting

I am not one to laud people’s ability to affect their own destiny, or suggest Oprah-style that one can order up a new life with the universe  (Not that I don’t believe in self empowerment, I just frequently find a troubling lack of social analysis in these claims).  But I do believe that our days are full of possibility.  

I think of how many different people came into my life this last year: a couple new friends, a whole staff of coworkers that seemed like they’d be daily fixtures forever (until our store closed), and countless people who I encountered only once.  And that was only my public life; how many schemes did I work on and abandon, plans did I form and put in motion? Dreams, failures, redirection, losses of family members, of a job, of a clear path toward my goal. The unpredicatbility of life is what makes it rich with possibility.

This time of year reminds us that things change, the year cycles and, though for some of us it might travel similar paths, each step is ripe with the potential of our own choices and the power of our connected nature.

The Song of Forgetting weaves together images of ending and beginning with a sense of hope and possibility.  In the white hollow silence as a new day is born and all the fair world lies asleep tied up with a prayer for the promise that Christmas doth bring. This is perhaps the promise the angel gave to Mary “nothing will be impossible with God;” or the promise of Mary’s son, that God is with us; or the promise that God, whose Love came to transform the world, is also interested in loving us to newness.

This Christmas gift, this sense of hope and possibility, that comes more easily to us at the New Year, is something that calls to us the whole year through, echoing in the birth of each new day. It beckons us again, when the first spring shoot polks out of the snow, when babies are born, when we begin a task again for the eighth time, and on each day in between.


May we hear the call of possibility and the song of hope in each day of the coming year.

-Lindsey