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

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

The Hardest Part (Mogwai)

image courtesy of gudjhong (sxc.hu)

This is a song I don't really want to post. Not because it isn't a great song - because it hooked me the first time I listened to it. And not because I don't think it doesn't reveal something true about Advent - because I think it does. The problem is that this song, especially for the season of Advent, makes me uncomfortable.

I work as a chaplain resident at a university hospital. This means that I spend my days walking from a room with new possibilities to a room where a family stands around the body of their dead loved one and has no idea, no idea at all, what to do now. And Advent changes nothing about their situation.

Enter this song. Mogwai's Christmas Steps is full of angsty distorted guitars and minor chords - not very Advent-y. And yet, I'm going to ask that we all just listen to this shorter, live version all the way through. Why? Because we owe it to those for whom this Advent season is immeasurably painful. We also owe it to ourselves to remember the year(s) when it was the same for us.

There's a poem by the Sufi mystic, Rumi, about a man who praises Allah all day long until a cynic challenges him, asking if he's ever heard a response. The man goes home, dejected, but dreams that night of the spiritual guide, Khidr, who reminds him:

"This longing you express

is the return message."

The grief you cry out from

draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness

that wants help

is the secret cup.

If we turn our backs on the sadness Advent can bring too quickly, or ignore the grief and rage we can carry around in our own lives, calling it by other names (stress, depression, disappointment, lethargy, apathy, overcommittment), we risk pushing the secret cup of God's love away, our lips still dry.

You will probably not "like" this song. 

Note your disquiet, but listen for the full arc of the story it tells.

Christmas Steps by Mogwai

The secret cup of Advent, the miracle of the incarnation, is the place where our deepest lament becomes music, and our grief becomes song. Christmas Steps may refer to a street in Bristol, but it's also a way of walking into Advent - sometimes on our knees. The 'grief we cry out from' isn't pretty. It certainly isn't grammatically correct. But it has a shape, a form, a release, as we surrender our illusions to a God we can barely name aloud.

A true experience of God's grace is not for the faint of heart. Yet for a pearl of great price, might we not risk our discomfort with the disjointed side of our Advent longings?

There are deep currents in our hearts, prayers and longings written along the lines of our bones which only the promise of incarnation in Advent can answer. Fear ye not: there will yet be time for cookie baking and carols, for comfort and good cheer. Our music project will bend again toward songs of joy and hope. Yet for Advent to really take hold in us, there needs to be a moment for the fierce grace of God to break over us like waves of sound, cascades of light. A moment when we allow the hardest part of Advent to usher us straight into the center of it's incredible mystery: that the pain is never, never the final word. Against all statistics and expectations, against all reason and logic, Christ's peace is born into this chaos, this need, this 'grief we cry out from.'

Alleluia. Alleluia, indeed.

What uncomfortable emotions do you carry into this Advent season?

May you stay with your disquiet, even for a moment, and allow it to draw you fully into the arms of God.

- Anna                                    

Fri Jan. 6 - Window on the Mystery (1 Giant Leap)

I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen.  I must bring them also.  They, too, will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.  
              - John 10:16


On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him.  Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they returned home by another road.
         - Matthew 1:11-12

The shepherds get a lot of air time as being God's unexpected chosen guests at the manger - not powerful kings but the poorest of the poor, called upon to receive the Son of God. But what do we make of those other first guests, mysterious foreigners of other faiths who journeyed afar? Not Mary's 'church family' or religious leaders from Joseph's synagogue, but wisdom seekers, star trackers, faith sojourners?

The fact is, those "Wise Men," don't seem to have become 'Christians' in any recognizable sense either before or after they visited the manger - yet they still came to witness, honor, and give gifts to Jesus where he lay.  They were Zoroastrian foreigners who sensed the in-breaking of God in Jesus and worshiped that divinity, ultimately leaving transformed.  So in a way, this shows that Jesus truly and fully embodied the Divine Mystery which lays at the heart of all religions.  Yet rather than making Christ the center, the period on that Mystery, it also makes Christ the window on the Mystery itself.

As we've explored, that first Christmas was full of surprises and reversals, turning people's expectations upside-down. This Epiphany, we might consider the surprising ways in which Christ's coming continues to upend us, razing the boundaries we had in place, upsetting our rules and expectations.  Over and over, what Christmas really show us is that the God we worship is unlimited by our current understandings of the way the world works - and in the story of the "Wise Men" cannot even be tamed by the boundaries of religions we have tried to erect, transforming both us and others in the process.

I Love the Way you Dream by 1 Giant Leap feat. Asha Bohsle, Michael Stipe, et al.  (lyrics HERE)

Note: Brief nudity in the context of religious ritual toward the end of the video.

As we journey forward from Christmastide into the early days of a new year, may we feel Christ's in-dwelling Spirit making all things new, not just in the world, but in our own vision of the world - of its peoples; of its complicated, messy, problematic, blessing-filled faith traditions; and of God's spiraling, upending, all-encompassing plan for us all.

Thanks for journeying with us- and peace in the coming year!

Its been real, its been fun, its been real fun.

-Lindsey and Anna

Fri Dec. 23 - An Invitation (Imogen Heap)

And the Word became flesh and lived among us... From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

                      - John 1:14a, 16

incarnation: an improv

 (hit play and read on)

THE TIME IS NIGH. 

Creation braces;

cities shiver

and hide their sharp gleam.

pundits, thieves and martyrs seek solace in oblivion,

laughing at docile folk hunkering against the wind -

the desperate and lonely 
covering their ears 
against echoing angel sounds.

you, too, huddle:

lost, jaded, 
confused; 

reaching, uncertain, 
in the dark...

terrified that you are numb or

terrified that you might feel something --

or terrified that everything matters and you

haven't really paid attention.

have you done enough
to be ready?

have you done anything
at all?

HARK, NOW:

stop asking

all 

the wrong questions.

all you need

is

to open your eyes -

open your eyes -

OPEN YOUR EYES.

widen 
your whole self.

expand --

               allow --

                              release --

just

invite 

the miracle 

to be lit again

in you.

music: Cumulus by Imogen Heap

                                           - Anna

Tues Dec. 20 Tidings of Comfort and Joy (Pete Droge)

Hello Mr. Montgomery, good to see you out on the street.

Been so long since we touched the ground

of this restless little town.

Good people, gather round, on Christmas Day.

There must be smoke coming out of every chimney,

the kindest words rolling off of every tongue,

And of all the gifts that you could give me, your love is still the greatest one.

- Pete Droge, On Christmas Day

         The weather has been unseasonably warm in Southeast Michigan this month. The prediction is that it will not snow before the end of the week here, and while I am mourning my white Christmas a bit, I have appreciated the increased number of people who seem to be out and about enjoying this weather. There is something I just love about leaving my office and greeting the neighbors as they sit on their porch in the late afternoon, or going to a holiday street festival downtown and running into friends, or even being able to take a walk on a Saturday morning and stop to pet the Johnsons’ dog as I pass their house. This proximity and connection to others is usually more difficult in the cold weather months here and I am grateful for the reprieve, however long it lasts.

            These chance meetings and times of visiting, are what I pop into my head when I listen to today's song. Though the song embodies a kind of nostalgic, small town culture that isn't really part of my Christmas past, I do connect with the themes of gathering together, prioritizing relationships and recognizing the blessedness of knowing and being known to those around you. I hear Pete Drodge singing into his time and culture, the tidings of comfort and joy from our carols and hymns of old.

                                                   On Christmas Day

This player will not display on mobile or non-Flash devices. - sorry!

            This past Sunday, my pastor preached about God’s love for people throughout time. He referenced the many stories of our ancestors in faith that tell of God being with the people: Abraham, Moses and the Israelites leaving Egypt, wandering in the desert, the judges, kings and prophets. For all time people of faith have believed that God is with us, but the Christmas story brings us a new idea about God. This time God isn’t just with the people, God becomes one of the people, inhabiting a body; the Eternal Creator wrapped up in flesh, in struggle, in joy, in the experience that is human life. There was a shift, pastor said, from God from being with us to God being within us.

            The last statment has occupied much of my own reflection these past days. I am compelled by this belief, the incarnation, not just God’s coming to earth as a baby human, but the added wonder that God is embodied in us, in our living and loving and connection to one another. This season offers a sacred call to us, to celebrate the coming of God to dwell with us, walking among us so many years ago; but it also calls us to celebrate a God that comes to dwell with in us each day. There is a way in which even our modern culture around Christmas keeps traces of this wisdom for us, as we sing good tidings, give charitably, send greeting cards and reconnect with family and friends.  But beyond that, a wonderful part of our Advent preparation is dwelling in our relationships and our connection to others; looking into the kind words, wishes for peace, and time spent together, and seeing the invitation, love and presence of our God Incarnate.

           

 Holy One,  dwell within us, as we dwell with each other, looking toward the celebration, peace and joy that you are bringing to the world.

-Lindsey