"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.
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,
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.
I've died enough by now I trust just what's imperfect or ruined. ...And a million others might be like me, our hopes a kind of illegal entry, a belief in smashed windows...
- from God the Broken Lock
by David Rivard
I believe in smashed windows. I believe in ruined bodies and limping minds. Not just in hope for their healing (sometimes), but with deep conviction in the preciousness of the bearers of brokenness themselves - which is all of us, in some regard. Brene Brown puts it this way, "what makes me vulnerable is what makes me beautiful." Most of the time, though, I don't act like what is broken is beautiful - especially in myself or in the society in which I live. I can have a gaze of such grace and loving-kindness for another, but forget to turn it on myself -- or harbor such anger about injustice or dysfunction in society that I forget to applaud the weeds and wildflowers that break through the concrete. David Rivard's poem, excerpted above, reflects on himself as a young boy breaking into a concert hall with friends. Crawling around and then falling asleep, they awake to the sounds of a famous soul quartet warming up - not on their own hits, but on gospel songs about Jesus. Jesus, who spent his whole life turning his gaze not on the whole, the beautiful, the acclaimed, but on the ugly, humiliated, broken, and cast out. Talib Kweli says it this way: "I approach it from another angle / I stay in the streets and notice the gutter rainbows." Gutter Rainbows of spilled oil and sunlight, even though "the pain that you will discover is making the angels shudder." Beauty doesn't take away the pain of our experiences, nor does it make them 'okay.' Beauty can be our survival mechanism, however, our way of looking with fresh eyes, and creating with a spirit of hope. Seeking beauty in the mess is our resistance to despair.
In our Advent waiting, it can be hard to keep this double vision of hard truth-telling about our brokenness and need, and also our belovedness and beauty. Our world was created good, and though we've invented a thousand sad ways to pervert it, the fundamental goodness remains. It can be vertigo-inducing to practice "seeing double" during Advent, but it's the most honest way to remember what we still can't see at all:
"For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known." - 1 Cor 13: 12
Double vision, actually, is a difficult 'handicap.' It is tiring, requiring slow movement and frequent rest. It can cause headaches, nausea. In the end, it is supremely uncomfortable to see two views of the world at the same time. Yet the side-effects themselves teach us the fundamental truth of our own vision: we always see double, and it's our minds that condense the images into one. For a season, therefore, we seek more diligently for a double perspective so that we might carry forward the remembrance that we are hard-wired to see two things at the same time -- to hold the paradoxes of brokenness and beauty, pain and possibility, as one.
In the season of Advent, may your double vision grow stronger, may you discern silhouettes of grace and beauty in even the most craggy passes.
- Anna
**This week, we'll take YOUR suggestions for what songs help you Seed the Hope or Resist the Sleep. Post a YouTube link with your thoughts and we'll re-post them all on our Saturday post.**
New Year's Eve music is its own special genre: hopeful songs, wistful songs, starting-over songs, never-again songs, one-too-many drinking songs, gimme-some-lovin' songs, funny-resolution songs and depressive songs all vie for space to tell us they truly tell it like it was.
Feeling Good doesn't quite fit any of these categories, even though the words have a straightforward starting-over theme. In contrast, the music behind the lyrics has this minor-keyed lurch and grind that gives it a lot more gravitas than the words themselves convey. It's a song of mixed emotions, mixed times - an apt song for a moment when the old and new overlap in onelong night.
What I hear is someone who's had a rough time - maybe a really rough time - and has now made it to the other side. Or maybe what I hear is someone who has found new strength, new drive, new determination. Or maybe what I hear is someone just that so overjoyed that the freedom and hope they feel within is echoed in every movement of Creation. What I hear in all of these possibilities is someone who can hope onward into the future because she/he knows from where she came and can still look around her and truly be 'feelin' good.'
Maybe this was a wonderful, blessing-filled year for you, and the best possible thing 2012 could bring is another year like it. Maybe it's just been a good year: good changes, good vibes, full of possibilities and adventures despite some rough spots. Maybe it hasn't been a good year at all, or a downright drag-yourself-to-the-finish one. No matter what, hoping onward requires knowing from where you've come well-enough to look clear-eyed at the present and the future, and maybe even claiming this very moment as really and truly "good."
2011 is drawing to a close. Whatever it's meant to us, a new year rises to greet us with new promises and possibilities. How is Creation calling to you about possibility, hope and freedom?
Feeling Good by Nina Simone; video by Tamara Connolly
Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
let the sea resound, and all that is in it.
Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them;
Let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.
- Psalm 96: 11-12
In these final hours of a passing year, may we reflect, rejoice, laugh and welcome a new year, 'a bold world,' of freedom and grace.
In [Jesus] all things were created... he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." -- Colossians 1:16-17 selected At a young age I realized this eternal truth about great pop music while listening to Paul Simon's Graceland album: a truly great song is one where I can mishear the lyrics and love both the true and false versions equally well. This is true of most Iron and Wine songs, and Walking Far From Home is one I particularly love precisely because there are so many delightful and thought-provoking things to mishear.
The delicious mystery is what keeps my eyes and ears open, not just to this song, but to the world. I have no idea what the ultimate meaning of the song is, but I sense that it has something to do with awareness, loving the broken and the lost, and hope. These are all ideas that remind me again of our theme for this week: what helps? What helps with our longings and our brokenness? What helps with the waiting? Iron and Wine reminds me that what helps is keeping our eyes truly open to what's going on around us, taking in the grace and the grime.
Walking Far From Home is like a lullaby for the world as I'd want it written: sad and gorgeous, compassionate and hopeful, tragic, honest and humane. For me, it speaks of our essential identity as wanderers in this world, and yet of the ways in which we are ultimately drawn back together in God's embrace. It invites us to open our eyes and celebrate the beauty of Creation, even in its broken state.
The lyrics are worth reading HERE, but it's also good just to "mishear" the first time around... what do you hear?
This song invites us, in the words of Mary Oliver, to be "a bride married to amazement,/ ...the bridegroom, taking the world into [our] arms." Or, to take the challenge further, as Mother Francis Dominica states, to remember that "Nothing in your life is so insignificant, so small, that God cannot be found at its center." This song challenges me to look for beauty and meaning (manifestations of God) in all places, even the strange and painful, the outcast and despairing. I may not see God immediately, or even at all, but at the end I will have looked with my whole eyes and my whole Spirit, and maybe in that way will have embodied God's presence in that space.
I like to think that Jesus' healing ministry began with his unflinching gaze upon the rejected, the sinners and the lost that acknowledged their deep humanity beyond their brokenness. Conversely, any of us who have sat at the side of a stranger who was ill or dying, or a friend who had become lost in their own despair knows that sometimes the only possible response is to look, to look with love and grace and peace into the mystery of this one human life which touches all human life... and with that look acknowledge that life is more than just the meat of things; that there is an awe-ful beauty at the heart of our lives, and it is there, sometimes, where we are able to fall back into God's embrace.
Saw a wet road
form a circle
and it came like a call, came like a call
from the Lord. - Iron and Wine
May we allow ourselves to look fully and deeply at the things we love and the things that hurt in these days, seeking God at the center and knowing peace along the way.
