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

All of the Light (Sleeping At Last)

"With golden string, our universe was clothed in light." 

Light, weaving through, holding together, brimming over all creation. And we, earth-children, illuminated dust, watching, waiting, seeking, longing for it in this season. We look at creation and even at ourselves, and sing along with the yearning refrain of today's song: 

“Let there be light (in me), 

Let there be light (in the world), 

Let me be right (oh, please).”

That all of us bear within ourselves infinite possibility, a spark of that divine light, this is the hope of incarnation, of a God who came to the world in human flesh.  The hope that God still chooses to be revealed in the world through our human flesh. That Christ, The Light, may "be born in us this day," as the old hymn says (and every day, one might add). That the Light shines not just in the darkness of some dichotomous world, disconnected from us; but the light shines in the shadowy places within us, too; illuminating us, revealing in us beauty, potential, belovedness.

Today we claim within ourselves this infinite possibility, we let the divine spark within us shine on. Shine On, refusing to surrender this identity, as Light-bearers, not to imposed inferiority or bad theologies, our brokenness or failures; none of these can squelch the light of God’s Love that has come among us.  We Shine On, knowing that so much of our hope-filled resistance hinges on learning how to see ourselves in light of our God. 

We keep that tenacious hope that the light is within us, among us, waiting to be stirred, seen, tended, grown. One of the things we can attest to here at AMP is that the light of God unfolds in unexpected places: a stable, a dream, a foreign land, office cubicles, street corners, youtube channels. The folks at rethinkchurch.org have invited people to an Advent photo-a-day project, in which they encourage everyone to take one photo each day that captures the theme of that day and share it (Check some of them out here https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/rethinkchristmas). Like them let us pause in these days, let us look, search, watch for the snatches of light hiding in plain sight, illuminating creation, announcing 'Christ comes!'

"The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it. " John 1:5 

In what ways does this season invite you to see and better understand the light that shines in you? in us? 

Infinity times infinity, is this the Light when shared between us? How could seeing the Light within and among  and around us transform our advent waiting?

God of Illumination, train our eyes to see in each moment, in each being, the glint of possibility and the sparks of your grace. 

-Lindsey

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

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

Double Vision (Talib Kweli)

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.

Gutter Rainbows by Talib Kweli. Lyrics HERE.

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.**

Tues Jan. 3 - Resolution Revolution (The Frames)

I want my life to make more sense,
I want my life to make amends,
I want my life to make more sense to me.
                  - The Frames


I'm not a New Year's "resolver."  I have never made a resolution to do something after the new year, similar to how I have only a very few times "given up" anything for Lent.  It's not that I have anything against the original concept of these traditions; it's just that their everyday forms generally fail to inspire me.  For instance, how much does giving up chocolate desserts for forty days really inspire me to think about my life or Christ's sufferings?  Not that much, really.

It's not that I can't imagine a possible scenario where giving up something small for Lent could help me focus or practice self-discipline, or how a New Year's Resolution could inspire me to new depths of self-actualization and happiness... it just also seems a little unlikely.

What would it look like if our resolutions had a revolution (literally turned around) to become something that was a little less about ourselves and reached out to encompass a community, a family, a world?

Sure, let's still go to the gym, but also let's think about the mark we leave on the lives of others, how our acts create waves that we can't even see.  Let's think about how we're making sense of our lives, how we are making amends, how we rightly choose to stay and fight or choose to find a fresh road forward...

Pavement Tune by The Frames (lyrics HERE)

Turns out, this ties right back into Christmas.  In the usual December flurry of "Does the 'Christ' Still Matter in Christmas?" articles, my favorite was one in the Huffington Post that reminded us that 'the greatest attack on Christmas has come from within,' from Christians whose actions so little resembled the teachings of Christ.

It is galvanizing to remember that perhaps my resolutions might take a different form because of Christmas: one of honoring the baby born in Bethlehem and the man he grew to be by starting anew the revolution in my own life - the turning again towards the difficult task of trying to live with more grace and less judgement, with more understanding and less ignorance, with more compassion and and less need for control.

Making all things new is ultimately a process of grace through God's help, but it is also a process of time and desire -- and practice.  We must want our actions to be transformed or we make God's work infinitely harder.  So it begs the question: how are our resolutions at the new year, at the mid-year, and elsewhere opening us daily to this transformation both personally and communally?

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.  For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

                          - 2 Cor 3: 18

May the work of the Spirit continue to be seen through even our small acts of courage, grace and peace in this coming year.

                                            - 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.

Sat. Dec 31 - Blessing for a New Year (The Wailin' Jennys)

A prayer for a new year's eve:

On the threshold,

Look, 

just look:

keep your eyes open, even as the hours and days 

continue to change around you

- challenge become opportunity become gauntlet become grace -

grace upon grace.

may you allow yourself to be transformed

by play, by hope,

and even by the strange wholeness hidden within what 

irrevocably breaks.

may your dreams, work, possibility and desire

call you deeper into the world, 

into the nexus where human souls 

graciously meet.

May your mind be widened by the Friend's

holy surprises, 

by the Spirit's delightful soul-nudges.

and when you find yourself standing where all things turn,

may the tensions bless you 

may the tensions bless you

and may a joyous creation greet you at every dawn.

on 

the 

threshold,

May we know the blessing of letting go and the sacredness of  memory, peace at our beginnings and peace at our endings.

May welcome find us, even as we open our arms to take the world in.

May hope be the song that excites our steps for the journey
and love be the voice that calls us home.

The Parting Glass performed by the Wailin' Jennys

May it be so for you and yours.

-Anna and Lindsey

  

Fri Dec. 30 - Brave New World (Nina Simone)

It's a new dawn

It's a new day

It's a new life

for me...

and I'm feelin' good...

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.

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

Mon Dec. 26 - This Time Like You Mean It (Sister Rosetta Tharpe)

The angel said to the shepherds, "Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord."
  [And] suddenly a multitude of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace...!"

                                       - Luke 2:10-14, adapted

Why is there so little joy in our churches around Christmas? Joy isn't the same thing as adoration and praise, although these are close sisters. It's also not the same as quiet inspiration, although this, too, is related. Joy is an attitude, not an action; it's about nearly irrepressible delight, amazement, wonder, or understanding. In a Christian context, joy is about connection with the divine story in a way that is radically moving, that literally shakes up our foundations and brings us to our feet - or to our knees.

Yes, I'm happy about pancakes on Christmas morning or opening presents, and delighted by family and calm feelings of peace. Or maybe some years I'm not - maybe Christmas is painful and awkward for me that year. But I believe that joy can break out for us all into any situation - even though it rarely does.

Trouble is, we can't just BE more joyful. The miracle of joy is that it can't be manufactured or forced - it is utterly authentic or it is nothing. All we can do is be open to it, be awake to the story of our faith and be convicted about its meaning in our lives. In the end, joy comes, unbidden, from the place where our deepest hopes and convictions meet resounding outside affirmation - like the angels appearing to frightened shepherds to put an emphatic exclamation point on God's promises of love and redemption.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was one of the earliest rock n' roll musicians in the U.S., though she's rarely credited for it. She grew up on the preaching circuit with her mother learning to play guitar and never left the gospel spirit in which she was raised. What I appreciate so much about Sister Rosetta is her joyful, almost infectious delight when she sings and plays - she rolls back her eyes, sways, wails on the guitar and just generally invites us join her in a playful conspiracy of rejoicing:

Up above my head, 

I hear music in the air,

Up above my head,

there is music in the air

Up above my head

I really do believe (I really do believe)

There's joy somewhere

All in my home, 

there is music in the air...

What would it look like if we could catch the spirit of this kind of praise and delight -- this great joy -- more often in our lives, homes and communities? Maybe it would look like Sister Rosetta or maybe it would be quieter or more subtle, but either way it would be real, meaningful and - most important: visible.

This carries us back to the heart of Christian evangelism - which isn't some sickly, cloying Vote-For-Jesus campaign or mere self-aggradizing proselytizing, but which simply starts with the act of living of our lives as if this Christmas story mattered - as if it gave us genuine hope and real joy.  

The Advent Music Project didn't feel like a complete project unless we followed the Christmas star all the way into the manger and to Epiphany. So this week, as Christmastide begins, we're thinking about Hoping Onward into the twelve days of Christmas, into a new calendar year, and beyond. So we ask ourselves: how do we hope onward and delve deeper into the story of Jesus' birth so that we don't just abandon him in the manger when the parties and food and gifts have ended?

One possibility of hoping onward might be to re-embrace the possibility of joy in our lives and Christian communities. We might remember and experience 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' this year as if there were some strange and wonderful music about to break out overhead, announcing good news of great joy. We might sing the songs as if they meant something, we might worship wholeheartedly and try to live -at least for a moment - as if we really mean it when we said that we believe that Emmanuel was born again this Christmas Day, inviting all Creation to join with us in the angels' playful conspiracy of rejoicing, as well.

'May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in the Lord, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.'                  - Romans 15:13

                             - Anna

Tues Dec. 13 - Riffing on Love (feat. Over the Rhine)

In this third week of Advent we are moving into a time of real anticipation: the Christmas and Advent carols are starting to feel more "right," the tinsel is glittering, and there's a feeling that the time is drawing near: we are truly making ready for the wonder and peace of Christ's birth to enter our lives once more.  This week, the Advent Music Project explores: How do we make ready?  What do we do (or not) to prepare for the Coming Light?

The Trumpet Child is one of my favorite Advent songs.  The image of a young Jesus calling in the Reign of God with a jazz solo is an image that's hard to top, of course:

The trumpet child will riff on love

Thelonious notes from up above

He'll improvise a kingdom come...
                                      -- Over the Rhine

Nonetheless, the genius of this song's image is that it plays with the wonderful alchemy that is great jazz music: improvisational jazz is a musical style that is deceptively spontaneous and chaotic.  It's true, the exact flow of notes are created on the spot, but always in a framework: the other musicians have their parts, know the cues to switch keys or let someone else lead, and know the structure to the song.  The best improv musicians are the ones who know how to riff on a theme or a format - not just go off on their own.  So in the end, improv is actually about mutuality, cooperation, and listening as much as it is about raw talent and creativity.

The Trumpet Child by Over the Rhine (lyrics HERE)

Improv is a great metaphor for God's power and intentions in the world: God is both sovereign and mutual, creative and cooperative.  God's promises are the solid framework, God's actions switch the keys, but within that structure both we and God and the forces of the natural world are "improv-ing" the present together.  The good news is that our reality is neither utter chaos nor set in stone: there's room for transformation, surprise, and even delight.  True, creativity and freedom can be messy (all good artwork usually is) and sometimes the notes grow discordant, but in the end, God's promises accompany us, the stories of God help us imagine new notes, and the Holy Spirit constantly guides us.


"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
                                         - Jeremiah 29:11


Maybe one way to anticipate and make ready for what God is revealing among us is to embrace our own creative and improvisational abilities.  As someone was saying to me today: sometimes life give you exactly what you'd never want, but the trick is to figure out how to change the rules, transform the game, and make what seemed to give no life flourish.  It's not easy - this is no cute "lemonade from lemons" proposition - but if God is transforming this world, may we not have faith that our own daily riffs and improvisations are a necessary part of the piece?

May we embrace our creativity and openness; our mutuality and listening; our dreams and curiosity in these days, preparing our hearts for the Advent of Christ - 'riffing on love' along with God and all of Creation.

                                    - Anna