Wed Dec. 21 - Coming Home (Alexi Murdoch)

For I am convinced that neither life nor death,
neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future,
nor any powers,
neither height nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

                 - Romans 8:38-39



Sometimes less words are better; in the case of talking about dwelling in to God's love made manifest at Christmas, maybe too many words just flatten the mystery.  So just a handful:

It's possible that Alexi Murdoch's Orange Sky is a song about romantic love or love for a parent, but the language is almost confessional in tone -- 'in your love, my salvation lies, in your love.'  No matter the subject, this is not an individualistic, self-interested love - but rather a love that wraps into an entire system, a community.  It is salvation that includes the brother and sister standing by, that allows the speaker to find hope and strength and recognize a home place.

Alexi Murdoch, Home

It's 'a long road we've been walking on,' and sometimes it's easier to let our 'strong minds' carry on in the belief that we are alone, that our broken hearts are fractured too completely... but we know better.

Here is what I know now:

The Love that comes at Christmas comes something like in this song, both intensely personal and yet wholly communal.  The love of Christ's birth isn't inward-facing, but saves us to be with others and the world.  This love saves us not just by some feat of "substitutionary atonement" or sacrificial suffering, but also simply by being what it is: the love of God made so real and immediate that it needed to take on flesh in order to look us truly and fully in the eyes.  

This is what I know now: we are loved beyond our imaging, beyond height and depth and all powers, and that this is love that has power and force to free and save us - even from ourselves.  In this end, this love is where I live; this love is my home that doesn't save me or take me from the earth, but roots me more fully in the here and the now of things, alongside my sisters and brothers, creatively, openly, communally loving and being loved into the world that is sill being born this season.

May we dwell in the knowledge that our salvation lies in the love God which is so elemental, so radical, that it became human and dwelt among us.

                      - Anna

Sun Dec. 18 - Stake a Claim (Ryan Adams and the Cardinals)

Names are important to me. I am named after two of my great-grandmothers, one from Syria, one from Mexico. One a proud Orthodox Catholic, the other a proud Presbyterian. One who braved emigration and raised her family in New York, the other who raised a family on a farm in northern Mexico. Both strong.  Both women of faith.

These two names from my great-grandmothers make up what is traditionally called my "Christian" name, but there's another part to what I consider my true Christian name. At my home church, when a baby, child, or adult gets baptized, they say, for instance, "Anna Marina, child of the covenant, I baptize you..."

This is my second name. I am a Child of the Covenant which stretches from a man asked to count the stars in Genesis, has a twist in the middle, and picks up in my tradition with Jesus of Nazareth. I am a Child of the Covenant since before I knew what it was, before I claimed it back, before I did anything to deserve it.

Why is this important? Because generally I don't do anything to deserve it.  Because mostly I spend my days screwing things up, getting things wrong, and making a mess. This is no self-loathing; I'm just a human, and that's what we do: we make a spectacular mess of things. Life is hard on us, we're hard on ourselves, and at the end of the day sometimes all we can say is: wow, that's not what I wanted to do at all.

Born into a Light - Ryan Adams and the Cardinals ( approx. lyrics HERE)

What I try to remember during Advent is that I've been caught up in a story that began before I was born, and which will carry on after me. That my mistakes matter, but they're not the end of the world.  That my "worthiness" has nothing to do with my belovedness. That I was born into a Light, and am therefore both known for all my shortcomings and also surrounded by the glow of grace. That my name is 'Anna Marina, Child of the Covenant,' and that is a name and a bond that will not let me go, no matter what.

It's a rich, amazing inheritance, but it's also one that I sometimes hide from because it's a little embarrassing. Jesus? Well, yes, but...

So I also challenge myself: if I've been given this gift of a name and an inheritance of grace, how can I take courage and claim that tradition back? To be bold and say again, "Yes, I believe in all the slightly strange but wonder-inspiring stories in this ancient book. Yes, I believe that God's Spirit is at work here, in this Bible, in this broken Church, in my patched-together, imperfect life. Yes, I believe that this little baby who grew into a flinty, challenging, grace-filled man was God. Yes, I claim this wonderful, foolish, backward truth, because it claimed me, and because it names me."

May we remember our claiming, our naming, in our Advent walk and gather our spirits and voices to claim the story and the name of Christ in return.

                                 -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

Sun Dec 4 - This is Not the End (Gungor)

"And hope does not disappoint us..." 
                     - Romans 5:5



As I have gone through the last week it has felt increasingly important to find a moment of hope, like coming up for a breath from under the waters of sadness and longing. If we are, in fact, going to do the hard work of Advent - the honest self-evaluation, the intentional observation of the world, the heavy listening to the heartbreak of others - then one of our greatest needs will be hope.

    
    
     Advent carries for us this important reminder, the good news that Hope has come. Hope was present with us when the Divine came to dwell in a small, frail, human body and walk among us; or perhaps earlier when the Great Mystery promised itself in love to a man and all his descendants across time and space; or even earlier perhaps when the Spirit of God was breathed into the first human. And every day in between on which a person arose to a new morning, a new possibility, Hope has been present with us, in and among us from the beginning.

In the words of theologian Ivone Gebara:
“hope is in our bones, walking in our steps, breathing in our very breath.”

     Today’s song says ‘this is not the end…we will open our eyes wider, this is not the end…we will open our mouths wider.’ I might insert a 'because' in where the elipses are. We carry within us the hope that strengthens one another, that holds the promise of God’s coming, that builds among us now the lifeways of that promise: peace, justice, love.

Take a deep breath. The hope is inside you.

May we open our eyes wide to see hope incarnate in each of us.

May we open our mouths wide to speak hope into the lives of all whom we meet.

May we stretch our arms wide to hold hope in the tense balance of all that we carry through this Advent season.

                                        -Lindsey