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

It All Falls Down (Sufjan Stevens)

image courtesy Alejandro Heredia

"One mother rises
Pulling the sheets from the crib
All the disguises
Wandering stars, what she did.
All the king's horns
All the kings men
Saddled and worn...
Raise the dead.
Holy, an infant
He came to raise up the dead"

Sometimes a song is Advent down to its bones... even if I can't figure out why. This was the case for last year's Mogwai song I featured on A.M.P., as well as for today's "All the King's Horns." Certainly, a Sufjan Stevens song seems like a safe bet, given its' presence on his 2003 "Songs for Christmas" album, but when I really listen to the lyrics... I'm not sure what I'm listening to. Is this a hopeful song? An omen? Is it even mostly about Christmas at all?





If I could rename this song, it would be called "It All Falls Down." What I hear are portents of things to come, the unrest of nations and the victims of violence brought back to life. I hear the heavens rearranging themselves, and the turning upside-down of all things. I hear "shapeless surprises" in all forms. I hear not just Christmas, that historical event, but Advent.

Basically, I hear this: 

“My soul glorifies the Lord
    and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
    of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
    for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
    holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
    from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
    but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things

    but has sent the rich away empty."
                          - Luke 1: 46b-53

In Mary's words, Advent and Christmas truly embrace. Some have noted that her words are in the past tense, suggesting that even before Christ's birth, Mary was intimately aware that something was already moving, things were already upending... Humpty Dumpty had already been toppled, and not even all the kings horses, and all the king's men...

It All Falls Down. This could sound like a sentence of doom, but when we are confronted with powers and principalities of this world that seem all too solid, when we are faced with injustice and violence, poverty and brokeness seemingly without end -- it might be a word of profoundest comfort to remember that all of it, all of it, will one day come tumbling down through the astonishing grace of God-in-Christ. 

I choose to believe that this is a song about hope. The difficult, messy kind that isn't totally harmonious. Not all the lyrics of a hope like this seem to make sense, but taken as a whole...what you get is a baby that topples rulers, born in the midst of unrest and portents of his own future death. A baby born to a fierce and faithful mother who said one tremendous yes that helped change everything from that day forward (it's what she did). A Christ who continues revealing this revolution started over 2,000 years ago even now. Even in me. Even in you.

What you get is Advent.

Today may you shine with a messy, illogical hope that moves mountains and topples principalities. May you co-create with God in Christ for the upending of all things. May you trust that you, too, are being re-created this Advent toward the renewal of all things.

Shine on.

                                                                                             -- Anna

Advent Gets Angry (Nina Simone)

image courtesy Asif Akbar

"And now we got a revolution,
'Cause I see the face of things to come..."

If there was a list of socially unacceptable feelings during "the Holidays" (read: Advent), it would certainly include Grief, Depression and Loneliness, but topping the list would be Anger. Anger, in fact, would probably not even get included on the list because it's so obviously not acceptable. Who gets angry over the holidays? Greedy, self-centered, messed-up people, probably.

BUT. Turns out that sandwiching some of our favorite Advent texts are some very angry words: Just verses before the traditional "a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse" (Is 11:1), God actually goes on and on about how "in a very little while... my anger will be directed to [the oppressors'] destruction" (Is 10:25).

Truth is, there's a lot of anger bound up in the mysterious promises of God for a creation made-new... which often gets politely ignored during Advent. Perhaps it's because we tend to associate giving God's anger a voice with 'End-Times' obsessed Christians who gleefully crow about the destruction of the ungodly and God's judgement on the unrighteous. Or perhaps it's because anger feels like more of a "Lent thing."

At the core, however, we are ashamed and afraid of human anger and outrage. And because we hide from our own, often-harmful, anger, we also either ignore God's anger or fear it, mistaking it for our own, dis-ordered emotions.

Enter today's submission for Advent music, which is neither joyful nor bright, even though it's got a nice and easy beat. This song is angry. Frustrated. Pissed. off: 

"The only way that we can stand, in fact,
Is when you get your foot from off our backs."

And I love it.

Nina Simone - "Revolution" - Live (Lyrics HERE)

"I'm here to tell you about destruction
Of all the evil that will have to end"

What is more Advent-prophetic than that? Nina goes on to say "I know they'll say I'm preachin' hate..." but clarifies that it is precisely because of the struggle and pain of her current situation that she MUST speak as she does. 

Likewise with us. During Advent, we tend to tune our anger to the tone of "sadness" or "lament" (if we're willing to go there at all) but Anger is Advent in bold letters -- it's Advent written in our sweat and blood. Anger is the urgency that clamors for action, for the sweeping arrival of Christ that Advent invites. Which means that Advent can sometimes get impatient. It can even occasionally get really pissed off.

Why? Because of the Trayvon Martin verdict. Because of the destruction in the Philippines and the suffering and death in the Central African Republic. Because of the sexual violence statistics and the gun violence statistics and the repeal of parts of the Voting Rights Laws. Because this list could go on and on and on.

But we don't dare go to feelings of anger an impatience, because Advent is about patient waiting, right? And yes, for a society raised on instant-gratification, learning patience is good. But patience ceases to be a virtue when it hobbles us to the urgency of the present moment, to the voices of suffering crying out among us (or within us) right now. Patience ceases to be a virtue when it merely clogs our anger in our gut, so that it comes out around the edges, directed dangerously toward the wrong targets (like each other).

What we need around here is to experience our anger TRANSFORMED. To feel our outrage suddenly grace-touched, God-unbound... Love-branded. To finally know our anger as God knows anger: as an outpouring of the deepest love and the most profound honesty. To know anger that seeks relationship, not severs it. Anger that seeks wholeness, not shatters it. Anger that motivates and creates and seeks redemption. Anger which is fuel for playfulness and possibility. We need to let our anger be transformed into light. To Shine. On.

"It's gonna' be alright. 
Everything's gonna' be alright..."

Can we even dare think of anger in these terms during Advent? Do we dare embrace a revolution in Christ that would transform our very emotions? A revolution like that might reveal Christ's own moments of anger not as anomalies or "'fully human' moments" but as a natural Divine response to gross injustice. A revolution like that might, in fact, be able to tie together the threads of God's anger over injustice in Isaiah 10 with God' promise of peace and harmony in Isaiah 11, might be able to tie our real life emotions of anger and grief to the more 'socially acceptable' emotions of patience and longing this Advent season...

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 

 - Isaiah 11: 1-9

May it be so.

May you experience your anger, your pain, your loss more fully this Advent -- not so that you can wield them on others, but so that you may face the realities of this world and take actions rooted in love and not fear.

                                                                         -- Anna

Thurs Dec. 8 - As Seen on TV (Gil Scott-Heron)

      

In the dissonant ring of messy Advent reality against Coming Hope against media-packaged "Christmas preparation," active resistance helps. Joining the revolution of poets, justice workers, advocates and truth-tellers delivers us from the falseness of unending cheeriness or easily-abandoned charity to the deep and abiding movement toward transformed reality.

We resist what has been stolen from us in this season: the story of a homeless baby born in Bethlehem who would grow into a freedom fighter who exposed the workings of oppression and fought against the exploitation of people.* This part of the story of Christ’s coming somehow gets lost among our bright lights and peppermint mochas, our careful balance of charity donations and ‘December to Remember’ gifting. But the holy agenda begun in the manger was both the spiritual transformation of hearts and a dramatic overhaul of political, economic and social systems of injustice. This is not pennies dropped in a bell-ringers’ buckets, this is the revolution of Christmas, and the revolution is LIVE.

*Dr. Obery M. Hendricks, Jr.  The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus’ Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted

**Some strong language present. Also: jazz flute.  You are welcome.

With laws that betray human life We will not comply

With the pointing finger and malicious talk We will not comply

With the idea that happiness must be purchased We will not comply

With the ravaging of the earth We will not comply

With the principalities and powers that oppress We will not comply

With the destruction of peoples We will not comply

With the raping of women We will not comply

With governments that kill We will not comply

With the theology of empire We will not comply

With the business of militarism We will not comply

With the hoarding of riches We will not comply

With the dissemination of fear We will not comply

With the destruction of community We will not comply

- Catalyst Litany -Shane Claiborne, James Loney and Brian Walsh

                                               -Lindsey