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

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

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

Seed the Hope... Resist the Sleep (John Legend and the Roots)

It can take a while for us to fully say the need as we walk forward in Advent, but there comes a time when Advent compels us to do more: respond and resist. So this week on the Advent Music Prject we recall how we SEED THE HOPE of God's coming reign, and RESIST THE SLEEP of un-remembering who and whose we are.

Advent can be a beautiful time of yearning and waiting, but it should also be a time of acting and transforming. After all, Advent looks forward, not backward. It preceeds Christmas to remind us that God's coming is not complete, that Christ still acts in the world and is bringing about a beautiful transformation of all that is broken into wholeness.

In response to the staggering needs of this world and the hopes we each carry in our hearts, we speak and act. We do the hard work of hoping not merely with our words, but with our hands, with our time, and with our lives. We tend the roots of new life wherever it is found.

In response to the social systems designed to lull us into inaction by confusing consumerism with community and entertainment with engagement, we resist the slumber of passivity and apathy. We move, we speak, we learn, we question, we call out for transformation. We remember that this world belongs to God, and let the fire of our passion burn bright.

"There's something in your heart

And it's in your eyes

It's the fire

Inside you

Let it burn

You don't say good luck

You say don't give up

It's the fire

Inside you

Let it burn"

The Fire perf. The Roots (feat. John Legend). Lyrics HERE.

This could be interpreted as a song about personal success, but both the Roots and John Legend have shown consciousness beyond their own interests in their music. There's also a way in which when we Seed the Hope and Resist the Sleep, we live in recognition that our destinies are bound together, and that what seeds hope in the lives of others reverberates back to our own. 

In the end, we don't save the world, but we create spaces for the God Who Comes to move in and take hold. Yet without tending to the places of new life among us, Advent cannot do its full work of providing safe, dark space for seeds to grow, a womb of waiting for the God-with-Us who brings all things to light and life. So we work in Advent, and allow Advent to do its work in us, seeding the hope and resisting the sleep, both being drawn and drawing others into the renewal this season offers.

"Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all. Repay no one evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without cearsing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despire the words of the prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil."                                                    - 1 Thess 5: 13b-22

Where are you being called to seed the hope or resist the sleep this Advent season?

May you feel new energy, even in these shortest days, for the work of compassion and hope, the passion of engagement and action we so sorely need from one another.

                                                                                            - 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.**

Say the Need (Mavis Staples)

This year, the Advent Music Project is thinking about how we "do" Advent in our lives. How does Advent become more than a description of a season, and become a verb that we use to move, grow, and shape not just this moment, but our way forward as well? If Advent and Christmas don't transform us, bit by bit, through the years, we're missing out on their biggest power.



This first week of the Advent Music Project, we'll think about how we SAY THE NEED. How is Advent a time for "pausing in life's pleasures and counting its many tears?"

As we've said before, Advent isn't Lent. Yet both of these seasons are about telling the truth about our lives and the world. As Jan Richardson says,

"Advent beckons us to remember that even as we anticipate birth, we are challenged to let go; to make way for what is coming, we give up whatever would hinder us from receiving it. Sounds a lot like Lent. And sounds a lot like our whole lives. One of the gifts of the liturgical seasons is that they invite us to give particular focus to the stuff that surfaces all along our path."

So even though there are times in this season when our "voice would be merry, but 'tis sighing all the day," we can hold both realities in tandem: our struggle with what IS, and our hopes and longing for what COMES.

Mavis Staples, perf. Hard Times Come Again No More. Lyrics HERE.

A sign that Advent is growing among us is when the truth of our lives meets our trust in God's salvation.

So,"Hard times come again no more," we say. We say our need, and we hold our yearnings in our hands as we live deeply into this season of flickering light, long nights, and rising hope.

May you hunger for the newness of this season, and may hope and honesty meet one another in your life, and kiss. May patience and longing meet; may your focus and your faith kiss one another; and may you enjoy the rich feast of reflection and renewal they offer.

- Anna            

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