Is there any better day than the first Sunday of Advent to feel the heartache of longing?
When my house is a mess, I’m exhausted from the holidays, our family routine is in smithereens, the babies aren’t sleeping, my emotions are riding a roller coaster, and I’ve yelled at or spoken sharply to the boys so many times that I can’t see why they even want to be around me anymore, it is good to know that God is bringing hope and healing even into the middle of these messy, ugly, details.
He is coming.
Coming to break through our sinfulness, our weaknesses, our hard hearts, our apathetic spirits, and our pride.
In beauty and vulnerability He is coming.
Let us prepare our hearts for His birth, and make room in our minds and our lives for His coming: let us light the candle of hope today, and remember His promises of redemption. All this, even these endless and mind-numbing failures played out in each hour’s trivial details, can be restored and made beautiful. That is the hope that gives me strength to rise up again in the morning and try, once again, to live in the love He has given me.
(all pictures are from a friend’s wedding, inĀ lieu of actual Advent pictures, since I’m a bit behind on that… they fit my mood though)
Today, I will love my children for who they are, the way they are, and not act as though I would rather them be someone different.
Today, I will advocate for my children’s wellbeing instead of feeling embarrassed when they are unableĀ to adjust to unreasonable adult expectations.
Today, I will be the safe place my children need when they are overwhelmed, overstimulated, tired, hungry, or uncomfortable, instead of ignoring them to focus on my own conversations or activities.
Today, I will be mentally and emotionally present for my children, so that I can observe the warning signs before a meltdown ensues, and protect their privacy and dignity by giving them the rest or space they need to recalibrate.
Today, I will do the best that I can do to ensure that my children remember Thanksgiving Day with the whole extended family as a day of joy and togetherness, despite the potential for chaos and stress. And I will do this not by emphasizing to them what Thanksgiving ought to be about, but by equipping them to handle the special challenges of the holidays with confidence and grace.
While the general joy of the holiday season begins to creep upon me beginning with Halloween and my birthday, the anxiety of it doesn’t really start for me until now, in the week between Limerick’s birthday and Thanksgiving. I don’t know if everyone has to fight down panic attacks during the holiday season, or intentionally pursue joy while the black tentacles of depression and apathy are pulling them down; I don’t know if everyone feels trapped between the potential of the season and the expectations for the season, faced with a list of people to visit and chores to complete, wondering where the beauty and the significance went. I would imagine there are a lot of us, but I personallyĀ only know one other person with any certainty.
With that in mind, what IĀ want to do is to ask the rest of you to be kind and gracious: to realize that we really do love being with family, participating in the festivities, carrying on the fun or meaningful traditions we’ve built with you over the years, but that sometimes the weight of it all is just to great for us to carry. Sometimes the chaos of a joyful family is too overwhelming, the social pressure too intense, the smells and sounds and expectations a perfect storm that threatens all our normal coping mechanisms. When we have to leave early, or take a few moments of solitudeĀ to recalibrate, or drop out of the conversation and activity for a while, it’s not because we don’t want to be with you. Will you believe me when I say we’re making a huge effort to be there with you, because we love you and you matter to us?
And for anyone who’s trying to navigate the holidays through anxiety or depression, I feel you. I’ve been there – some years more so than others – and there really isn’t anything positive about it. It’s incredibly hard to stay engaged for hours of small talk, with stress-inducing levels of ambient noise and who knows what other irritants (low light and allergens, anyone?), when your insides feel like a black void or when every defense system in your body is on high alert. It hurts to try so hard to be happy and present only to end up feeling like you’ve failed, andĀ ruinedĀ the holidays for someone else.
So please don’t feel guilty about taking the space you need to be you, to be joyful, to remember the big idealsĀ or the little traditions that are meaningful and important to you as an individual. Please don’t feel guilty about advocating for yourself and your own well-being – if it helps, think that there are probably others who will be glad you spoke up because they’re running on fumes as well.
You are loved. You matter. Even if you can only be around for five minutes on Thanksgiving Day because you’re having an episode or an attack, the day will be brighter for everyone else because of those five minutes. When you’re fighting for each moment, sharingĀ it withĀ another person is one of the most precious and valuable gifts imaginable, and anyone who understands will value it accordingly.
I remember learning, as a child, about the ship St. Louis that sailed from Germany in 1939, carrying over 900 Jewish refugees to a Cuba that had just closed its doors. Turned away from her destination, the St. Louis asked President Roosevelt to give them safe harbor (a choice he could feasibly have made using the power of the executive order), but he never even replied. In the end, the passengers were scattered throughout Britain and Western Europe; half of those who returned to the continent were killed in the war. Hitler received the clear message that the rest of Western civilization was not particularly concerned about the fate of the Jewish people.
The St. Louis at Havana. Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Museum.
Why was the United States so cavalier about the fate of these individuals, so cold to their plight? The USHMM has a good summary:
Despite the ongoing persecution of Jews in Germany, the State Department’s attitude was influenced by the economic hardships of the Depression, which intensified grassroots antisemitism, isolationism, and xenophobia. The number of entry visas was further limited by the Department’s inflexible application of a restrictive Immigration Law passed by the US Congress in 1924. Beginning in 1940, the United States further limited immigration by ordering American consuls abroad to delay visa approvals on national security grounds.
In short, substituting anti-Islamic sentiment for antisemitism, the United States was facing exactly the same attitudes in 1939 that she is today in 2015. Her citizens were afraid – afraid for their own economic security, afraid to be drawn into global problems, afraid of war, and afraid of people whose appearance, culture, and beliefs were different than their own. We have our own problems; let those people take care of themselves and leave us in peace.
In C.S. Lewis’s book That Hideous Strength, he allows the characters to muse for a while on the particular genius or defining characteristic of several different nations – in essence, the way in which those nations, despite the grime and decay of sin, most especially reflect some aspect of the coming kingdom of Christ.
He doesn’t make two blades of grass the same: how much less two saints, two nations, two angels. The whole work of healing Tellus [Earth] depends on nursing that little spark, on incarnating that ghost, which is still alive in every real people, and different in each. When Logres really dominates Britain, when the goddess Reason, the divine clearness, is really enthroned in France, when the order of Heaven is really followed in China – why, then it will be spring.
Since the first time I read that passage as a teenager I’ve wondered what could define the United States, my own country. It’s only now, as I consider the refugee crisis, that I think I see what is best, most characteristic, most beautiful about us – and what consequently is most violently attacked.
The United States, in theory, as a concept or an ideal, is a nation that welcomes the poor, the oppressed, the pioneer, the explorer, the entrepreneur, the “huddled masses yearning to be free,” and offers to each of them the opportunity to labor, live, learn, and love to the best of their ability. We’re not, historically, a country that supports and provides for each other well, but we are a country that provides opportunity well. In every age people have come here seeking that opportunity, and it has been here waiting for them. And as representatives from all nations and cultures have come here seeking that opportunity, we have taken them in and, though we have most definitely not always embraced the diversity they bring, we have given them the freedom to be and express who they are. With time, they become American, but they don’t need to lose their heritage to do so.
It is the same with God’s kingdom. All nations will come to it, seeking life, seeking love, seeking to learn and labor for a better future, and all those peoples will be assimilated into one people, His people, but they won’t have to lose their traditions and history to do so. We will be proudly and beautifully ourselves, carrying the full rich textured fabric of our past and our culture, as we walk into His kingdom, and all nations will be represented there in the fullness of their glory as well.
Is it any wonder, if this is the divine spark within our nation, that it should be so constantly besieged? It is always our fear that impedes us – our fear of the unknown future and our forgetfulness of the past.
Throughout our history there has been this countercurrent running, this voice that whispers fear in our ears. It tells us that letting in these new people will compromise our own position – steal our jobs, endanger our families, threaten our comfortable way of life. Having received opportunity for ourselves, our temptation is to withhold it from others. Having been born to privilege, safety, and relative wealth, we fear that offering the opportunity for others to work for those things will entail losing them ourselves. Having lived in freedom, we condemn others to oppression even as they beg at our feet for us to open our doors, or risk their lives to enter illegally.
I pray that this time, in this hour of need, our borders would open to those seeking shelter, desiring a new life, wanting simply the opportunity to pursue happiness and love that we have declared an inalienable human right; that we would overcome our fears of different cultures and religions and see the humanity behind them; that we would risk our comfort and security ever so slightly to save families and children from torture and death. I pray that we would not repeat our failure of the 1930s, ISIS terrorism standing in for Hitler’s Holocaust.
I don’t think we give converts enough credit (or, perhaps, enough patience).
Those of us who grew up in the church, do we really understand the immensity of declaring a changed worldview? Even after the change has occurred (in that slow, subtle, steady way that people usually change), the declaration is still a drastic and public event. If the convert is coming from a family or immersed in a culture that looks down on their new beliefs, it’s even harder. They know the questions that will be coming – and even worse, the silent looks, the whispered judgments, the unspoken assumptions.
Let us all give each other the grace to change at our own speed, and the courtesy not to assume we know exactly what those changes entail when they come. But let us also pray for the courage to be honest about our own changes, and not hide behind a comfortable mask as our true self morphs into something else.
Sometimes God answers your prayers for discernment and direction by shutting the door you’d hoped to walk through.
My husband and I received one of those answers yesterday and responded by watching “Inside Out” and eating almost a whole batch of Smitten Kitchen’s chocolate caramel crack. (Which is pretty much the best stuff ever for dealing with disappointment, or just for enjoying on the sly every time you walk past the freezer where you’re trying to save it for holiday gifts…).
It’s just, sometimes the path in front of us is beautiful and we can’t wait to walk forward on it, and sometimes it’s an ugly and desolate road. Sometimes it’s a smooth and level walkway, and sometimes it’s a steep and rocky trail. And the thing is, it’s easier to endure for the long haul when the surroundings are pleasant and the walking is easy. It’s easier to sing songs on the trail and stop to take pictures of the scenery when you’re not laboring just to catch your breath with every step.
The hardest path I ever had to walk was through the darkness of depression. Knowing that God brought me through that treacherous valley gives me hope that He’ll bring me through this desert as well. They’re very different places, but the need to endure is the same, and the God who gives strength is the same.
I’m not going to deny that I was upset by God’s answer to this prayer we had offered up to Him. God doesn’t need me to pretend that I’m happy or that I understand when I’m not and I don’t. But I’m also not going to act as though this “no” defines my life right now, or let it color every other “yes” that He’s given me. He has blessed us in abundance, and if He chooses not to bless us in this way that we had hoped for, it will be ok. We will keep hoping and keep trusting, as we have been for the past few years, and we will keep working with patience and endurance on the pathway He’s given us.
It seems like a long, straight, foggy road these days. Stretching onward, infinitely onward, perhaps – although for all I can see, it could turn at any moment. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, day in and day out, walking down the road, in hope.
It’s no secret that one of the most glaring differences between Protestant (particularly Evangelical/low church) and Catholic Christianity is in their beliefs about and attitude toward Mary the mother of Jesus. To a Protestant, the Catholic veneration of Mary looks disturbingly like idolatry. But I’m beginning to have significant qualms about the almost callous disdain some varieties of Protestantism have towards Mary, not least because of the implications it has for their understanding of femininity and their treatment of women.
If we believe that Mary was chosen essentially at random, that God could have used any woman to be the mother of His Son because all He needed was womb space and human DNA, we reduce our understanding of womanhood to that of physical maternity and that all-too-distasteful word, breeding.
If we believe that Mary was chosen through God’s will alone without regard to her personal choice, as strict Calvinism logically implies, we reduce her “yes” to a meaningless appearance and reduce our view of women to less-than-free agents. We open the door to rape and abuse because we turn God Himself into a rapist.
By removing from our faith a vision of Mary’s beauty – of the cosmic power of her choice to cooperate with God’s grace and enter into His redemptive plan – we lose our vision of the full beauty and power of women in general. Sisters, what matters most about us isn’t our ability to bear children and bring babies into the world. What matters most is our choice to say “yes” to God’s plan, our ability to change the course of history by choosing to live for Him.
In the Catholic understanding of Mary, we see God choosing a woman to play the most important human role in His salvific plan. That’s the kind of thing He does: He takes the weaker, the oppressed, the downtrodden, and glorifies them. And people who by nature and social norms are accustomed to power and respect are unnerved or threatened by that. Maybe that’s why the certain churches reduce Mary’s role to her womb. But what Catholicism offers is is a vision of womanhood glorified and beautified by grace, lifted up in queenly majesty as it offers itself to Him in free love and humility.
That is the picture of womanhood I want to emulate and grow into personally, and it is the perception of women that I wish could permeate our families, churches, and society at large.
While reading through Philippians a few days ago, I was struck by Paul’s incredible emphasis on unity in the first few verses of Philippians 2. Look how he sets it up:
…if there is any consolation in Christ…
…if there is any comfort of love…
… if there is any fellowship of the Spirit…
…if there is any affection and mercy…
…if any of these things apply, then be like-minded, have the same love, be of one accord, and be of one mind.
He’s not asking for much – just for the basic elements of the Christian faith working in our hearts and in our relationships with God and others. He’s not saying, if you have a surplus of consolation from Christ for your own sorrows and troubles, then move on to unity with your fellow believers. He’s not saying, if you are so comforted by the love of God that you feel love overflowing out of you, then go ahead and try to be one with other Christians. No – if there is even the tiniest bit of comfort and consolation in the love of Christ, if there is even the faintest hint of community through the Spirit or kindness and mercy in your heart, endeavor to live as a unified body.
Be like-minded, he says – be one in doctrine and understanding of the faith. Have the same love, he says – be one in love for God first, not falling away to love other things more, even other good things. Be of one accord, he says – be one in purpose and in fellowship, following God together and not each according to his own whim. And be of one mind, he says again, emphasizing that unity of teaching, doctrine, and understanding. In this unity, the Philippians would be able to fulfill Paul’s joy in them.
All the following verses, that famous passage about humbling ourselves and putting others first as Christ did in the Incarnation and on the cross, should be read in light of these first two verses. Why are we to esteem others as better than ourselves, and look out for the interests of others, and imitate the humility and obedience of Christ? That we might become a more unified Church, one in mind and heart and will, bound together by the love of Christ and the work of the Spirit.
It makes me think that the Reformation was one of the most unfortunate things to happen in the life of the Church (although it was the natural consequence of the sin that the Church had allowed into even her highest offices) – I can’t think of anything else that has splintered Christianity and destroyed our unity (on institutional and personal levels) to such a degree.
The things our children find fascinating our not always the same things we find interesting, and to control their play and exploration is to imply thatĀ our interests and likes are better than theirs.
Limerick is captivated by many things I would pass right by on a regular basis: the sunlight hitting the wall through a high window, the pattern of stucco on the exterior walls, the trajectory of a mason jar rolling on the ground. I want him to be able to see the world through his own unique eyes as long as possible, to develop a sense of the value of his own perspective, and not to think that he has to align his interests to the interests of others.
Rondel is similarly interested in things that don’t hold much fascination for me – mostly, right now, every single wheeled vehicle on the road. As much as I’m tempted to try to redirect his interest to something more exciting for me, I’m choosing to learn about cars with him, joining him in his interest so that he can talk about them and learn more about them and deepen his attention and focus through them. I don’t want him to think that his interests are unimportant to the person who matters most to him in the whole world.
But sometimes, I really don’t know why they’re interested in something, or even what exactly has captured their attention. What do you think is so fascinating about this pole? š
It seems to me, from casual observation, that many (perhaps most!) people feel intensely pressured to think, act, feel, andĀ beĀ a certain way, to fit a certain role or social expectation. We’reĀ scared to truly be themselves because we’reĀ afraid of what people might think or how people might respond, so weĀ limit ourselvesĀ to the parts of ourselvesĀ that weĀ think will be approved, and try to force the other parts down into hiding. And the pressures can come from all sides, making it even worse. For instance:
…a relatively reserved and morally conservative young adult may feel unable to admit his homosexual feelings for fear of disappointing his parents, whom he loves deeply, but after acknowledging them may find it equally hard to express his desire to stay celibate when the gay community that has given him encouragement and relief from his feeling of being isolated pushes promiscuity and sexual experimentation.
…a young mother, torn between wanting to maintain her career and to stay at home with her babies, may feel so overwhelmed by the “should’s” thrown at her (e.g., you should stay at work and contribute to the economy, to show your children that women don’t need to be tied to family and home! or on the other hand, you should stay at home because your children need your attention and time to develop to their fullest potential and why would you have kids anyways if you’re just going to pay someone else to raise them?) that she can’t even reach down to identify what choice would be most true to herself and her own unique personality and desires.
…a newlywed struggling with her marriage might feel social pressure to make everything look ok, while inwardly she’s drowning in confusion and sorrow, and try to bury the “inappropriate” feelings deep inside her so that no one will know and think less of her or be disappointed in her.
We see it in each other, adults all grown up in our inauthenticity, hiding the “unpleasant” and “uncomfortable” parts of ourselves in the deepest and farthest reaches of our hearts – which may be good for casual relationships and acquaintances, but isn’t sustainable in our closest, most intimate friendships. Our inauthenticity will smother our joy, wither our hope, and weaken our faith; it will poison our own hearts and sabotage our relationships with the people we love the most. It’s ironic and tragic, isn’t it? Our efforts to protect ourselves and the people we love from the “bad” things inside us just end up causing more pain and more isolation, and our fear – fear of rejection, fear of hurting the people we love, fear of letting down everyone who’s expecting something great from us – speaks its own self-fulfilling prophecy.
And what I’ve noticed is that it is typically the people we love the most, who mean the most to us, who create in us the strongest feelings of unworthiness and give rise to our wildest inauthenticities. We’re willing to sacrifice our very selves, who we are in the fullest sense of being, to keep them happy, because we love them so much – and most of the time (barring cases of abusive or psychopathic relationships here) it would devastate them to know that we were doing that. These people whose rejection and disappointment we fear (our parents, our friends, our spouses) typically love us just as much or more than we love them, and they want to see us live in fullness and joy. If only they knew – if only we could tell them! – that sometimes joy comes through suffering… that the sun can only rise after the night has spent its full course… that our “dark” and “bad” feelings need to be spoken before they can be healed.
little thoughts 