After The Feast

Now that Christmas is past and the long January yet to be gotten through, what are we to do?

"The happy morning is over,
The night of agony still to come; the time is noon."

Well, so that is that.
Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes -
Some have got broken – and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week -
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted – quite unsuccessfully -
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid’s geometry
And Newton’s mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.

from "For The Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio" by W. H. Auden

So in the meantime, let us stretch out our hands to the Redeemer of the time being, that through Him we might redeem the time, spend our love well, and scrub even the kitchen table to the glory of God.

Ripening Anticipation

It was miserably hot again this past weekend, and I sat on my floor drinking an icy club soda with lime while listening to Sufjan Stevens’ Christmas albums, featuring such classics as “Did I Make You Cry On Christmas? (Well, You Deserved It!)”, “Sister Winter”, and “Come On! Let’s Boogey To The Elf Dance!”.

Today the weather was worthy of fall, being properly cool and overcast at last. Time for Christmas music again - I listened to Over The Rhine’s Christmas album, Snow Angels, dreamily lost in the blue jazz and Karin’s vocals. I began to think about the Christmas season, about seasons of feasting and fasting and the anticipation we feel in having to wait or look forward to something, and the deep sweet taste of fulfillment.

I think that sometimes when we have been waiting and waiting for something, when it’s at long last ripe, if bitterness has not overtaken you from the inside, you bite into it with such relish and release that the taste is sweeter by far than if you had been able to have it the minute you wanted it. Moreover, that period of looking forward to whatever the delight may be not only enlarges, but is a major part of, the experience of fulfillment. The Christmas season when we anticipate celebrating Christ’s incarnation is amazing in large part because of that anticipation and preparation. For a more mundane but no less happy example, I’ve just started a savings account for a trip to Greece next year with a dear friend and every two weeks when I put in a few more dollars I get to imagine how lovely that trip will be. I am becoming an advocate of the power and sweetness of anticipation, which is pretty wonderful considering that patience is not my strongest suit. I find I like this part of growing up! Change can be hard, the dry seasons are not fun, but I am just starting to see the pleasure that comes in alongside the pain of waiting.

Synchronicity

Have you ever noticed that sometimes a whole bunch of churches and people you know are suddenly talking about the same theme, for no apparent external reason? It makes me sit up and take notice of what's going on around me on the spiritual plane.

Case in point:

- I subscribe to a couple different church podcasts. Andy Stanley Ministries in Georgia is doing a series on Decisions

- Tim Keller at Redeemer in NYC is doing a series on Decision Making

- One member of my small group is reading Andy Stanley's book on how decisions determine destination

- Another member of my small group just posted about how it seems every decision he is making right now is a consequential one that has the potential to affect his whole life

- my own church's topic last week was how the "slow fade" into sin or away from church or into a mess or what have you is just the final result of a series of one building-block decision at a time.

- finally, Covenant Life Church in Maryland, which I don't get the podcasts for but which some of my regularly-viewed bloggers attend, is also doing a series in which a key point is "You are only as wise as your next decision. You prove your wisdom in what you choose today."

Hmmm.

It's got me thinking about whether the decisions I'm making connect with where I want to be heading in all the various areas of life. I've never been one to freak out about whether my decisions are in the parameters of a small teetery knife-edge sliver of "right choices" that some people seem to think is God's will - decision-making is something he gave us to do, and I think as far as options for directions we can go, it's very broad.

But how good is it to realize direction - not intention - determines destination! It's not that we are not smart enough to understand, but that there is a huge disconnect. We understand that truth as far as picking which highway to take when we go somewhere in our car, but there's often a disconnect between where we want to end up and what decisions (path) we're making in our lives. It's a lot easier to see in other people, like with my acquaintance who just wants to settle down, have kids, and bake cookies but is choosing to date lots of men who lack the character qualities that would give her the future she genuinely desires.

Now to think and pray about where I hope to end up in light of what I have seen God doing with my life, and am I actually on paths that are gonna get me there...

In the Tumble Cycle: Fathers and Mentors

One of my favorite movies is Moonstruck, and the main character's mother, who knows her husband is seeing another woman, spends most of the movie periodically polling people with the question, "Why would a man need more than one woman?" She shakes off answer after answer until she hears the one she's looking for.

Rose: [frustrated] But why would a man need more than one woman?
Johnny: I don't know. Maybe because he fears death.
Rose: That's it! That's the reason!
Johnny: I don't know...
Rose: No! That's it! Thank you! Thank you for answering my question!

Last night some of us watched Rebel Without A Cause and discussed it afterward, and it got the question of fatherlessness tumbling restlessly around in my mind. Three characters in that movie all have different father wounds from ineffective or absent fathers. And like Rose in Moonstruck, I've been polling people with my question, looking for the answer that feels like it fits.
My question is, What can we, as individuals and as the church, do to heal the men who in one way or another grew up without being fathered? Brandon thinks they're generally doomed, as we learn much more from absorbing than being taught, and such men will always be missing a huge piece of manhood, especially when it comes to leading a marriage, simply from lacking the model. Jennifer thinks it's a huge opportunity for the people of the church, those well-fathered men further along the road, to see the need and step up to be that stable, experienced person speaking into a young husband's life, or a teenager's life, over a long span of time. I think the Holy Spirit can give you the power to draw the line in the sand and break with your past, but it is hard and takes a lot of work and determination and drawing on God the Father to teach you what you don't even know you don't know.

What do you think?

escape to age 8

I took a vacation this week.


Oh, it might not have looked like it to my roommate or co-workers. I didn't take any time off, or travel on the weekend, or any of those things that people generally call vacations.

But I left, laying aside my postmodern unceasing schedule of the last three or four months, leaving behind the strain and intensity I've been under for a while in the responsibilities and pressures and internal drives of this not-quite-26-year-old's world.


The sweetest thing about choosing to step quite away from my over-worn mental paths was rediscovering an uncomplicated level of life. A friend read me a Winnie-the-Pooh story and I laughed and laughed. How true and clean it was! I went to the library at the beginning of the week and found myself first in the JV section and then, for the first time in years, in the kid's section actually pulling titles off the shelves. Oh my goodness the delight! I have been a reader since first grade, and I used to come home from the library every few weeks with a stack of books that went from under my chin to as far down as my arms could stretch. Granted, there was less space from under my chin to the reach of my arms when I was a kid than now, but that is still a lot of books! I have missed the color and brain break - break from the grind of life, really - that reading good fiction will bring. I still read, but much less, as my time is doled out between work and ministry and friends and house chores and getting some exercise and all the details of adult life.


So there I was, "une Grande Personne" as the Little Prince would say, in the children's section of the library, and how the smile irrepressibly spread across my entire face as I saw and remembered all these stories that taught me and grew me and gave me friends and magic and travel and courage and kindness. The Giver, The Railway Children, Half Magic, The Good Master, Farmer Boy, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, A Wrinkle In Time, on and on they sparkled in my mind. I left with a tower of children's books in my arms, not quiiiite stretching from the top of my chin to the ends of my fingertips, but a considerable long pile wedged lovingly between my side and the length of my left arm.


Perhaps I have to grow well past childhood before I can be young again. This stack of books, this armful of paper treasure, brings me again to that simple deep delight. But it is even more precious this time around because now I'm seeing it in contrast to adulthood.