Monthly Archives: December 2013

Christmas Choices

Posted on December 29, 2013 | Leave a comment

It often seems when our family gathers at Christmas that the many activities, the many foods, the many gifts, the many reunions of cousins and brothers and sisters, fill the rooms to bursting, leaving no room for the story of the Incarnation. So, unhappily, on the birthday of Our Lord we are pulled away from him, away from the story of the Word made flesh, and God’s still small voice is muffled by the loud chatter of Christmas.  So I tried something new this year at our family gathering.  The grandchildren (age 12 through 20) read the nativity story aloud as we sat before the twinkling tree and the crèche figures arranged to the side.

The tree was bright and shimmering against a window of foggy sky, but the crèche – the fired clay figures of Mary, Joseph, the Christ Child, the shepherds, the wise men, the sheep and cows – was dim and gray-blue, almost shadowy, set upon the river-rock hearth. The rough clay figures seemed more real than the fir tree, as though they were earthen, solid, but somehow eternal.

Our readers began with the words of St. Luke, “The angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary…” These words tell of the great event we call “The Annunciation,” when Gabriel announces to Mary that God has chosen her to be the mother of his son. It is a precious and fabulous moment in history, for while Mary was chosen, she still had to choose.

Sr. Mary Gabriel Whitney OP of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, relates this pivotal moment in a charming ballad included on the CD, Mater Eucharistiae: 

And so on that day
The whole human race
Held its breath to hear the answer
Of the Queen of Grace.
 

The whole human race. Indeed, we all held our breath.

My grandchildren continued St. Luke’s account. We heard how Mary visited Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, and how Mary sang the song we call The Magnificat, magnifying and rejoicing in God her savior. We learn of the historical census decreed by Caesar Augustus, how Mary and Joseph went up from Galilee to Bethlehem, the City of David, how she brought forth her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. We then see the bright angels appearing to the shepherds and bringing the good tidings of great joy… that a savior has been born, who is Christ the Lord, and they would find him wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. We learn of the wise men from the East who follow a star to the manger where the young child was. Finally, we hear how all fell down on their knees and worshiped the Child.

It was a short reading, but the story of the Incarnation settled upon our souls, warming us. For a few minutes we recalled why we were celebrating on this 25th of December, 2013. For a few minutes we re-called the Lord of Hosts and his awe-full act of love, coming among us as he did.

I often think how God chose to come to his people, in this moment in time. I think of Mary and her choice, her answer. I wonder at the choices we make minute to minute, day to day, the power each of us has to shape our world by what we do or do not do. In a way, the whole human race holds its breath to see what choices each of us will make this day, this hour, this minute. For every choice creates our future as the People of God and as the people of the earth.

This morning I worshiped at First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley with my son, his wife, his son (11), and his daughter (8). My father, my son’s grandfather, Carl Thomas, was youth pastor there in the early fifties (I was five), and today my son attends a Presbyterian church in Boulder. So I sat on the long cushioned pew with my son and his son, and thought of my father and his charismatic, loving ministry. The pastors today no longer wear the long black academic robes my father wore. The building from the fifties had been replaced by a modern one in the eighties. But the cross stood strong and present before us, and the simple service echoed my childhood memories.

Thick candles burned and large tables of sand stood to the side. Long white tapers were laid out nearby. The pastor asked us to consider the old year, the ways in which God had answered our prayers and the ways in which we thought he had not. He asked us to pray for the new year, one in which God would be present in our choices. Earlier, a speaker had said he had gone on a mission with open hands and had returned filled and transformed. So we prayed into the silence, reaching deep into God’s heart, and then, one by one we rose, lit a taper and gently shoved it into the sand. Soon hundreds of candles burned before us, each one reflecting a prayer to choose with open hands and hearts. I lit my candle off my grandson’s and shoved it into the sand alongside my son’s. 

As the Twelve Days of Christmas bridge the Feasts of Incarnation and Epiphany, they arc New Year’s Day. It seems a fitting cluster of events: the Word made Flesh, dwelling among us; the old year turning into the new, and our consideration of past and future, our choice-resolutions; and finally, the manifestation of the Word to the world, the light banishing all darkness.

Each of us plays a crucial part in this pivotal time. We are part of the greatest drama on earth. We look back to Christ’s coming in Bethlehem, and we look forward to His second coming to earth, this time in judgment and glory. We make our New Year’s resolutions, choosing his light, opening our hands to be filled with good things, so that we may be transformed, so that we may magnify the Lord. 

Like the Queen of Grace, we pray, “Be it unto me according to thy word.”

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Great Expectations

Posted on December 22, 2013 | 1 comment

Much has been written about holiday stress. I think it’s largely the excitement of great expectations.

America was founded as a Christian culture, and so Americans celebrated through the centuries the great festival of Jesus the Christ’s birth, the historic story of God becoming man. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries enhanced Christmas with many rich traditions and glorious music, and it is this European Christmas (particularly from Germany and England) that provided us with wreathes, Christmas trees, and Saint Nicholas. When, in 1823, an American named Clement Clarke Moore wrote a poem called “The Night Before Christmas,” Saint Nicholas became a marketing opportunity not to be missed. The Santa spin-offs are familiar to us today as gift-giving required gift-buying, a boon to the December economy.

It is also true that in our American religious melting pot, the Christian story became diluted, nudged gently into the background, to be increasingly adapted to other beliefs so that folks from other traditions could join our celebration of Christmas. The story of the holy child born in Bethlehem, the fearsome angels who sang to the shepherds, the bright star that led the wise men to the manger-cave, became replaced by Rudolf and Santa and other elfin tales, but Christmas was still a time of excitement. Hollywood helped keep this altered  (and stunted) version alive, to be sure. Sleigh bells rang, jingle bells jangled, and Frosty the Snowman took center stage. The Grinch stole Christmas. Even the charming Dickens story of Scrooge, while focusing on brotherly love and remorse of past deeds, didn’t tell the story of God becoming man in Bethlehem. Charlie Brown and his Peanuts insisted that even scraggly Christmas trees are valued, a true morality tale, even if the Christ story wasn’t actually mentioned. Santa received his mail in the North Pole; letters were carefully scribbled by hopeful children. Sometimes the Christian story – this story of God coming among us, revealing his love so tangibly and historically, almost too good to be true – is simply sidetracked with an emphasis on a children’s pageant gone wrong or right, or stories focusing on the rituals themselves, as though these symbols and mysterious behaviors appeared from nowhere.

My generation, those baby-boomers who grew up in the fifties, lived and breathed these traditions and all the excitement of waiting those twenty-five days in the cold of winter. We loved Christmas, and still do. We waited and we watched, and we wondered if we would get even one thing on our careful list. On my tenth Christmas Eve, I peeked out my bedroom window and saw my father carry a bicycle from the garage, into the living room. I grew up a little that night, but even so I still believed in the God of Bethlehem, being a pastor’s child. And even after the Santa let-down, we continued to love Christmas – the colors, the songs, the smell of fir and pine and apple and cinnamon. We loved the garlands and the glitter and joining with others from church to sing carols to the aged and the ill. It was magical. It was mysterious. It was holy.

In fact, we invested a great deal of ourselves into this holiday, unlike any other holiday during the year. Sure, Christmas marketing added to the hype over the last few decades. But every year we wanted Christmas to be, well, Christmas. We had and have today great expectations. 

Now grown-up with children of our own and grandchildren too, we bake and we buy and we decorate our homes. Our “to do” list has nearly buried some of us with deadlines and time challenges, and we say we are stressed. We buy more, wrap more, and eat more, borne on this powerful desire, or perhaps a needy greed, to make the joy of Christmas Day meet our great expectations. Even Christians find it difficult to find time to go to church, to visit the needy, to say their prayers. Even Christians forget the true meaning of Christmas, so distracted we are by meeting our own expectations.

It is no wonder folks feel stressed. But I think such stress, such excitement, such looking forward, is also a reflection of the huge importance of this holy day and of the looking forward to Heaven. God cannot be forgotten. The story of Bethlehem will not be buried by reindeer and sleighs. Indeed, the traditions and the seemingly secular stories reflect the Christian God-story. They remind us of this historic event, ask us to recall and re-member the hope of Heaven we are given in this child, Jesus, Christ the Lord. Candles burning are lights in the darkness. The tree is new life shimmering with the light of heaven and the color of joy in the ornaments and tinsel. Santa flying through the sky demanding we be nice not naughty reflects the God of the Ten Commandments, of the Second Coming and the Judgment, and Santa giving magical gifts reflects the God of mercy, love, forgiveness. He is a Santa who, as a reflection of God, lands on each individual roof, goes down each chimney, arriving inside the heart of the house, the hearth. Like God the Son, he comes to earth to give us gifts. He wants us to be with him in eternity, to climb onto his sleigh and soar into the sky. He wants us to know how much he loves each one of us, holding us in his huge heart, calling us by our Christ-ian names.

All of these rituals create mystery and miracle. All of these help us re-call God among us. We know in our hearts that God is Emmanuel, God-with-us. We know even in this fallen world of suffering and sickness and sin, that God will and does redeem us, if we want him to.

We have great expectations of Heaven. At Christmas we desire to recreate a little of that Heaven on earth, in our homes and gatherings. We open the doors of our homes to guests bringing in cheer, coming in from the cold dark into the warm light. We open the doors of our hearts to loving each other a little more. We open all these doors to God the Son, the Christ Child in Bethlehem, the one who makes Christmas for each of us come true.

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.   (John 1:14)

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Nelson Mandela and Raymond Raynes

Posted on December 16, 2013 | Leave a comment

Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), a reconciling man in a divisive time, passed into eternity recently. May his soul rest in peace and may light perpetual rest upon him. His passing reminded me of an earlier divisive time and another man of love (perhaps saint?), Raymond Raynes C.R., an Anglican monk who was born a generation before Mr. Mandela, whose work in South Africa has not been forgotten by those for whom he cared. 

Father Raynes (1903-1958), late Superior of the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield, England, built missions, schools, and churches in South Africa, first in Johannesburg (Rosettenville) and later in the Southwest Township, Soweto. This Anglican monastic Community had a missionary presence in South Africa since 1902; Father Raynes arrived in 1933, shortly after his profession as a monk. After ten years of devoted work, his asceticism and labor took a toll on his body. He became severely ill and was recalled to England in 1943. Father Trevor Huddleston was assigned to nurse him, and it was Father Huddleston C.R. whom Raymond sent to South Africa to continue his important work. 

Nelson Mandela came of age in the early 1940s about the time that Raymond was recalled. In the course of the next half century, it was Trevor Huddleston who stood alongside Nelson Mandela, working to reverse the curse of apartheid that gripped the nation from 1948 to 1994. Father Huddleston did indeed continue Raymond’s work. He died in 1998 having seen his friend Nelson Mandela released from prison and elected President of South Africa.

I became interested in Father Raynes many years ago, having read his biography by Nicholas Mosley, a remarkable man in his own right, a novelist and Lord of Parliament. Raymond Raynes converted him to Christ, brought him home. When Father Raynes died, Lord Mosley paid him tribute by writing his biography, with the support of the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield. 

My husband and I visited Mirfield in 2002. We saw the church and the cluster of buildings set in park-like grounds; we honored the grave of Raymond Raynes in the monks’ cemetery. Some of my impressions found their way into my third novel, my story set in England, Inheritance, about the great Christian inheritance we have been given, about the call not to squander it or take it for granted.

My Mirfield impressions and my introduction to Father Raynes by way of Lord Mosley’s biography has since led to a new edition of the biography, recently released by the American Church Union, an American Anglican publishing group. In this biography the South African story is told with color, poetry, and insight. It was a great privilege to edit this biography and see it once again in print. 

So with the passing of Mr. Mandela, I think with gratitude again about the Anglo-Catholic Father Raynes. Father Raynes loved the African people. In the 1930s the black South Africans lived in shanties and worked long hours for little wage in the mines, but aside from the poverty which was dire in itself, they were denied basic rights: the right to own land, the right of due process and other legal rights, the right to vote. For any reason, for no reason, they could be arrested, sent away, and never seen again. Into this setting came this young, handsome, energetic priest with his long black cassock who walked the neighborhoods sharing the love of God and also sharing his food, shelter, and knowledge. The children loved him and followed him around on his home visits. Father Raynes built a huge (“barn-sized”)  church with a high altar and colorful frescoes. The church was packed with thousands of worshipers weekly. He led his people in processions with incense and candles and chanting, often through the dusty lanes of the community. He gave them a vision of another, a more beautiful world. He showed them God and His love for each of them. He gave them dignity and worth in the love of God their creator. 

Father Raynes also became their political defender. He rescued many from prison who had been falsely arrested. He fought for sewers and lighting and water pipes in the neighborhoods. He campaigned for schools and teachers. He prayed night and day for these people whom he loved so. He fasted.

The children did not forget Father Raynes after he was called back to England. They grew up to become the future leaders and priests and teachers of South Africa. They had been educated in Anglican schools; many had become devout Anglo-Catholics with a mission for the poor. This generation birthed the new nation, brought it into a hopefully more democratic world of freedom and reconciliation.

So, with the passing of Mr. Mandela, I feel great pride in the timely new edition of Nicholas Mosley’s The Life of Raymond Raynes. This biography reminded me what one person can accomplish, with the grace of God flowing through his or  her mind and heart. I have read that Nelson Mandela was also a devout man in his own way, a Methodist, who kept his faith to himself, not wanting to cause division. But in his efforts to forgive those who persecuted him, I see a man who had been touched by Christ. In his long years in prison on Robben Island  and his waiting and his patience through it all, you can see the soul of a martyr willing to sacrifice himself for others.

2013 has been a year of remembrance for South Africa: Father Raynes’ life remembered with gratitude and thanksgiving; Nelson Mandela’s life remembered also with gratitude and thanksgiving. 

To learn more about the biography, The Life of Raymond Raynes, and ordering information, visit the American Church Union at http://www.anglicanpck.org/resources/acu/index.html.  To read an excellent review by Father Ian McCormack of New Directions, the magazine of Forward in Faith (Anglican), click here: Review New Directions

 

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Healthcare of the Soul

Posted on December 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

I’ve been exercising more and feel the better for it. I have chronic low back pain and exercise helps a great deal, stretching and strengthening those tiny but crucial muscles around the vertebrae. 

And during this holy season, these holi-days, of Advent, I exercise both body and soul and feel the better for it. 

We all know that we must fight fat and cholesterol and carbs and calories and sugar in order to be healthy. We must do thirty minutes daily of aerobics so that our heart rate will rise and our blood move freely through our arteries to feed our flesh and return through our veins and into our pumping heart to begin again the journey of circulation. We know now, in this modern world of ours, through words on pages and in media of all kinds, lots of “how-to’s,” lots of self-helps. We know that “natural” is good (although the definition of natural remains elusive), that fish is better than meat, that baked is better than fried, that fresh is better than frozen, canned, or cured. Dark veggies and bright fruits should fill our plate. We must avoid fries, hamburgers, hot-dogs, and pizza. I fear that we what we really want is white rolls rather than brown, white rice rather than whole grain, fast food rather than slow. We know a great deal about how to have healthier bodies. 

As I rolled along on the elliptical machine, pushing and pulling, I thought of these things. I thought how lopsided our society had become, as though we walked with one leg instead of two, dragging the weak leg, the spiritual leg, behind. We seem to be unaware that we limp, listing to one side. We don’t notice the odd rhythm of our step, the scraping noise of our sick soul pulled along, for we are used to being unbalanced. Then we wonder why we feel a sad pain in the ignored area of our souls, our hearts and minds, why we get depressed, why life seems overwhelmingly meaningless. We look to pills and other self-help mantras, rather than diet and exercise suitable for souls. 

We ignore our souls as we exercise our bodies. We starve the spirit and feed the body. We are unbalanced, undernourished, weak. Just as we feel physical pain, we feel spiritual pain. How do we exercise and feed our souls to assuage that pain, that longing for something (or Someone) greater, that anguish that weaves through life, ambushing us unawares? I for one want to walk straight and tall and without a limp. I want to assuage my spiritual pain. I want a soul regimen, one with good diet and exercise. 

Exercise and feeding of the soul, of course, must be practiced with as much care as that of the body. There are exercises that help and those that hurt. There is healthy food and unhealthy food. How do we know? 

Just so, the Church defines and illuminates how to exercise and feed souls. She shows us, like a good mother, the healthy way, the care-full way, the diet to grow our souls. Our spirit-muscles strengthen with her commandments as we feed at her table, God’s altar. As we follow her teachings, we learn to love.

And this learning to love is what Advent is about. We await the coming of Love Incarnate in Bethlehem and as we look to Christmas Day 2013, we feed on Scripture, learning that love does indeed have a definition. Love is doing good – not doing harm – to our neighbor. Love is the summary of all law, the distilled essence of the Ten Commandments. For the Ten Commandments give us love’s recipe, guidelines to nourish us. The Ten Commandments, given by God to Moses so long ago on those clay tablets on Mount Sinai, are the prescription for how to love and how to heal our spirits. 

It has often been said that if mankind followed the Ten Commandments, we would live in a peaceful utopia. Probably true. We would worship only God and keep Sundays holy. We would honor our parents. We would not kill one another, we would not sleep with another’s spouse, we would not steal, we would not lie, we would not desire what is not ours. In a sense the last five – those commandments about how to love one another – are largely about taking what is not ours to take, are all forms of theft, whether taking life, illicit sex, another’s goods, another’s good name. And we are not supposed to even desire these things for that transgresses the commandment, thou shalt not covet. 

A friend once told me that when he couldn’t think of things to confess, he would confess that he hadn’t loved enough. For me I can always confess covetousness, a sure sign of not loving enough. I don’t often covet other’s material goods, but other odd and not-so-odd things I often covet – clear skin, thick hair (I have mottled skin and little hair); energy (I am slow-moving); good vision (always a problem even with thick glasses). I covet more serious things too, more painful things. I envy women with many children, although I am not childless. 

Just making this list is bitter for me, for I know the other side, the true side, to these complaints. My mottled skin reflects my many years outside in glorious sunshine, lucky me! My thinning hair means that I have been graced with a long life. My low energy allows me to reflect and write. My poor vision has been balanced with acute hearing and miraculous attention to aromas, breezes, conversation, melody and song. And my few children? I have a wonderful son with a wonderful family. I’m a step-mom to three more sons and their wonder-filled families. I have eight grandchildren, with a great-grandchild due in April. How can I complain? I can’t. I am ashamed of my covetousness.

So coveting is a nasty thing, a tightening of the heart, a blinding of the soul to blessings. It is un-love for it treats others as objects to be owned. Perhaps it is the opposite of thanksgiving. 

But my sins against God’s law of love are forgiven in the sacrament of confession, through the Incarnation of God’s (only) son, through this redeeming intersection in human time on the Cross, through his glorious resurrection. And with confession and forgiveness, my own pain and shame vanishes. I am washed clean. I often leave church with a happy smile on my face. Joy has replaced the pain in my heart; I know true happiness. 

So I try to exercise my soul at least as often as I exercise my body. I want to walk straight and tall, with no limp, balanced. I want to be pain-free, full of hope, to learn to truly love my neighbor as myself.

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The Adventure of Advent

Posted on December 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

This morning in church I thought how rich a season this is, this season of Advent, this season of coming, these four weeks in which we prepare for the Feast of the Incarnation, the festival known as Christmas.

I continue giving thanks, thanksgiving that our culture still recognizes the feast of Christmas. There remains among us a spirit of giving, of love, of sharing. True, we are bombarded by ads and the commercialization of this pre-Christmas time, but even so, the ads enjoin us to give, to buy gifts for friends and loved ones. St. Nicholas with his bags of gold for the maidens who wanted to marry returns as Santa Claus in the malls to question children as to their gift lists. His presence (and presents) assures them this is a magical, a mystical, season.

True also, we as a culture seem to have lost the reason for the magical mystery that weaves through these twenty-five days. Yet weave into our hours and days it does, and we buy fir trees to festoon with lights and hang sparkly, memorable ornaments on bits of wire. We light our trees and stack our gifts, mysteriously hidden beneath wrappings and ribbons. These traditions pull us through an unbelieving desert, a parched time, hopefully to a time of belief once again.

Those of us who believe already in the Incarnation of God in Christ in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, a historical intersection of eternity with time, sometimes become impatient and critical of the mania that seems to possess the rest of us, according to the media, as though their madness pollutes our holy time. But perhaps we should be grateful that folks want to buy gifts for others, and that retailers offer discounts so that they can do just that.

Those of us who believe already in this God of love and joy and salvation and eternal life need not pay much attention to the crowds storming the stores. We begin a lovely and sensitive time, a delicious time, this time of little Lent, a time of waiting for the great Advent of Our Lord, the coming of this child born to a young virgin in a manger-cave. Today, on this first Sunday in Advent, we begin our prayers fitfully, each evening, saying the assigned Collect, a prayer that gathers us all together, collects our minds and hearts:

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

We wait and we watch. We put upon us the armour of light. We lighten, enlighten, our homes to prepare for this great coming of Christ. We teach our children the meaning of the twinkling stars on the sweet smelling branches and the four Advent candles we light in turn each week, as we count the days and wait and hope and pray for our redeemer to come to earth. It is a dark time in a sense, a time of watching for the greatest light to appear among us, a light to banish the dark, a glorious light.

We sing carols to tell the ancient story, a story renewed each year, one that settles into our souls like seeds planted in fertile ground, seeds sprouting from our watering. The carols are part of the watering. Worship in church in Advent is part of the watering. The seeds feed too upon our prayers and the words we commit to our minds and hearts in these holy weeks.

Advent is a great reminder. It is a season set apart from the rush of shopping and decorating, or perhaps a season overlaying this rushing busy-ness. Somehow Advent intersects our time, just as God intersected all time and became one of us. Advent reminds us of the great truth, the great reality, the great love of God for each of us. For a few days and weeks in the cold of winter and the long dark of night we are reminded that our lives have meaning, that each of us is a star in God’s heart. We are reminded that “he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, (and that) we may rise to the life immortal…” We are told once again that God loves us… that he loved the world so that he gave his life so that we might have everlasting life. And it all began in Bethlehem on that first Christmas night. It all began beneath a starry sky as angels sang and shepherds knelt and kings offered their gifts.

So too we offer gifts to one another at Christmas. So too we kneel before the manger and before the altar where Christ is rebirthed with each Mass. So too as we receive him in this purple penitential season, our hearts are washed clean and our souls watered anew. So too we sing our praises with the angels on high.

Some call these stories myths. But myths are true. They tell the greatest truths of all, who we are, who we are meant to be. They answer the great questions why and how? They tell of God our creator, of Christ our redeemer. They tell us of love incarnate. These myths tell a glorious truth.

We light our Advent candles, the single purple one this first evening. Slowly, as we learn our Collect by heart, engrafting the words onto our souls, we change into something slightly different than we were before, something slightly more glorious, something slightly closer to heaven, something holy, as we taste a bit of heaven in this holy season.

This is the adventure of Advent, the coming of Our Lord upon earth.

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