Noticing

I’ve never loved this time of year: the post–Christmas let down. Now that the lights and holiday décor are packed away, the winter darkness is prominent and gets juxtaposed with the hype of New Year’s. It’s a perfect recipe that predictably yields a batch of late December blahs that seamlessly morphs into an early January funk…though this may just be me.  

I find myself easily irritated by the “new year, new you” nonsense that circulates on social media this time of year. And yet there is also an irresistible allure to that “fresh start” mentality.  I can almost convince myself that the right organizational tools, schedule, meal plan, or bedtime routine will bring some sort of calm to the unsettledness and uncertainty that linger in so many areas of my life. Simultaneously, the goal-averse cynical part of me sees it all as flimsy and ridiculous and wants nothing to do with any of it.  

As a person of faith, I’m aware that all of the above would land me on the wrong side of an unhelpful binary. It is not at all a “set goals and fix yourself” or “resign yourself to apathy, carbs, and Netflix” situation. It is both simpler and more complex than that…precisely because it is not all up to me.

I want it to feel hopeful and relieving that God is ultimately the one who brings change and transformation. But the work of faithfulness and endurance in the midst of God’s unknown timing and often unseen plans is hard.

As much as I don’t like the dark, cold mornings of winter or the shorter days, I love being outdoors in the crisp air and am particularly drawn to how the light shines through the leafless trees. I feel so much more settled and at ease on the days I drag myself out for a walk in the early morning. I think I am soothed and settled by nature because it serves as a visual metaphor for the work of God: He makes beauty exist in barrenness and can indeed bring something from nothing.

The stark appearance of the natural world in these winter months is not the whole story…just as our present circumstances are not the whole story. We learn from the changing seasons that what looks like death and dormancy are actually rest and preparation for the newness that will later emerge. Beyond our sight, growth and transformation are already happening, though for now they remain unseen. May it be so for us as well.

Winter Waiting

I was sitting in a zero-gravity recliner chatting with a friend and loving the time together connecting in person.  The sky was a beautiful blue and the sun was shining. This was just a couple weeks ago. In January. With ice chunks periodically falling from the trees. A year ago, this would not have been a scene that would have ever happened. We would have found ourselves cozy in a coffee shop or in one of our homes. I truly love that what defines a “nice day” is entirely different than it was last winter – not raining and 40ish degrees is now ideal for an outdoor hangout with friends not in my immediate “germ circle.” It’s also great for miniature golf, long walks, or dinner parties around a firepit. I treasure these moments with friends in this season, but I’m also weary of it all.  

We’ve been at this almost a year – this whole pandemic thing. Masks and social distancing and so much of what was once strange now feel almost normal. But still, these things are not well with my soul. This is not the way humans are meant to live. I do not like being unable to see the faces behind masks. I do not like the absence of friends around my table or in my living room. I miss seeing my family. I hate that I cannot give or receive touch without thinking about who has been where, with whom, and doing what when. It is hard on my heart to be constantly assessing perceived COVID risk and having to weigh it against the desire to be human with each other – to truly see, touch, and connect in ways I rarely thought twice about before mid-March of last year.

I hate the isolation that we all experience to varying degrees. I do not like that the things we are doing to keep ourselves and each other safe are putting space between us and breeding disconnection. They also highlight how inextricably we are tied to each other. Caring for each other and loving our neighbors will be no less important when the threat and restrictions of the pandemic begin to lift. Eventually, we will be figuring out together what life on the other side might look like. Very few people, if any, are alive who have lived through this “emerging from a pandemic” stage. I suspect it may take us some time to find our way again. I hope we will be patient and gracious with ourselves and others when that time comes…and as we continue through this winter of hoping and waiting.

An Advent Reflection

2020: What. A. Year.

It could almost go without saying at this point. And yet, it feels important to give language to the shared human experience of this year. Living in the midst of a global pandemic has altered nearly everything familiar and dear to us…just as it has for nearly every other human on this earth.

Advent feels especially made for this year – like a container to hold all the sadness and longing of 2020 that is also big enough to hold tension with the knowledge that this is not the end of the story. Our heads may know that to be true, but right now, we are still very much in the messy middle. 

We are bearing the weight of waiting, and it is costly to our bodies and souls. We are not meant to exist in a world of isolation and virtual connection, where we cannot see or hug our family and friends. Where we cannot even look upon the face of our fellow image bearers. Where the longing for healing and restoration is felt so constantly and acutely.

This middle part of the journey, filled with uncertainty and an inability to know how things will turn out, is where Christ delights to break in.

Hope came to earth in the baby Jesus born so long ago to a people who had been living in darkness for hundreds of years, awaiting the arrival of the promised Messiah. That same Christ promises us strength and peace by his presence that will sustain us in our personal and collective waiting, both now, and until he comes again to make all things new.

Thanks be to God. 

This piece is part of the Advent meditation series at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church and is based on the lectionary texts for December 20 (Psalms 24, 29 & 8, 84 // Isaiah 42:1-12 // Ephesians 6:10-20//  John 3:16-21)

Do it afraid

Three years and a few months ago, surrounded mostly by strangers, and with a tennis ball wedged between my back and the pew that was my seat, I spent several days staring at this gorgeous kaleidoscope of a window. I was with some other leaders from my church at a conference I’d committed to attend months earlier. An aggravated old lumbar fracture had made the 6-hour car trip to Greenville pretty miserable, and sitting through the days of meetings and teaching bordered on excruciating. The pressure of the tennis ball digging into my tight back muscles made it manageable”ish” to be there, and somehow freed up just enough brain space for me to realize my back wasn’t the only thing making me uncomfortable.

For months before this, and probably for a year or more, I had been sensing a call that I was scared of. That I didn’t feel at all qualified for. That I could not see how it would work practically. I had repeatedly tried to discount it as my own idea and hadn’t breathed a word about it to anyone.

Then one day a friend called me out of the blue because she woke up with an idea in her head she couldn’t shake. “I think you’re supposed to be a counselor. Does that sound crazy to you?” Yikes. Did it sound crazy? No. Terrifying? Absolutely. I promptly filed that little experience away and told God I’d pay attention if it came up again.

And then it did. Several more times.

Wise friends who know me well in varying contexts and who I trust implicitly named giftings they’d observed. They invited me to consider that maybe Jesus was up to something.

Sitting at that conference, I had a deep, visceral urge to flee…I wanted out of that space. I wanted to go lay down to relieve my back pain. But mostly I wanted to not keep hearing things that made it so unavoidably clear that the Spirit was speaking to me.

Moses approached the thick darkness where God was…while the rest of the Israelites stood at a distance (Exodus 20).

Abraham left his home by faith…even though he didn’t know where he was going (Hebrews 11).

Deep darkness and unknown destinations?!? Um, no thanks.

But I couldn’t ignore that every voice seemed to be speaking right into my fearful heart. They spoke about having the courage to trust how God made us. And moving in the middle of fear.

I hid my phone under my Bible and panic texted my friend that I thought she might be right about me becoming a counselor. But also that I was scared of the GREs and grad school. I didn’t have the money to pay for it. It would take a long time. And a laundry list of other reasons it was a terrible idea. She sent this back immediately:

It wasn’t quite the warm fuzzy response I’d hoped for, but it was the one I needed.

Three months later, I got accepted to school, and soon after that, I started working on my Masters degree in counseling.

Three years later I’m still working on it. It has been a long and hard journey. The pandemic is making it less clear where the finish line is, and the path forward is uncertain. And I’m not any less scared now than when I started.

While God is not uninterested in my fears, he also does not see them as an impediment to faithfulness. And I’m so grateful. He promises to be with me in the middle of my fear. And He is the one who will give me the faith to keep moving on an unknown path. And I can do it afraid.

Adventy

I like to invent words. Mostly it’s is just for fun — like asparagi as the plural of asparagus. Other times it’s because language fails to adequately capture the essence of a thought, feeling, or experience. In this Advent season where we celebrate that Christ has come but also look forward to his coming again, I feel a convoluted mixture of gratitude and disappointment, contentment and longing. I am reminded that Advent is a season made to contain this breadth of human emotion and experience. And we have a God who is present with us in it all.

It is tangled beauty – this merging and overlapping of layers of mingled joy and sadness. But I know of no actual word that conveys the feeling of holding these in tension. I have decided that “adventy” is the word for that feeling.

I feel adventy as I steal quiet moments from the busyness and chaos to be still. I feel adventy as I enjoy time with friends and family that pushes loneliness away. I feel adventy as I hear stories of pain and loss while also believing in and longing for God’s goodness, provision, and light to break through the broken places in me and in the world.

There is dissonance awaiting resolution. Scripture promises this adventy feeling will not last forever.

The great dragon was thrown down, the ancient serpent who is called
the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world…the accuser of
our comrades has been thrown down.

This is not tame language. And it should not be. It is the language that rewrites the end of the story.

Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our
God and the authority of his Messiah.

Friends, this is the good news of the Gospel — Jesus came and he will come again. We shall feel adventy no more.

 

This reflection is part of the Advent meditation series at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church and is based on the lectionary texts for December 22 (Psalm 24, 29, 8, 84 // Genesis 3:8-15 // Revelation 12:1-10 // John 3:16-21)