The True Meaning of Christmas - BAH! HUMBUG!

The Christmas season is here.  You can tell because you spend money you don't have on things other people don't need.  You can drive around at night without your headlights on.  And of course, you're much busier than usual.  These are all signs that it's the Christmas season, 21st century style.

In observance of the season, it might be possible to cram in a church service, social service or Christmas show.  Maybe even all three.  Who needs sleep anyway, IT'S CHRISTMAS!  Each of these with varying degrees of success, will likely beckon you away from the frenzy at some point with whispers about "the true meaning of Christmas."  Its' good to console yourself with that thought as you're fighting for a parking spot outside the church you're trying to get into. 

Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" will be on TV at multiple times for your viewing convenience.  My favorite version of this Christmas classic is, of course, "Scrooged." The story is about the intrinsic superiority of generosity over selfishness and greed.  There's a Christmas goose in it.  There's a mom too but as far as I know, no apple pie.

I'm not sure we needed convincing that avarice, greed and consuming self interest are not good as being...well...good, but Dickens and a few thousand other people over the intervening years since he wrote the novella have made an awful lot of filthy lucre telling us that's true so there must be something to it.
What is wildly ironic about this feel good spending/eating/doing frenzy is that it happens during Advent. I haven't observed the church calendar for most of my life but I've been paying it a little more attention to it over the last few years. Advent is a season of quiet.

Advent is the first season of the new church year.  It's purpose is to prepare us to receive the Christ child.  It was surprising to me to learn that Advent for about 2000 years, has been considered the second most penitential season on the church calendar after Lent.  And it's considered a pretty close second.  Virtually any discipline you'd pursue for Lent (fasting, silence, etc.) is considered fit for the Advent season.

The point of this deprivation is to make us a little less focused on ourselves and a little more focused on the one who created us and redeemed us.  Advent's been good for that up until the last 150 years or so.

All of this points to the fact that there is no "true meaning" to Christmas.  Christmas is not about meaning at all. It is about the incarnation of Christ, both on earth and in our lives.  He is good, generous, loving and kind, so Christmas has those attributes.  However, to celebrate those attributes without Christ is a bit like standing a good ways from the fire and expecting the smoke to keep you warm. 

There is I think there is a still deeper truth in Advent.  It's a truth buried deep in us.  We were wired for this season.  We were made for a time of slowing down and remembering the shepherds, the wise men and the star.  Something down very deep in us cries out for the still small voice we first heard in the moment we were spoken. 

And that's why, when Linus steps out into "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and recites Luke 2: 8-14 about the birth of Christ, there is a celebration of silence.  It's what we wanted all along.

Christmas is almost here, all 12 days of it.  The joy to come is easy to see from the place of quiet.

Long Time No See - Squirrel

It's been a while since I posted last.  All the usual suspects are responsible.  This includes all flavors of busy and a muse that likes to play hard to get.  A few people mentioned the absence. And yup, I noticed it too. 

There is one thing in particular that has contributed to my silence.  I've had a lot of partial thoughts, fragments, but nothing that of itself drove me to the keyboard.  Years ago, these would have become poems or maybe songs after being jotted down and revisited later.  Single thoughts, images that grab the eyes of mind or soul with enough power to slowly pull complimentary thoughts, one from the other.  (With apologies to Noyes and his "Highwayman," my own favorite poem/lyric of mine was composed while driving home past a foggy grave yard under full moon.  I never wrote it down.)

In response to the nothing, I've decided to do something.  Here's the something I'm going to do:  Anything.  Yes, I may even commit poetry at some point.  Don't tell the authorities. 

Following is one possible example of things to come:

 Item one, containing some rather blunt ideas:  Jesus isn't defined by who you want him to be, what your morals, desires and aspirations are at any given moment.  He's not swayed by things you think should be right or acceptable and pay close attention here, your sense of social justice.  Over the years, I've discovered that Jesus makes you very uncomfortable at times.  Physically, spiritually, socially, in every way.  His life passion and work is to fulfill himself and each one of us and to have each one of us fulfilled in him.  He's very very brave in that he's willing to endure and risk everything (and risk and risk and risk) to make that happen.  He doesn't need another street march, protest sign, FB meme, or Snopes patrol to finish his work.  On the cross, he has already leveraged the fulcrum of his intent.  We must choose each day to work with him to live out our lives with him, to in turn be moved by him, the lever of the spirit.

Item two, endurance:  My impression is that we usually think of endurance as gutting or grinding it out.  This is a misunderstanding.  You might gut out a meeting.  You might grind out a home work paper.  You don't gut out a roller coaster ride and holding down your stomach contents doesn't count for gutting it out...or in.  Never the less, you do endure it.  I get motion sick some.  I went to a go-cart type of recreation day  with work years ago.  I made myself nauseous driving as fast as I could.  Did I endure the nausea so I could have the fun?  Not really, they were both wound up together.  They were inseparable.  Endurance is more about picking an endpoint and pushing through to it regardless of interim consequences than it is toughing it out.

Item three, completely unrelated and completely related - rules:  These were (and the good ones still are) intended for our good rather than as a prescription of things to (not) do.  Man, do we get confused about this.  Following or not following rules isn't and never has been the salient point of life or Christianity.  Rules can be good boundaries.  However, they aren't the road and they certainly aren't the journey.  Rules can be very very important but they should not be confused with the core.  The key arguments about good evil are about the destination and the identity we want to own; that is, who we want to be when we grow up.  The journey is beautiful, terrible, humbling, fulfilling and filled with good and bad consequence.  It's amazing.  Rules are just rules, serving to show us where the road lies.

Item four, a child under a tree in Africa:  I don't remember whether she read it somewhere or came up with it on her own but my wife has a wonderful image she trots out from time to time that I find helpful.  In considering the goodness or badness of your circumstances or the circumstances of others, think about a child playing under a tree in an arid grassland in Africa.  The child is nearly naked, completely poor, at least a little hungry but still happy.  How valuable is that child?  How valuable is her life?  What will she grow up to be?  Is your circumstance better or worse than that child's?  If you have to consult your checking account to answer that question, you have your answer.  Now imagine that child unhappy, crying.  Same questions.  There's an awful lot here but certainly one component is this:  It has much more to do with the person we're considering and how we value them than it does with either their circumstances or ours. People are raging beautiful creations of the living God.  We're honored to be among them.  And they are honored to know us.

And finally, Squirrel:  As I write this, there is a squirrel on top of a telephone pole across the street.  He's been there about 20 minutes. It's a pole with no cross bar, just a vertical pole.  His head hangs over one side and his tail down the other.  Every now and then the wind catches is tail and blows it around a little.  I think the little beast is just relaxing and catching some sun.  Apparently, the squirrel FDA and/or OSHA has not informed him of the imminent hazard of squirrel sun bathing in a neighborhood where birds of prey live, not to mention fur burn from high tension wires. As I finished that last sentence, the squirrel climbed down off the pole, probably off to complete his many self-appointed tasks.  Miraculously, he successfully navigated his sun bath without being molested by those wishing him harm or by those wishing him safety.  He just carried on, largely oblivious to all.  It is a good day to be a squirrel.

Are We There Yet?

My mother (a single mom) learned to drive around the time I learned to talk.  She bought a used '55 Chevy a little bit before that.  A neighbor went with her to look over the car and drive her home.  He later taught her how to drive.  We started taking weekend trips and drive 'till you drop vacations almost immediately thereafter.

As we lived in the Los Angeles area (Huntington Park...not Beach), it was at least an hour in any direction to get out of town or for that matter to get to Huntington Beach.  If you are younger than 40 and don't have easy access to a Way Back Machine (Google "Mr. Peabody and Sherman"), you won't remember that cars didn't have more things then they actually had.  There were no FM radios (there was barely any FM), no clock, no power steering, the dash boards were made of steel and there were no seat belts.  On the up side, there was a rather primitive AM radio.  When you're 4 and you can't watch Star Wars on the iWhatever as you travel, just getting out of town in this context can be tedious.

There are 3 general directions to escape L.A.  All of them, depending on time of year, are hot.  Early on, our primary destinations were the Southern reaches of the Sierra.  This included Sequoia on the West side of the range and the Owens Valley/Mammoth Lakes area on the East.  (Mammoth didn't have a gondola in those days.  What is now the main street was a bad dirt road.)

I clearly remember the first time I said "Are we there yet?"  It was in the Owens Valley around Lone Pine.  It was hot as stink, the radio wouldn't get anything and we'd sung all the songs I knew a couple times.  Worst of all, it was too hot to nap.  I repeated it a few times, varying the theme a bit.  "Are we there yet?"  "Are we closer?"  "Will it be long?"

My mother was patient at first.  Gradually though, I wore her down.  She was hot and relatively miserable too.  Finally she snapped at me, telling me to not ask anymore under threat of spanking or being slapped in the face.  It immediately became clear to me that I'd come to the end of that particular line of inquiry.

As the years went by, through a combination of practice and maturing I learned how to tolerate and even enjoy the ride.  As we drove up the Owens Valley with the Sierras to the West and the White Mountains to the East, my mind would travel on the dirt tracks that vanished up into the valleys of those mountains.  In time, I learned to love the journey as much as I loved and enjoyed the destination.  Later on, we actually followed some of the less traveled roads into those mountains to lakes and forests that were only minutes away from US 395.

As I was adapting to travel, I had no idea that the experiences and lessons would apply to the whole scope of my life.  For example, my impatience usually gives way to resignation.  Eventually, my mind wanders off somewhere and I would forget all together the current moment of discomfort.  

There's a difference though.  The lessons of childhood usually have boundaries.  Our parents provide them.  Usually, our joys and our pains happen within the lines of what our parents provide for us.  Sometimes this is out of our control altogether and sometimes its even out of theirs.  Even so, as children we seem to always have a base level of comfort or hope derived from our parents even when they're broken and afraid themselves.

From any one moment, our adult lives stretch out before us as a plane of possibility that encompasses the totality of human experience, from fatigue to enthusiasm, from joy to terror, from fear to love.  Sometimes our steps are intentional.  Sometimes we stumble as if pushed from behind.  Sometimes we stagger under the weight of all we've imagined will soothe and protect us on our trip.  Sometimes in sadness or fatigue or both, we just lay down.  Even then though, the small steps intrinsic in each moment carry us forward to someplace that contains at least some part of our choosing.  We may or may not reach the destination of our choosing but we can never escape the journey.

The journey is a joyful thing...if the choice of joy is made.  If God is invited into as many moments as we can remember, as our eyes cast around for the thing of beauty that plays discord to the mundane background.

The journey is love...if need is admitted and forgiveness given freely if God is invited into to both our woundings and triumphs.

The journey is peace...if love and joy attend.

My mother introduced me to these ideas and modeled them.  She failed sometimes but always seemed to be able to be mostly upbeat, leaning into the joy and love offered in each moment.  Because of her, it was easier for me to see these things in God.  However, I've also learned this: the God of love and grace so far transcends any human expression of love and joy that any human model is never more than an introduction to the depth of all that God is.

So I sit in the passenger seat.  Some days it's an easy ride.  Some days the sun is hot, the air conditioning broken and the destination too far.  Even so, I count the shadows of phone poles racing by.  My eyes wander to the distant mountains and the dirt tracks that reach into them.  There must be lakes and coolness and water up there.  And then I realize, if there was no journey there would be no destination.  There would be no rushing shadows, sunrises or sunsets or imaginings of distant possibility.  It will be fun when we get there but the ride is beautiful.