Thanks for making the journey with me this Advent season. The night is far spent; the day is at hand. I am grateful for all the love that surrounds me. I let James Taylor sing us to sleep.
Peace
Milton
advent journal: a faraway christmas
My offering tonight is a story I wrote several years ago. Three Christmases ago, my friend Terry helped me turn it into an audio file. This past year has helped me read it a bit differently. I share it again.
A Faraway Christmas
As we gather together on this Silent Night,
To sing ‘round the tree in the soft candlelight,
From a Faraway Christmas, from time that’s grown cold,
Comes a story, you see, that has seldom been told.
Of all of the legends, the best and the worst,
From Christmases all the way back to the first,
This little tale isn’t often remembered
From then until now, down through all those Decembers.
But I found an old copy tucked away on a shelf,
And I turned through the pages, and I thought to myself,
Of all of the times between now and then,
This is the Christmas to hear it again.
Once upon a time in a place we might know,
‘Cause their woods, like ours, often fill up with snow,
Was a small little hamlet — a Long Ago Town —
Of no great importance, or no real renown,
Filled with people who seemed fairly normal to me,
With names like Francesca, Francine, and McGee.
They had puppies and children, ate bread and ice cream,
They went shopping and swimming, they slept and they dreamed;
They laughed and did laundry, they danced and they dined,
And they strung Christmas lights on the big Scottish Pine
That grew in the square in the middle of town,
And when Christmas was over, they took the lights down.
They read the newspaper, they sometimes told jokes,
And some of the children put cards in the spokes
Of their bicycle tires, so they made quite a din
Till it came time for parents to call the kids in.
Yet for all of the things that kept people together,
The nice festive feeling, the Christmas Card weather,
For all of the happiness one was likely to hear,
This Faraway Christmas was marked, mostly, by fear.
Well, yes, they were frightened — but that’s still overstated;
What bothered folks most really could be debated.
Some were tired (exhausted), some were sad or depressed,
Some — the best way to say it — well, their lives were a mess.
Some felt pressure from not having paid all the bills,
Some were keeping dark secrets that were making them ill;
Some felt guilty and thought they were headed for hell,
But the town seemed so happy, who could they tell?
So everyone kept all their feelings inside,
And wished they had someone in whom to confide,
To say, “Life is lousy,” or “I’ve made a mistake,”
Or “Sometimes I’m so sad I don’t want to awake,”
Or “I miss my Grandma,” or “I loved my cat,”
Or “I never, no never get my turn at bat.”
Everyone kept it in, no one said a thing
Until once Christmas Eve, when the man they called Bing
Came to turn on the lights on the tree in the square
And nobody — not anyone — no one was there,
And he looked at the lights as he sat on the curb
And he said — to no one — “I feel quite disturbed;
“I know that it’s Christmas, when I should feel warm,
But I don’t think this year that I can conform.
It’s been hardly two months since my friend passed away;
How can I smile when he’s not here to say,
“’Merry Christmas’?” he asked and burst into tears,
And all of the sadness from all of the years
Came out of his eyes and ran down his cheeks,
And he thought he would sit there and blubber for weeks.
When Samantha showed up — she had not been expected —
And sat down beside him ‘cause he looked neglected.
He looked up through his tears, she said, “You look kinda bad.”
And he answered, “The truth is I feel real sad.”
When she heard those words, tears jumped straight to her eyes,
“The truth is,” she said, “I tell too many lies.
I want people to like me, so I try to act cool,
But deep down inside I feel just like a fool.”
So they sat there and cried, like a sister and brother,
And were joined by one, and then by another,
With a story to tell and feelings to free,
And they wept and they hugged ‘neath the big Christmas Tree.
Can you imagine how many tears fell,
After all of the years that no one would tell
How much they were hurting, how broken or mad,
How long they had smiled when they really felt sad.
How long does it take to clean out your heart,
To get it all out, to make a new start?
That answer’s not easy to you and to me,
But they found out that night, those folks ‘round the tree.
They cried until daybreak, till the first rays of dawn
Broke over the tree tops and spread ‘cross the lawn,
in the new morning light Bing could see all the square;
He also could see the whole town was out there.
They had come through the night, first one, then another
To sit down together like sister and brother
To pour out their hearts for the first time in years,
And let out their feelings, their sadness, their tears.
Samantha stood up and then turned back to Bing,
“You started us crying, now help us to sing.”
So he started a carol, the one he knew best,
About joy to the world, and it burst from his chest.
The others joined in, not because they weren’t sad,
But because they’d admitted the feelings they had,
Everyone sang along, both the sad and the scared,
Because true friends are found when true feelings are shared.
There’s more to the story, but our time is short,
Of how life was changed I cannot now report,
But instead I must ask why this story’s forgotten;
It’s not hopeless or humdrum, it’s not ugly or rotten.
Do you think it’s because people said how they felt,
And if we tell the story then our hearts, too, might melt?
What if we spoke the truth, what if we named our fears,
What if we loosed the sadness we’ve tied up for years?
Would we ever stop crying, would the dawn ever come?
And like those in the story, once the tears had begun
Would we sit on the curb, first one, then another,
And talk about life like sister and brother.
Oh, that is exactly why I chose to tell
This lost little tale we know all too well.
Our world is no different; we’re frightened and sad,
We feel helpless and hopeless, and certainly mad,
But none of those words is the last on this Night
That we wait for the Child, that we pray for the Light,
That we sing of the good news the angels did bring,
And we wish for peace, more than any one thing.
Yes, this story that came from a Long Ago Town
Of no great importance, of no real renown,
Could be ours, if true feelings were what we would say;
And we’d find such a Christmas not so faraway.
Peace
Milton
P. S. — You can find a downloadable version here.
advent journal: snowed in
The first time you
came to Boston
it was so cold;
the wind bit us
at the bus stop.
You pulled me
close and asked, “Am
I still wearing pants?”
then you laughed.
When you first
came to Durham —
our first Christmas
in our new home —
we were snowed in.
You looked out and said,
“I’ve never had
a white Christmas”
and you smiled.
Tomorrow will be
in the sixties when
we pick Mom up
at the airport:
no snow; no you.
We’ll smile and say,
“Now let me tell
you something . . .”
and miss you.
As our house fills
up with empty
chairs, I don’t
know how to
prepare for absence.
I am snowed in
by sorrow, grateful
for those who keep
digging me out.
Peace,
Milton
advent journal: waltz
when we lived by the ocean
I learned to tell time by the tides
(I guess I should say I couldn’t
tell time a thing — or keep it)
there was no second hand . . .
no sense of calendar —
just the giving and taking
away of the beach twice a day:
a waltz to the rhythm of the moon
on this spring tide of sunshine
and darkness, this longest night
I am mindful of what has washed
up and washed away on the beaches
of my heart, a waltz of my own
to the metronome of missing:
the giving and taking away —
the giving and taking away . . .
the giving and taking away.
Peace,
Milton
advent journal: that kind of love
At the end of the last century, Ron Howard directed a movie called “Ed” that tried to take a look at the preposterous idea that people would watch a TV show that was simply filming someone’s everyday life. I don’t know that even Howard understood how prophetic he was, or perhaps even suggestive. One of the powerful messages of the film was found in the way the camera changed the lives of those being filmed. They acted differently. In the long run, they became caricatures of themselves all because the camera was running and the filmmakers and the viewers were complicit in the transformation. As reality television has increased, so has my sense that most of it is akin to gawking as you drive by an accident.
My disclaimer: I have never watched an episode of Duck Dynasty. I’ve seen the beards and a few clips of the show here and there and have watched Facebook blow up over the last few days because of the statements one of the guys — Phil — made in an interview in Esquire magazine. Beyond what I read and heard, I know nothing about him or his family other than their duck call business is a multi-million dollar operation, at least in part thanks to the show. I know that both A&E and the family involved are making lots of money. And I know Phil has been suspended from the show, even as the cameras keep rolling on the rest of them. I also know reality television is not real at all; it’s contrived. Created. Fabricated. The genre of shows like Duck Dynasty basically make fun of the people they put on film. A&E wants you to think these people are crazy, just as the others do with shows about kiddie beauty pageants and dance recitals. This is the television equivalent of paying a dollar at the carnival to see Jo Jo the Monkey Boy. The controversy is designed to make the news, however briefly, and then to move on to the next spectacle. Facebook will simmer down, Phil will go back to work, and A&E will keep making fun and making money. This morning, the story made it to NPR’s Morning Edition, and I listened as I made coffee, then I went online and found his quotes about gays and African-Americans. To say I disagree with him would be an understatement.
I was just finishing my coffee when I heard a second story this morning, which was not new to me, about Frank Schaefer, a Methodist minister who was defrocked this week for performing the wedding of his son, who is gay. The wedding took place in 2007 in Massachusetts, where equal marriage is legal. When Frank did the wedding, he also knew he was breaking the rules of his denomination. The trial shone a light on the division within Methodism over how to come to terms with the gay and lesbian people in their number.
By now there are thousands upon thousands of people who have thrown in their two cents about Phil and Frank and what the Bible says and what the Constitution says to the point that we have created a cacophony none of us can listen to. Then again, there aren’t that many of us listening; we are all talking. Or shouting. The reason I am writing tonight is because I have a whole slew of people whom I love who are gay and lesbian. I also have a great deal of people who are profession Christians whom I love as well. The two groups overlap quite a bit. I want them to know I am saddened when their existence as human beings requires somehow that they are always introduced with a preceding adjective. I want them to know I don’t think they are broken or tainted or sinful for being themselves. Jesus didn’t call us to keep the rules; he called us to keep each other and remind each other nothing — not death or life or judgment or ecclesiastical councils or reality television — can separate us from the love of God. I’ll let Pierce Pettis take it from here.
That Kind of Love
Can’t be bought or sold or faked
That kind of love
Always gives itself away
That kind of love
Wiser than the wisest sage
It’s innocence makes me ashamed
Til I’m not sure I can take
That kind of love
Pride and hatred cannot stand
That kind of love
Greater love hath no man
Than that kind of love
Won’t be kept unto itself
Spreads it’s charm, casts it’s spell
No one’s safe this side of hell
From that kind of love
Love rejected and ignored
Held in chains, behind closed doors
Stuff of legend and of songs
Deep down everybody longs for
That kind of love . . . oh, that kind of love
Some people never know
That kind of love
Though it only takes a child to show
That kind of love
Widows smile and strong men weep
Little ones play at it’s feet
Deaf can hear and blind can see
That kind of love
Love triumphant, love on fire
Love that humbles and inspires
No conditions, no restraints
That kind of love . . . oh, that kind of love
How could anyone deny
That kind of love
Every heart is measured by
That kind of love
Even stars fall from the sky
Everything will fall in time
Except those things that cannot die
That kind of love
Oh, may you be remembered by
That kind of love
Love that does not hesitate
We are loved, we are loved, we are really, really loved — every last one of us.
Peace
Milton
advent journal: loaded metaphor
in the story of america
war is the primary metaphor
we see life as a battle
conquest as a mission
we’re number one, remember?
we live our lives locked
and loaded, ready for battle
our words are bullets
intent on doing damage
in the name of faith and
freedom: we must defend
our right to be right
the cost of the conquest
goes largely unnoticed
we are killing ourselves
yelling ourselves to death
we have chosen a metaphor
that knows nothing of poetry
or compassion, we shoot
and never get to the question:
war — what is it good for?
absolutely nothing
say it again . . .
Peace
Milton
advent journal: the living of these days
As the son of my father, I love old hymns and gospel music. I’ve done my best to emulate is ability to sing every hymn in worship without having to open a book. One of the results of growing up with those songs in my head and heart is I learned to both love and sing harmony. A good hymn should always have harmony parts. Still, along with all the infectious melodies and inviting harmonies of those old gospel goodies comes a lot of bad theology, namely that heaven is the true reality and this life is nothing but a way station. My favorite example is:
this world is not my home I’m just a-passin’ through
my treasure’s all laid up somewhere beyond the blue
the angels beckon me from heaven’s open door
and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore
o Lord, you know I have no friend like you
if heaven’s not my home then Lord what will I do
the angels beckon me from heaven’s open door
and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore
On my way to my favorite coffee shop this afternoon, I heard a story on Here and Now about the Sunday Assembly, a new non-faith movement that defines itself as “a global network of super people who want to make the most of this one life we know we have.” It was started by two standup comedians in Britain who wanted the sense of community “without the God bit.” Their point is not to be atheist, but rather to invite anyone they can to join in. Sanderson Jones said, “We come from nothing and we go to nothing, so we need to make the best of the seventy, eighty, or ninety years of this life we know we have.”
What struck me in listening to the interview was their investment in this life, in these days, in being HERE and not always gazing at the horizon. They don’t see themselves as passing through. This is not a practice life or a transit lounge. This is It. For me, however, what they are describing is not antithetical to my faith because these days on this planet are the ones that matter — because of the baby in Bethlehem.
We’re not playing minor league ball here. If all that mattered was to endure these days so we could get to the Show, why would the Incarnation even be part of the story? Instead, Jesus came to show us what it means to be fully human. When he spoke, he called us to dig deep into our earthly existence and take care of one another as if we were all we had. The Sermon on the Mount is all about here; there’s no passing through. Whatever eternity looks like, we are called to live these days as if there were all there is.
Jones and Pippa Evans, the two co-founders, were not antagonistic to faith. In fact, the leader of one of the Assemblies in Britain is a Christian. They are not simply reacting to something. They have a strong sense of mission:
“We often say that we’re not going to tell you how to live, but we’re going to help you do whatever you want to do as well as you can. We still have a very strong sense of purpose and mission. You know the ‘live better, help often, wonder more,’ corresponds nicely to self-service and spirit. We’ve got an awesome mission, which is to try and help everyone live this one life as fully as possible, and a vision, which is to try to help every town, city or village that wants to have a Sunday Assembly to have one.”
I listened to them talk and I wanted to invite them to dinner. What they described about their gatherings is close to what I feel about why I am a Christian and why I am a part of a congregation, but my community is fueled by and centered in my faith. My life and help and wonder are fed by Jesus. Even as I wait for Christ to be born again this year, in the middle of the gladness and grief that surrounds me, I find myself called to remember there is more than one way to the manger. Sanderson and Pippa were not angry or adversarial, they were not picking a fight. They are doing what they can to foster connectedness and lead people to a meaningful life. I don’t look at God and faith the same way they do and I feel my faith calling me to lean into the resonance I find in their assemblies rather than trying to make sure they know I’m right.
Jesus didn’t call us to be right. He called us to live together, to pay attention, and to love as though these days were all that mattered. He would have sung along with Guy Clark:
you’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money
love like you’ll never get hurt
you’ve got to dance like there’s nobody watching
it’s got to come from the heart if you want it to work
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage for the living of these days.
Peace
Milton
advent journal: snow
Down all my decembers I have
sung about bleak midwinters
this is the first I remember
snow falling in Bethlehem —
even as I sit in the sunshine
of a sixty degree afternoon.
The weather of my heart
has seen mostly grey days of late;
in the fatiguing fog of grief
I find comfort in that couple
on the Palestinian road,
whether slouching or singing
their way into town — and now
comes word that they’ve run into
snow just outside of the city.
Should we drive out and find them,
or do we just go on knowing they
somehow always seem make it . . .
I am not carrying my own weight
these days, you see. But then, no
one gets through the storm alone.
No one. Grab your boots; we
cannot wait. O come, let us go
into the cold and bring them in.
Peace
Milton
advent journal: attending and abstracting
I love bathrobe shepherds.
For all the pageants and grand tellings, there’s something about our kids in wonderfully makeshift costumes gathering together around the manger at the front of the church that tells the story best of all. I mean that last sentence with as little sentimentality as possible. They get it right, as they did yesterday at Pilgrim.
Our telling involves a small parade of characters — from shepherds to soldiers to magi — who walk in to the verse of a carol and then carry on a conversation with the somewhat irritable innkeepers until we are all at the front in tableau and everyone sings “Joy to the World!” This year, I was one of the Wise Men (irony intended), though the speaking parts went to the younger ones in our band of magi. The dialogue went back and forth until one of the boys said, “You don’t understand. What if God was in that stable — wouldn’t that change everything?”
What a question. In one sense, it feels rhetorical and yet, in another — as in when I think of my friends dealing with grief and cancer and unemployment and who-knows-what-else — I hear it in a different light. Still light, but a different light. The “what if” of it all reminds me there is more going on than it seems and that I have to pay attention. I love that phrase because of the action involved: pay attention. Mr. Berry enlightens:
We speak of “paying attention” because of a correct perception that attention is owed — that without our attention and our attending our subjects, including ourselves, are endangered. (83)
The subjects of which he was speaking are those things we write and speak and paint and sing about. His call to art and attending means understanding, as I spoke of before, they are not “raw materials” but the stuff of life that matters most. When we pay attention to one another we strengthen the ties that bind, we become community. When we pay attention to the story unfolding at the stable, we find ourselves along with God.
We use the verb attending when we talk about serving: attendants are those who take care of those around them. A key part of service is listening. To attend — to pay attention — means to listen. Listen well and our subjects are not endangered.
I met one who I hope is becoming a new friend a couple of weeks ago. He’s an artist here in town who does metal sculpture. We met at Cocoa Cinnamon (of course) and talked about the creative process. As he spoke about his painting and drawing and sculpting, he said he saw what he did as “abstracting,” but he had a twist on the way he defined the word. Till that moment, abstract art meant “not easily understandable,” but Jim said, “In academic life, an abstract of a dissertation distills the whole document down to a paragraph or two; it offers the essence of the thing. That’s the way I want to use the verb: abstracting, for me, means distilling life into the work of art: offering the essence of what I see around me.”
Very little of our pageant on Sunday was authentic or historically accurate, but what we did well was abstract the story: what if God was in that stable — wouldn’t it change everything.” That’s it. Let’s keep moving to the manger.
Peace,
Milton
advent journal: are you
I’ve spent another hour or two this evening sitting my writing spot in our house trying to find words to all that is swirling around inside. For a fair part of the time I have been listening to some of the songs that make up the soundtrack of my life. Similar to last night, I found myself landing on an old song I wrote with my friend Billy about what it means to be friends, one of our recurring themes. The opening verse of the song was a snapshot of our first meeting at a youth camp in the Ozark mountains where we did sit at the top of the cliff outside the dining hall and look down into the canyon at the river below. More than twenty years later, the question in the song pulls at me still.
are you
put on the coffee
and I’ll tell you a memory
we stood on the edge of time
as the river flowed silently by
we looked up at the stars
I still remember
and talked of what your life could be
you’re an old friend
so won’t you tell me
are you as sure of the dream
that you had on the way
finding enough of the truth
at the end of the day
caught now and then
by something like grace are you
are you still keeping a light on inside
shimmer of hope against the tide
finding that life is worth the ride
tell me — are you
remember the summer
we told one another
how we could change this world of ours
and quoted our heroes by heart
but here in this moment
we watch the way the river bends
you’re an old friend
I’m going to ask you again . . .
are you as sure of the dream
that you had on the way
finding enough of the truth
at the end of the day
caught now and then
by something like grace are you
are you still keeping a light on inside
shimmer of hope against the tide
finding that life is worth the ride
tell me — are you
Thanks for listening. Keep the light on.
Peace,
Milton