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toilet paper resolutions

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2

That’s right: I’m going to start the new year talking about toilet paper.

When we moved into our house, we put in this double roll holder (with magazine rack) because it meant there was less chance of running out. It also holds the big double rolls of Quilted Northern (our preferred brand), which we load so the paper comes over the top, not from underneath. The folks at Northern must spend a lot of time thinking about toilet paper (it is their job, after all) because they keep softening and expanding the rolls and, of course, there’s the quilting. For all of their efforts, however, I’ve noticed that one or two of the rolls that come in the giant twenty-four pack we buy from Target is just plain. No quilted design.

Just a roll of plain white toilet paper.

It happens enough that I wonder why it happens. I know it’s all done by machine, which I suppose there’s some sort of glitch in the process that allows a roll to escape decoration every so often, even though every other step is accomplished. And the folks at Northern have chosen not to fix it, or at least to let us all live with it.

At the restaurant we get fresh sourdough bread everyday from a local bakery that is the bread supplier to most of the restaurants in town. They make awesome bread of most any kind and, if you go by the bakery on the weekends, they use the foccacia dough to make beignets. About three months ago, we began to notice that eight slices into each loaf is a slice that is double-thick, meaning one of the slicing blades is missing and has been for some time now. Like the folks at Northern, they have chosen not to fix it, or at least to let us all live with it.

As I sit at the table on this first afternoon of a new year, I can look around the room and spot five or six familiarly unfinished things I have learned to live with rather than repair, much like my suppliers of bread and toilet paper. Some are bigger deals than others – unquilted paper works better than double-thick sandwich bread – yet they all serve as reminders that life is not what it could be were we choosing to live more intentionally.

It’s been many years since I made a resolution to break in a new calendar, mostly because they, too, were left unfinished. I hesitate to resolve to fix the lampshade (three minutes with a hot glue gun), or hang the last of the pictures (probably twenty minutes with hammer and hangers), or finally organize the kitchen (a good afternoon, anyway) because I don’t feel like inflicting myself with the pressure of promises and yet I find myself bumping into the question I would like to ask the bakers and quilters: would it take that much to get things right?

A second companion question quickly follows: what do we get out of not fixing the little things, out of getting used to things being broken?

Though a small part would fix it, I choose not to repair the air conditioner on my again Jeep Cherokee, as much as I love the car, because they have to take the whole dashboard off to replace the small plastic piece and the labor costs would be more than the car is actually worth. Most of the little disrepairs in my life are not so costly. So what’s the pay off? Why do I chose to live among the ruins rather than repair?

The first day of this year isn’t even over and I’m already dealing with big questions.

Peace,
Milton

P. S. — I inadvertently changed the template for the blog and I’m still trying to understand what I did and how to undo (or redo) it. You’ll notice I figured it out when the changes happen.

how to grow up big and strong

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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3

I preached at our church today so Ginger could take her parents back to Birmingham. What follows is the sermon. First, a quick note to say my brother’s surgery appears to have gone well; he is flat on his back in the hospital and not allowed to move until Tuesday, just to make sure. Thanks for all the prayers.

_____________________________

“How to Grow Up Big and Strong”
A Sermon for Pilgrim United Church of Christ, Durham
Sunday, December 28, 2008

When you’re the fill-in preacher the Sunday after Christmas, you have to turn in your sermon title early. Marty sent an email message to me a couple of weeks ago with the outline of today’s service and asked me to give him a title. I read through the gospel passage three or four times and was caught by the final sentence of the paragraph:

And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him.

For all of the times I have read this story, I hadn’t realized Luke’s use of repetition. You see the final verse of the chapter, Luke 2:52, which comes after Jesus, as a twelve year old, has been holding court in the Temple, was one of the first verses I memorized as a young Baptist boy in Sunday School, which meant I learned it from the King James Version:

And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.

Once I recognized the emphasis, I realized Luke wanted us to celebrate the baby’s birth alongside of the shepherds and angels, but he didn’t want us to leave him in the manger for long. And so, recalling the title of an old Mark Heard song, I sent the title back to Marty: “How to Grow Up Big and Strong.” As I have continued to study and reflect, my mind went to two scenes, one from a movie and one from a book, that illustrate the point.

The first is from the noted actor and theologian Will Farrell in the far from Oscar nominated movie, Talledega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby, which tells the story of a NASCAR driver. He and his family sit down for dinner and he begins to say grace by praying, “Dear Baby Jesus, we thank you for this food.” As he continues, his wife says, “You know he didn’t stay a baby. He grew up to be a man,” to which Ricky Bobby replies, “Well, you can pray to whatever Jesus you want, but I like to think of him as a baby.” And then he continues, “Dear eight pound six ounce baby Jesus . . .”

The second comes in a scene early in Prince Caspian and the Dawn Treader, one of C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. I know it’s a movie now, but I’ve only read the story. The four children return to the land of Narnia after a long absence. Lucy, the youngest one, sees Aslan the Lion, who is the Christ figure in the tale. She runs to hug him and then steps back. “You’re bigger,” she says. “It’s because you are,” he answers, and then continues, “When you grow, I get bigger.”

Last week, Ginger called us to allow Christmas to bring out the child – the Christ child in all of us. As the story continues to unfold, we are called to let Christ grow up, even as we do the same. We are called to grow up big and strong, by which I mean to be grownups with childlike hearts and spirits. And Luke gives us two great examples of what that looks like in the persons of Simeon and Anna, who met Mary, Joseph, and Jesus when they came into the Temple, as Allen Culpepper reminds us, to fulfill the “deepest awarenesses and commitments” of their faith:

“They saw God at work in events they had experienced. They lived within a covenant community and they sought to fulfill vows they had made as well as to introduce their son into that covenant community.”

Anna and Simeon were also ones who lived in that same sense of deep awareness and commitment. When Anna looked at Mary she must have seen herself as a young, newly married woman. Luke goes on to tell us she was widowed only seven years after her wedding and had lived her life in the sanctuary of the Temple fasting and praying, which probably meant she had no family to take care of her. She was eighty-four by the time Mary and Joseph arrived with Jesus. When Anna saw him, she gave thanks, Luke says, and began speaking to everyone waiting for redemption, telling them, as James Howell says, “”God’s blessing was not a continual smorgasbord of titanic experiences and shiny baubles. God’s blessing was just one thing, and it was eighty years coming.”

Mary and Joseph were diligent in doing all of the things called for by the community of faith. Anna nurtured her faith as she waited in the Temple each day with prayer and fasting, which were rituals of the very redemption she was waiting for. One of the ways we grow up big and strong is by practicing our faith in the sense that we keep the rituals of our community: being together, worshipping together, singing together, praying together, working together, and coming to the Communion Table together.

When we do any of these things, we are answering God’s grownup call on our lives. We are not a community of habit; we are a community of faith. We don’t have worship on Sunday morning simply because we are a church and that’s what churches are supposed to do; we are about God’s transforming work here. We gather together to wait and sing and pray, to love one another, and to point ourselves to God, allowing the Holy Spirit to cultivate the grownup feelings of expectancy, hope, and trust in our hearts. Mary and Joseph went to the Temple because they thought it mattered to do so. The rituals of faith passed down by the faithful across generations helped them continue to grow in their understanding of what God was doing in their family. Anna went through the motions of meaning because it was how she learned God could make something of what looked like the ashes of her young existence.

As James Howell writes: “Notice the order. In the world, it’s rise and fall. The rise and fall of the Third Reich, the rise and fall of the business tycoon, the rise and fall of a movie star. But with Jesus it’s fall and rise…We fall, and from that lowest point, we rise.”

And then there was Simeon, who had also spent his life waiting in expectation because he had been told he would see the Messiah before he died. Each day for decades he had come to the Temple and each day he had gone to bed without the promise fulfilled until one poor couple walked in with their new little baby. Frederich Buechner describes it this way:

Jesus was still in diapers when his parents brought him to the Temple in Jerusalem as the custom was, and that’s when old Simeon spotted him. Years before, he been told he wouldn’t die till he’d seen the Messiah with his own two eyes, and time was running out. When the moment finally came, one look through his cataract lenses was all it took. He asked if it would be all right to hold the baby in his arms, and they told him to go ahead but be careful not to drop it. ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation’ he said, the baby playing with the fringes of his beard. The parents were pleased as punch, so he blessed them too for good measure. Then something about the mother stopped him, and his expression changed. What he saw in her face was a long way off, but it was there so plainly he couldn’t pretend. ‘A sword will pierce through your soul,’ he said. He would rather have bitten off his own tongue than said it, but in that holy place he felt he had no choice. Then he handed her back the baby and departed in something less than the perfect peace he’d dreamed of all the long years of his waiting.

Part of growing up means learning life hurts. Most any choice we make comes with its own share of pain. There’s a whole side of Christian theology that says Jesus came to free us from pain. I’m not sure what they do with Simeon. He’s pretty clear when he starts talking swords with Mary. Life hurts. Period. There’s enough grief and pain in this room alone to more than prove the point. As we embrace the childlike truth that we can never run outside of God’s love, that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, we must make the grown up move to make meaning out of our suffering, which brings us again to what it means to be together in Christ. We are called to bear one another’s burdens: to voluntarily take on one another’s pain. And it is the regular motions of faith, the daily doings of church life when we do them with awareness and commitment that create the connections that allow love and hope and trust to flow between us.

Even though I’m the substitute this morning, I would like to close by giving us some homework. Next week is Communion Sunday. My assignment for us is to come hungry. Let us come next week ready to partake in a grownup meal. When we line up to come to the front to be served, or when we serve one another as we pass the bread and cup up and down the pews, we are not completing a duty or acting by habit. We are about God’s work, feeding one another and reminding ourselves of Christ’s love that feeds us. We are stepping into the stream of faith that runs all the way back to that first night when Jesus served the meal in the middle of deep suffering and betrayal and said, “Remember me” in as grownup a moment as I know in the gospels.

We are God’s people who have welcomed the Child, who live in suffering, who wait for redemption, and who, together, are the hands and feet of God’s love in our world. With childlike hearts, may we be hopeful and diligent, feeding and loving one another that we may continue to grow up big and strong.

Amen.

Peace,
Milton

still waiting

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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4

It’s early Saturday morning. Christmas is not even two days gone and already things are changing.

Ginger drove out about an hour ago to take her parents back to Birmingham after their two weeks with us. Since the V. A. is going to provide Rachel with some money to pay for some home healthcare, Lola, our oldest (and least social) Schnauzer is staying here with us so new people can come and go from the house without fear of ankle bites. Gracie went back to Alabama to continue her role as Chief Lover of Reuben, which she does fabulously. Ella will now have to get used to having a sister. Reuben had good days and hard days here, yet all of them reminded us he is slowly slipping away.

My brother, who came home from the hospital last Monday after spinal cord surgery, ended up back in the hospital last night because spinal fluid was leaking from the incision. The last word I had was he will be operated on again this morning; I’m still waiting for further word about what the surgery will involve. His primary surgeon is now on vacation and another doctor is stepping in; what seemed to be going so well a few days ago now feels more complicated.

I’m not sure how long Mary and Joseph stayed in Bethlehem (the stable would not have lent itself to a long term lease, I imagine), from the dawn following the chorus of stars and shepherds, when things had quieted down, the stunning reality of their new little one must have begun to sink in. They were still not married. They were still poor. They were still whatever they were – or weren’t – before the child was born and now they had a little boy. They had been fundamentally changed by the birth. Life could not be as it was, period.

When they got to the Temple with the baby and Anna and Simeon gushed about his being the salvation of the world, I wonder if it crossed the parents’ minds to ask, “Exactly how is that going to come down?” or “Does that mean life will ever be any easier for us?”

When Simeon tells Mary a sword would pierce her heart, Luke leaves her silent.

As the Christmas tide rolls in, I feel the undertow of life as well; both things are real and true. Simeon had waited his whole life to see Jesus. His whole life. And when the child showed up, he responded with unmitigated joy. I can’t find an ounce of “what took you so long” in his words. Anna was no different. Her husband had died young and she had lived, widowed, in the Temple for decades. For both of them, the waiting had nurtured their sense of wonder rather than suffocating it or turning it to bitterness or resentment or despair.

We waited all through Advent for Jesus to be born. He is here and we are still waiting. And we will keep waiting, even as the tide rolls in.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: adding to the soundtrack

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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0

I missed blogging yesterday because I missed everything yesterday. Sunday night late I started throwing up and realized, as the fun continued through the night and into the morning, that food poisoning. Somewhere in the middle of last night, I realized it was over. For the last two days I have done little more than think about me. Tonight, I turned to some music to turn my thoughts to the bigger picture.

The first is an Emmylou Harris song from her album Light in the Stable. The song is called, “There’s a Light.” The video is not hers and some of the images are a little over the top, but the song is amazing.

There’s a light, there’s a light in the darkness
And the black of the night cannot harm us
We can trust not to fear for our comfort is near
There’s a light, there’s a light in the darkness

It will rain it will rain in the desert
In the cracks of the plain there’s a treasure
Like the thurst of the seed we will await we believe
It will rain it will rain in the desert

We will fly we will fly we will let go
To this world we will die but our hearts know
We’ll see more on that side when the door opens wide
We will fly we will fly we will fly we will fly
We will all go

The second song if from my favorite new album this season, Melissa Etheridge’s A New Thought for Christmas. I’ve been humming it for a couple of weeks now.

Windshields kissed with snow
On this endless interstate
Over the fields we go
Laughing all the way
We sing love, love, love
It’s glorious

Friends and family near
No more judgments no more fear
All is calm all is bright
Everyone will hold this light
And sing love, love, love
It’s glorious

Sleep in heavenly, in heavenly
Sleep in heavenly, in heavenly
Believe in heavenly, in heavenly peace

I have heard the angels
Sweetly singing o’er the plain
And I’ve heard the mountains
Echoing their sweet refrain
They sing love, love
Love, love, love
It’s glorious

Sleep in heavenly, in heavenly
Sleep in heavenly, in heavenly
Believe in heavenly, in heavenly peace

The last song is one of my favorite renditions of one of my favorite Christmas songs: James Taylor singing “Go Tell It On The Mountain.” You know the words. Sing along.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: be the baby

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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5

I went to college in Waco, Texas where winter was more of an idea than a reality.

We had snow – significant snow – two or three times in my four years there, as well as a couple of ice storms. The events were such rarities that school was cancelled even though we all lived on campus and could have walked to class. On one of those afternoons I was walking across campus when I realized the person walking in front of me was the president of the university. He was by himself and he didn’t know I was forty or fifty feet behind him. While I watched, he stopped under a tree whose branches were encased in ice and tapped them with his closed umbrella, causing a noisy rain of icicles on the frozen sidewalk. Then he giggled and did it again.

I don’t know how often he let himself feel that kind of joy and wonder, but I loved that I got to see it happen that afternoon. The memory rose to the surface today because of Ginger’s sermon. She started by telling about a recent trip with her mother to see the Biltmore Mansion decorated for Christmas. She gave us a wonderful virtual verbal tour and ended up describing one of the ornaments that held the inscription, “Christmas brings out the child in all of us.”

“What if,” she asked, “we heard that statement as, ‘Christmas brings out the Child – the Christ Child – in all of us.”

And with those words, her sermon became a call to joy. She went on to quote Charles Spurgeon:

Besides, Christian, dost thou not know that it is a good thing for thee to praise thy God? Mourning weakens thee, doubts destroy thy strength; thy groping among the ashes makes thee of the earth, earthy. Arise, for praise is pleasant and profitable to thee. “The joy of the Lord is our strength.” “Delight thyself in the Lord and he will give thee the desire of thine heart.” Thou growest in grace when thou growest in holy joy; thou art more heavenly, more spiritual, more Godlike, as thou gettest more full of joy and peace in believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. I know some Christians are afraid of gladness, but I read, “Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.” If murmuring were a duty, some saints would never sin, and if mourning were commanded by God they would certainly be saved by works, for they are always sorrowing, and so they would keep his law. Instead thereof the Lord hath said it, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice;” and he has added, to make it still more strong, “Rejoice evermore.”

Listening to the two of them I realized joy is a choice.

I’ve been a part of UCC churches for almost two decades. One of the folks in a previous church described our denomination by saying, “If Christianity were a neighborhood, we would be the last house on the left.” I love our address and (not but – and) I have to admit joy runs thin at our end of the block. We know about courage and resolve, inclusiveness and industriousness, transformation and tenacity. It dawned on me today that we know less about joy. Choosing to let the Christ Child run amok in our hearts chasing the balloons of the Spirit is not our default setting. We aren’t looking to be surprised by joy as much as we are working to live like Jesus. Isn’t it interesting that those could be two different things?

Perhaps joy is not an easy choice. Or, perhaps, we have to learn how to choose it. A group from church went caroling tonight and one couple was walking with Ginger and talking about the sermon. Claudia said she has reduced the sermon to three words: “Be the Baby.” She went on to tell how Suzanne had been reminding her of the sermon throughout the afternoon when she became judgmental or critical.

Be the Baby.

I worked at the restaurant tonight. I went back to the ice machine to get what I needed for my station and Ramon, one of my coworkers, was there. He works hard as a cook and also works hard on learning English, though, at this point, most of his vocabulary is still restaurant related. When I got to the back, he was filling a small bucket and he looked up, grinned, and said, “Ice, ice, baby,” and we both laughed. Ramon knows about choosing joy.

Towards the end of the evening, Abel, another coworker began singing loudly in Spanish, as he does every Sunday night was we start breaking down the line. He sings well and with gusto. Abel works with me at Duke also. As he began to croon, I called out, “Ramon!”

“Yes, Miton.” (When he says my name there is no “t.”)

“At Faculty Commons I have to put up with this everyday.”

“Everyday, Miton?”

“Everyday.” And we all laughed.

Be the Baby.

We are telling the story of how an unwed teenage girl gave birth to a baby in a barn behind a hotel that had no room – even for a pregnant woman — in a town faraway from her home and was then visited by all manner of people while she had hardly had a chance to clean up. And when we tell the story, we sing

Joy to the world, the Lord has come.

The entire story is shot through with joy from Elizabeth and Mary singing together to the angels telling the shepherds, “We bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be for all people.”

After angels, perhaps knocking ice out of the trees or cracking jokes at the ice machine doesn’t seem like such great joy, but I think both choices created thin places for joy to break through and take hold in our hearts. Our hearts harden gradually as we choose to complain or judge. As Spurgeon said, “If murmuring were a duty, some saints would never sin.” Our calling, however, is not to make the world right but to help make the world whole, which means we must be moving toward wholeness ourselves, moving to be more like Jesus: to be the Baby.

I’m going to finish this post the same way we ended our service this morning, with “Love Came Down at Christmas.” The video I found is by Jars of Clay and shows Mary riding to Bethlehem on a pink unicorn. I think they understand.

Be the Baby.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: after word

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1

You know she lived for years, many years
after he left – and she moved from Galilee,
following those who had pledged to care
for her. Maybe it was easier to not live
in the same land where he had parabled
and miracled, healed and helped. After
he was gone, they still came to town
asking to see the house where he was
born and she would have to tell them –
again — they were in the wrong place.
Maybe it mattered most to be with
friends who knew the stories, who had
lived through the glory and the grief,
and yet, when they knocked on the door
they asked, “What did you do today?”

Peace,
Milton

P. S. — There’s a new recipe.

advent journal: change the world for $25

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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1

I wish I could remember how I first heard of Kiva.org.

It was probably because someone took time to write or send an email telling me about micro loans and what they can do in developing countries. Kiva began because a couple, Jessica and Matt Flannery, listened to the voices that gathered around them. She heard Dr. Muhammad Yunus speak – he was the founder of the Grameen Bank, a pioneer in microfinance, and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. After a visit to Africa, the two began to talk about how they could bring together what they knew about the Internet, what they had seen in Africa, and what they believed could happen to make a difference in the lives of people around the world who live in poverty. You can read their story here. They said they came to three realizations:

  1. We are more connected to the developing world than we realize. Even when he was in San Francisco and she in rural Africa seemingly worlds away, Matt could reach Jessica on her cell phone as though she were one block away. Distance means little in the world of communication today.
  2. The poor are very entrepreneurial. While the profit margins may be very different, the spirit of entrepreneurship is as strong among the poor of the developing world as it is in Silicon Valley.
  3. Stories connect people in a powerful way. As they listened to story after story of a fishmonger who needed enough money to buy directly from the fishermen at the lake, or a farmer who needed to buy a better breed of cow to produce more milk, Matt and Jessica knew that any of their friends back home would want to support these business ventures if they also heard their stories. With each story came a human connection as similarities were identified, making an African entrepreneur someone easier to relate to despite differences in language, culture or levels of wealth.

In March of 2005, they made their first seven loans, for a total of $3500, in Uganda. By September, those loans were repaid. Word began to get out and the organization began to grow exponentially. In March of this year – only three years later – Kiva loaned its 25 millionth dollar. Most of those loans are made $25 at a time.

Ginger and I made our first loan in March of 2007. I wish I could remember how we learned about it. We, along with several others, loaned our twenty-five bucks to Maria Guadalupe Martínez Magdaleno in Mexico to help her buy a cart so she could take the hamburgers and tacos she made at home to the nearby factories and thereby grow her business. She paid us back by September. We took the money and loaned it to Angela Kamenge in Tanzania to expand her poultry business. I’ve also taken some of the money from the sales of A Faraway Christmas to help Sok Nea open a grocery store in Cambodia and the Mastula Kagere Group who sell mattresses in Uganda.

My point is this: you can help. You can become a lender and help people all around the world. Pick the place, pick the kind of business that interests you, but please go pick one or twenty-seven of them and become a banker to the world. You can also give the gift of lending to someone else. Last December Kiva raised over two million dollars in gift certificates.

Change somebody’s world for twenty-five bucks. Where else are you going to get a deal like that?

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: index of first lines

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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3

In the midst of my waiting tonight, I began going through the first lines of songs I love and found this poem.

Index of First Lines

I pulled into Nazareth was feeling ‘bout half past dead
I don’t want to hear a love song
doctor my eyes have seen the years and the slow parade of tears
headlights are flashing down the highway
I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home
a look at you all see the love there that’s sleeping
when you’re down and troubled and you need a helping hand
keep a fire burning in your eye pay attention to the open sky
you you along the road must have a code that you can live by
you come a-walking with a scar on your soul
taking too much too lightly
you with the sad eyes don’t be discouraged
there’s a river of sorrow in my soul
don’t the hours grow shorter as the days go by
there are the ones you call friends
there are the ones you call late at night
another turning point a fork stuck in the road
people get ready there’s a train a-comin’
you can play the game and act out the part
baby I’ve been searching like everybody else
in the middle of late last night I was sitting on a curb
where have all my friends gone? they’ve all disappeared
like a bird on a wire like a drunk in a midnight choir
I will remember you will you remember me

when the road gets dark and you can no longer see
in every heart there is a room a sanctuary safe and strong
didn’t say we wouldn’t hurt anymore
people that are sad they wear a frown
it’s coming on Christmas and they’re cutting down trees
I heard was there was a secret chord
that david played and it pleased the Lord
am I young enough to believe in revolution
when it’s dark outside you’ve got to carry the light
the waltzing fool he’s got lights in his fingers
there ain’t nobody asked to be born
shut it down and call this road a day
we’re living in a time of inconvenience
you come home late and you come home early
we are swimming with the snakes at the bottom of the well
all the unsaid words that I might be thinking
the presence of your absence follows me
something in your eyes makes me want to lose myself
here we go again another round of blues
it was all I could do to keep from crying
oh play me a blues song and fade down the lights
so many years so many hardships
just when every ray of hope was gone
tell anybody that ain’t got nobody somebody’s coming
when you start if you exist God believes in you
I can hear her heartbeat from a thousand miles

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: keep me in your heart

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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2

We were scattered across the sanctuary, twenty-five or so in a room that will hold three hundred, the candles covering the Communion table offering warm light as the day surrendered to the darkness. In front of the altar was a small table with one place setting – plate, glass, coffee cup, napkin, silverware – and a basket full of place cards. Each of us entered and found a seat with room for the sorrow we had brought with us and we sang and prayed and talked about who and what had been lost this year. Tonight we had our Blue Christmas.

After we had prayed and sung “In the Bleak Midwinter” and listened to a stirring version of “It Is Well With My Soul” by our music director and organist, Ginger explained why we had place cards.

Write the names of those people or those things that will not be with you this Christmas and then, when the music starts, bring your card and place it on the table.

I wrote my grandmother’s name (she died this year) and my aunt’s (she’s been gone a long time now), Hannah and Phoebe (Schnauzers I still miss), and then I began to name people who are still living but now are far away since we moved. The last name I wrote was my father-in-law’s because even though he is here he is not. While we were in the service, he slept in Ginger’s office because he can’t sit in church anymore. And he loved going to church.

I put my card on the table first because I was to sing while the others came forward. The song was Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me in Your Heart for Awhile,” from his album The Wind, which he finished recording just weeks before he died of cancer.

Shadows are falling and I’m running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for a while
If I leave you it doesn’t mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for a while

When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun
Keep me in your heart for a while
There’s a train leaving nightly called when all is said and done
Keep me in your heart for a while

Sha-la la-la-la la-la-li li-lo
Keep me in your heart for a while
Sha-la la-la-la la-la-li li-lo
Keep me in your heart for a while

Sometimes when you’re doing simple things around the house
Maybe you’ll think of me and smile
You know I’m tied to you like the buttons on your blouse
Keep me in your heart for a while

Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you

Engine driver’s headed north to Pleasant Stream
Keep me in your heart for a while
These wheels keep turning but they’re running out of steam
Keep me in your heart for a while

Sha-la la-la-la la-la-li li-lo
Keep me in your heart for a while
Sha-la la-la-la la-la-li li-lo
Keep me in your heart for a while
Keep me in your heart for a while

We prayed together and then sang

O little town of Bethlehem how still we see thee lie
above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by
yet in thy dark streets shineth an everlasting light
the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight

The service ended with Ginger’s inviting people to stay as long as they wished and to leave in silence when it was time for them to go. We left still carrying the losses we brought with us (how can a loss be so heavy?), yet our loads were lightened because we were all carrying our losses together. We were keeping each other in our hearts.

My friend Lindsey sent me a Henri Nouwen quote today in response to yesterday’s post:

Prayer for others… is the very beat of a compassionate heart. To pray for a friend who is ill, for a student who is depressed, for a teacher who is in conflict; for people in prisons, in hospitals, on battlefields; for those who are victims of injustice, who are hungry, poor, without shelter; for those who risk their career, their health, and even their life in struggle for social justice; for leaders of church and state, to pray for all these people is not a futile effort to influence God’s will, but a hospitable gesture by which we invite our neighbors into the center of our hearts. When we come before God with the needs of the world, the healing love of the Holy Spirit that touches us touches with the same power all those whom we bring before him.

We have all lost and we are found when we share the sorrow and keep each other close. Tonight felt closer to Christmas than anywhere else I’ve been this season.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: healing in his wings

Milton Brasher-Cunningham
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Over most of my adult life in faith, I’ve been fortunate to go to churches small enough to still take one of the Sundays in Advent for the Christmas Pageant, though the word pageant always brings a smile to my face. I can’t help but wonder which of the magi will win the gown competition and if any of the shepherds will do something other than shear a sheep for their talent. Vocabulary aside, something about the parade of bath-robed shepherds helps Jesus to be born anew year after year.

The first year Ginger was in Winchester, she had a number of the young people taking part. One of the girls, who had not grown up in church, asked to be King Herod. As the rehearsal continued and came to her scene, she broke character in the middle of her speech and said, “Wait a minute! Herod’s a bad guy.”

My favorite moment in Marshfield each year came when the angels appeared to the shepherds. The pulpit at the church was a wall of wood across the front, creating a ministerial fortress of solitude behind it. The angels, always some of our youngest and most enthusiastic participants, would jump up from behind the wall holding stars above their heads, their faces beaming, as we all sang, “Joy to the World.”

The pageant here in Durham is an Advent one, which, I’ve learned, means everyone shows up except Jesus. We had shepherds and angels and the star and the wise men who all gathered around Joseph and Mary, but she was still pregnant when we headed out for coffee hour. The days have not yet been accomplished; we still have to wait for Jesus.

I thought about our pageant several times yesterday and today as I have been with my father-in-law who has Alzheimer’s. I thought about it because I feel like one of those little towel-headed kids, all dressed up for the big event and all I’m doing is waiting. Ginger and my mother-in-law spent a couple of days together and I was with Reuben, who is to the core of his being one of the most gentle and hopeful people I know. In other years, we would have spent the drive talking about what he saw on the news, which he watched voraciously, or he would have asked me questions about my job and about Durham. Instead, he wondered if it was going to snow (because he thinks we still live in Boston) and asked about every thirty minutes what time Ginger and Rachel were going to come home. Today, I looked in his face as he sat across from me at lunch and his eyes looked vacant, as though he were fading like a face in an old photograph, except it was happening right in front of me.

As we drove yesterday, I was also waiting for word on my brother’s surgery to remove a tumor from his spinal cord. About ten o’clock last night I got news that was about as good as it could get: they were able to repair the disc, remove the tumor, and all indications were the tumor was benign (we’ll have to wait a couple of days for the official pathology report). More than one person said it was “an answer to prayer. God is good.”

It was and God is. I prayed the tumor would not be cancer, and that it would be as uncomplicated at surgery on one’s spinal cord can be. And I also prayed that Reuben wouldn’t get Alzheimer’s and that he wouldn’t disappear as quickly as he is. My brother is going to get to go on with life relatively unscathed – at least from this and my father-in-law is going to continue to lose his life incrementally. Holding both of them in my heart, I’m hesitant to say God showed up somehow and healed Miller because then I’m left with Reuben not being so fortunate.

When we finally do put a baby in the manger, we will sing

Christ, the highest heaven adored
Christ the everlasting Lord
Light and life to all he brings
Risen with healing in his wings

The last phrase always gets me: with healing in his wings. Both the beauty and mystery stir my heart. I love those words and I’m not sure what they mean; I only know they touch me at a place of deep yearning and hope. Run a Google search for the phrase and you’ll find it means a lot of different things to different people. When I look at the person the baby grew to be, the healing wings he sprouted have as much or more to do with the grace and forgiveness he showed people like Zacchaeus or the adulterous woman as they do with those who were physically healed.

God is good and would still be if Miller had gotten bad news about the tumor or had been left paralyzed by the surgery. God is still good even though Reuben is disappearing before our eyes. It was after Horatio Spafford saw all of his daughters die in a shipwreck that he wrote

When peace like a river attendeth my way
and sorrow like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot thou has taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul

George Matheson was rejected by his fiancée when he told her he was going blind because she didn’t want to spend her life taking care of him. And he wrote

O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be

What these hymn writers know is healing is something more profound than the absence of disease or the release of pain. I’m not talking metaphorically here. My mother-in-law needs healing for her heart learning to live with the husband she is losing. My brother’s healing will go beyond the surgery to include learning how to live in a way other than his gazillion hour-a-week schedule that was killing him long before they found the tumor. Whatever our circumstances, we all need healing.

And together, we wait.

Peace,
Milton

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