Mary rose before sunrise;
the baby was still sleeping,
as were Joseph and most of
the animals, except for one cow
who looked a little sheepish.
The shepherds were long gone.
In their excitement, they had not
cleaned up well after themselves.
The magi were resting somewhere,
waiting to be guided by darkness.
But Mary did not yet know
of gold and myrrh and frankincense;
neither did she know much about
motherhood, messiahs, or
life beyond Bethlehem.
I am up early to finish
the last of the dishes and start
the coffee. The house is quiet
except for my animals
bellowing for breakfast.
I know little of parenting, or
babies, or what to do with
swaddling clothes; I do know
Christ is born again, for the
sixty-fifth time in my life.
In my mind’s eye I watch
Mary turn back to the manger
when she hears her little one cry
for the first time on his first
morning; she is smiling.
My dogs perks up their ears
as though they, too, hear
The crying and look up at me.
“Merry Christmas,” I say,
Wondering what gifts have yet to be opened.
I think it was about fifteen years ago, maybe more, that Ginger asked me to write a story for our Christmas Eve service at North Community Church in Marshfield, Massachusetts. That story, A Faraway Christmas, has shown up off and on since–several times on this blog.
This year, because of COVID and because I am the remote interim for a church in Durham, Connecticut, I decided to rewrite the story. Here is This Faraway Christmas, both video and text.
This Faraway Christmas
Since we’re scattered about on this Silent Night,
and we can’t be together to pass candlelight,
It’s hard to find Christmas–to get in the spirit
2020 had promise, but, oh, what a year it
has been: full of sadness, of violence and virus—
how can Christmas encourage, unite, and inspire us?
If we tell the old stories, will they sadden and stress us,
if we say what we miss, won’t that just depress us?
I don’t know–maybe so–but it seems worth a try
to do more than just sit by ourselves and, well, cry,
so I’ll tell you a story, even if it’s recorded
and hope that my effort will somehow be rewarded.
“Twas a Faraway Christmas in a Long Ago Town
of no great importance and no real renown,
filled with people who seemed fairly normal to me,
who worked and who played and seemed happy and free.
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, the dads told bad 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—
that great small town feeling, the Christmas Card weather—
for all of the hope one was likely to hear,
the hearts of so many were held captive by fear.
Others always felt tired, some were down or depressed,
;nd then some–put quite simply–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 perfect, 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, hardly ever spoke up
until one Christmas Eve, when an old man named Buck
came to turn on the lights on the tree in the square
and found no one, not anyone, I mean no one was there.
He stared up at the tree and the lights shining bright,
and alone on the square he talked back to the night,
“It’s Christmas,” he said, “when I should feel warm,
but I don’t think that this year 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’?” And right then he burst into tears,
and all of the sadness from all of his years
Came out of his eyes and ran down his cheeks,
And he thought he would sit there and just weep for weeks.
His wailing was heard by someone walking by,
“Hi,” my name is Jenn–and I don’t mean to pry . . .”
Buck looked up at the voice and the kindness he heard
Somehow she had helped with just two or three words.
“I’m Buck,” he replied, “and I’m tired and mad,
but I think most of all I just feel really sad.”
She wasn’t quite ready for the truth that he told,
but it helped her feel brave standing there in the cold.
“Thanksgiving was lonely, my birthday was, too.
I guess I could say that I feel just like you.”
So they poured out their hearts, like a sister and brother,
then someone else joined, and then came another,
with a story to tell and feelings to free,
and they all sat and cried ‘neath the big Christmas Tree.
Can you imagine how many tears fell,
after all of the years that no one would tell
how it hurt just to live, how they felt terrified
of saying out loud what they carried inside.
How long does it take to clean out your heart,
to get it all out, to make a new start?
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 Buck could see ‘cross the square;
he smiled up at Jenn ‘cause 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.
Jenn started a carol, the one she knew best,
about joy to the world, and it burst from her 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.
Perhaps it’s not fair to tell you this story
since we’re all kind of trapped in a strange purgatory;
the holiday’s here and we can’t be together
around a big tree in some Christmas card weather;
we can’t raise our voices and sing Silent Night,
or turn to each other to pass candlelight,
but 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 hope for the best, even stuck in our homes,
and we try to remember that we’re not alone.
The virus and violence will not define us,
and our grief and our sadness will not resign us;
we’ll find ways to say that we love one another,
though we must keep our distance and our faces are covered.
The walls that we’re in cannot keep us apart
if we speak truth in love and we open our hearts.
We are all full of feelings, these are difficult times,
but let’s see past the sorrow and look for the lines
that connect everyone, even if we can’t touch;
let’s look for new ways to say “I love you much.”
Our hopes for this year may have turned to dismay,
but that doesn’t mean Christmas is so faraway.
On the eve of the winter solstice and the cosmic illusion of the “Christmas Star” that Jupiter and Saturn will provide this week, I went back to a poem I wrote a couple of years ago that found new life this year, thanks to my friend, composer Taylor Scott Davis, who used an adaptation of the text in an amazing choral piece that was premiered two weeks ago by VOCES8. It also makes an appearance in my book The Color of Together.
Tonight, it is here once more.
solstice
come sit in the dark with me
and look at that moon that
is so at home in the night
let us reach deep into the
pockets of our souls for
scraps of hope and wonder
come gaze at the firefly
stars flinging their light
lay back on the blanket of
dead leaves and sleeping soil
oh, that we had a ladder to
make a consolation of ourselves
a constellation of ourselves
come sing our favorite song
softly into this silent night that
welcomes the first day of winter
the one about being together
come sit in the dark with me
I’ve missed a couple of days in my Advent journal. With Ginger’s help, I stepped away from everything to catch my breath and a sense of myself. I’m back tonight with my sermon for tomorrow.
Earlier in Advent I was a part of a Zoom workshop with poet Pádraig Ó Tuama entitled “A Poet Reads the Gospels.” He began by saying, when we read familiar gospel stories, we become used to what we think is there rather than reading the story. We need to arrest our desire for a single message, he said, because they are plural. Today we come to the story we read pretty much every year on the last Sunday of Advent. We know Gabriel is coming with news for Mary. Let us listen for more thaN what we are expecting.
Luke 1:26-38 (Phillips) Then, six months after Zacharias’ vision, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a Galilean town, Nazareth by name, to a young woman who was engaged to a man called Joseph. The girl’s name was Mary. The angel entered her room and said, “Greetings to you, Mary, O favoured one!—the Lord be with you!”
Mary was deeply perturbed at these words and wondered what such a greeting could possibly mean. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; God loves you dearly. You are going to be the mother of a son, and you will call him Jesus. He will be great and will be known as the Son of the most high. The Lord God will give him the throne of his forefather, David, and he will be king over the people of Jacob for ever. His reign shall never end.”
Then Mary spoke to the angel, “How can this be,” she said, “I am not married!”
But the angel made this reply to her—“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the most high will abide in you. Your child will therefore be called holy—the Son of God. Your cousin Elisabeth has also conceived a son, old as she is. Indeed, this is the sixth month for her, a woman who was called barren. For no promise of God can fail to be fulfilled.”
“I belong to the Lord, body and soul,” replied Mary, “let it happen as you say.” And at this the angel left her.
May God give us fresh understanding of this passage.
One of the things that is disarming to me about the way the gospels tell the story leading up to Jesus’ birth is the sort of matter-of-fact way that people talk to angels, as well as to one another. In the verses we just read, Luke offers very little in terms of tone or emotion other than to say that Mary was perturbed, that the angel said, “Don’t be afraid,” and then Mary finished the conversation with a statement of resolve: “Let it happen as you say”–bring it on!
The whole thing rolls out in a paragraph. There has to be more to it. I mean, look at this exchange. Mary is in her house and an angel walks in and says, “Hello, Mary—or should I just call you “God’s Favorite”? And his words left Mary feeling everything from confused to disturbed to sort of freaking out.
Our translation says she was “deeply perturbed.” Whatever words we use to describe it, she had some sense that it wasn’t all figs and honey when an angel calls you a “favored one.” When Gabriel saw how his greeting had been received, he said, “Don’t be afraid, Mary, God loves you dearly” and then went on to fill her in on the details of what was about to happen.
He didn’t say everything was going to work out. He did say God was in the middle of it all and more was going on that Mary could comprehend; she was going to have to trust God. So, “don’t be afraid” could apply
to an angel filling up the room
to being chosen by God (she knew the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Miriam (her namesake), Isaiah, to name a few)
to being pregnant and unmarried
to being a teenager and dealing with all of this
Mary listened, but then she did more than not being afraid. She stepped into courage: “I belong to the Lord body and soul, let it happen just as you say.” The path to courage is beyond fear; they are not opposites, they are choices.
Beyond this scene where she finds out she’s favored and pregnant, Mary had a lot of cause in her life for fear. Not long after Jesus’ birth, they had to flee into Egypt because Herod wanted to kill the child. When Jesus was twelve, they lost him for several days. And then she had to watch her grown son live a life that was a head-on collision with the Empire from the start, which she, like many, could see was not going to end well. Every chance she had, it seems, she chose courage and kept going.
She took heart–that’s what the word courage means at its roots–not because she was the Palestinian forerunner to Wonder Woman. She was, as we said, a young girl in a culture that saw little value in women. She was an unmarried pregnant woman in a society whose laws said unmarried pregnant women didn’t belong. Mostly, she was a young woman in a small town in the middle of nowhere, as far as the rest of the world was concerned.
We don’t read this story because Mary was famous. We read it because Mary was faithful, and her faithfulness calls us to the be the same, even though an angel may not fill the room: do not be afraid; God loves you dearly.”
God’s love encourages us–puts the heart in.
The season of Advent invites us to wait for something that has already happened. Jesus was born a long, long time ago. Yet the wisdom of the season is that it invites us to do more than re-tell the story; we are invited to give birth to Christ in the middle of our circumstances, which, I suppose, is another one of those things we can say each Advent and not hear what the words mean.
I have to smile at myself as I call us to give birth to Christ because I don’t know the first thing about giving birth, other than I have been told it’s painful. To imagine a life growing inside my body and then forcing its way out is frightening indeed. What I do know is that birth, literally and metaphorically, is a beginning. And it’s scary.
Look what Mary let loose when she gave birth to Jesus. What will happen if we allow ourselves to give birth to Christ in our time? In these days? That’s frightening to think about what that would actually mean, don’t you think? How will we give birth to Christ in the middle of this pandemic? How will be give birth to Christ in the midst of all of the division and rancor that marks our country these days? What will it demand of us to give birth to Christ—to incarnate the love of God—in our time? in our place? in our families?
Those are scary questions because they call us to step on faith—to trust, like Mary did, that God is with us and that we are God’s beloved. Listen, again, to her last words to Gabriel, which I can’t hear without the Beatles singing in the background:
I belong to God, body and soul. Let it be just as you said.
Like the song says, “And when the broken-hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer: let it be.”
Almost every week since March, I get to Wednesday or Thursday and I think, “Where did the week go?” mostly because I haven’t been able to remember what day it was unless I have a meeting or a deadline. The present tense feels endless.
I’ve spent a good deal of my life learning how to live in the moment; like the song from RENT goes, “No day but today.” To live in the moment means the way the old gnarly tree seems to smile, or the stage lighting of the sunrise as it paints the church steeple a sacred orange as Lila and I take our morning walk. It means taking note of the way the crack in the sidewalk bends like a lifeline across the palm of a human hand, or the small girl whose stripes change direction on every layer of clothing as she dons her rainbow unicorn helmet and confidently scoots away.
But part of the reasons moments matter, I am learning, is because they move from one to the next. They come and they go. They are exquisite because they are not eternal. Or, perhaps better put, they are eternal–transcendent–but they are not unending.
What traps us in these days of isolation is an unending present that something other than a moment. It is inertia. Ennui. It’s not only that Tuesday afternoon won’t end, it’s that there is nothing to make it Tuesday. Today might as well be March 256th instead of December 15. Time is standing still and disappearing at the same time. That is not the stuff memories are made of.
We need endings. We need closing scenes that move us from one moment to the next, from before to after. We need episodes, even seasons. We need for the credits to roll. We need to know that Tuesday matters. We need to make memories and that requires more than an endless present.
I should clarify: I’m not talking about death. We have had too many of those endings because of this virus, and COVID has kept us from being able to mark those endings well because we cannot gather as we normally would. But we’ve got to do more than survive. We need to exist–“to have actual being.” Part of that, at least for me, is figuring out how to go out and end something, which is part of what it takes to create a memory.
I guess that also means going out to start something that is worth bringing to a close.
As I know I have said many times, one of the ways to think about the word remember is that it means to re-member, as in putting ourselves back together again. A moment has significance, even movement. Momentum comes from the same root. When we relish the moment and then let it be over, we do more than pass the time. We connect. We create. We come to life.
To live in the moment means to go out and end something. Let it be over, but only after you have created a memory, even it it’s just following the crack in the sidewalk.
After a long day, I have been staring at the screen and writing down dead end streets to the point that I have circled back to an old poem of mine that showed up in a memory today. I need to sleep, so I am going to lean into to your grace and offer words I said a few years back on this same night–updated where they needed to be.
far afield
I wonder what the shepherds did
the year after the angels came,
or how the Magi went about their
business when they got back home.
Do you think the innkeeper woke
in the night sometimes and opened
the door, hoping for strangers, or
sat out in the barn for no reason?
How did they keep the story fresh?
Or did they go back hoping for a
return engagement of wonder— gloria in excelcis ditto—
Did they hang that one special night
like an ornament in their hearts,
but lost its shine over the years?
Could they still hear the melody?
Steps away from my sixty-fifth
Christmas, and the field of my heart
feels far away from the manger.
though I’m out hoping to hear angels . . .
but tonight I have found these words:
Love will not wait till I’m ready;
grace comes, but does not evict grief;
hope runs like a hound for my heart;
peace disquiets as it comforts.
So I gather my sorrows like sheep,
stack these words like wood for a fire,
and strike the match of all that matters . . .
only to find I am not alone.
Can you hear the angels singing?
Do you know the way from here?
If not, we will follow the stars.
Since I preached about joy this week, I thought I might as well put together a hymnal to go with it. When I started looking for joy songs, I found, much as I did in my sermon, that joy doesn’t travel alone. Joy grows out of grief and pain. So that’s where the songs started.
Amos Lee’s “Cup of Sorrow” is an anthem of solidarity that builds on the understanding that shared sorrow breeds compassion.
I’ll send a prayer out across the ocean To a man been forced out of his home I’ll send a prayer out across the ocean So that he may not suffer there alone
I want to drink from your cup of sorrow I want to bathe in your holy blood I want to sleep with the promise of tomorrow Although tomorrow may never come
David Wimbish is a friend from Durham, North Carolina who is a part of an amazing band called The Collection. “Left of Your Joy” asks the kind of hard questions we only ask around those we trust who know our pain and still see the spark in us.
God’s been closing windows and slamming doors The rain keeps leaking in, what the hell was that house for? Love came at so high a cost that you could not afford So now you’re throwing up your hands and feet are kicking up a storm
But there’s still light in your eyes It’s small but it still shines
There is nothing in the past that you belong to And even if the memories come and find you Well, it is not the task to try to rescue what’s left What’s left of your joy
Anjte Dukevot’s “Hold On” is a song between friends–a melodic commitment to stay and to encourage.
When your heart is bent to weigh down a train Hold on When your soul is shipwrecked and you’re miles away Hold on
When your fortress is an eggshell Full of haunted cracks you cannot weld There’s no mercy sleep under stolen sheets In a stillborn dream when your tank is empty When your path is dark and your compass gone When your map is torn, torn
And all your life you never thought you’d end here Hold on And all the glass is in pieces and the maids are in tears Hold on
Bob Bennett is another friend, except he lives in California and we never get to see each other. His song “Joy as Deep as Sorrow” years for happiness and understands that joy is something else. Something as deep as our grief.
I want sweetness and light To keep me up all night Happy hours passing without sleep As sharp as a knife I want love in this life To cut me fast cut me deep
I’d like to see good fortune Paint a target on my back I want laughter to stage A surprise attack One fine day Maybe two or three in a row Blessings lined up Waiting to become the status quo I don’t want to be unfaithful But I really want to know Is there a joy deep as sorrow?
The War and Treaty are a band I learned about because they were supposed to open for Jason Isbell at a concert that I didn’t get to hear because of the pandemic. Their music is gospel and blues and Americana all wrapped up together and then some other stuff I haven’t found words for. “It’s Not Over Yet” is another song of solidarity.
is this message to hard to receive did that last blow steal all of your relief can I massage your doubt into belief I’ll give you back your joy if you give me your grief
well I see your pain you wear it on your sleeve mistake the rain for the tears you cry when sleep and I know it’s dark and the clouds all look like a pile of smoke from your heart
but it’s not over yet you got more to live for it’s not over yet happiness at your door it’s not over yet here’s your unclouded day it’s not over yet for you and me
I love Kris Kristofferson’s “Feeling Mortal” for several reasons, but mostly because he thanks God for being an artist and for the work of art that God did in making him. It makes me smile every time.
pretty speeches still unspoken perfect circles in the sand rules and promises I’ve broken that I still don’t understand soon or later I’ll be leaving I’m a winner either way for the laughter and the loving that I’m living with today
God Almighty here I am am I where I ought to be I’ve begun to soon descend like the sun into the sea and I thank my lucky stars from here to eternity for the artist that you are and the man you made of me
In “May I Suggest” Susan Werner makes a bold claim: this is the best part of our lives, if we are willing to have the eyes–and the heart–for it. I love this song for so many reasons, not the least of which is all the rhymes–the great rhymes–she finds for suggest.
may I suggest may I suggest to you may I suggest this is the best part of your life may I suggest this time is blessed for you this time is blessed and shining almost blinding bright just turn your head and you’ll begin to see the thousand reasons that were just beyond your sight the reasons why why I suggest to you why I suggest this is the best part of your life
Our closing hymn, “Dance in the Graveyards” by Delta Rae, will send us out dancing into the grief and struggle, drawing strength from those who have gone before us even as we face days we have yet to understand.
When I die, I don’t want to rest in peace
I want to dance in joy,
I want to dance in the graveyards, the graveyards
And while I’m alive,
I don’t want to be alone mourning the ones who came before
I want to dance with them some more,
Let’s dance in the graveyards
I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart . . .
