more mornings than not I find myself
wishing there was no passive voice.
I lose patience with a world where
things are said, bills are passed,
mistakes are made, women are harassed,
damage is done, and lives are lost,
as though the mistakes make themselves,
the violence happens without perpetrators,
and the shootings without killers—
(apologies were made).
the grammar of grace calls us
to be the subject of our sentences
and know that someone is on the
receiving end, to speak in a voice
other than cowardice, to live a life
predicated on something other than
deflection and defensiveness.
what good is it to say you are loved?
trust can’t thrive in anonymity
let me be clear: I love you—
there’s nothing passive about it.
I am happy to admit that one of the traditions around our house this time of year is to watch a whole bunch of Hallmark Channel Christmas movies. This year, between my depression, the state of the world, and the fact that pitchers and catchers don’t report for another two months, they have been a solace more than a diversion. It helps to see a happy ending, even when you can see it coming from the opening scene. Though I know the movies are fair game for criticism on a number of levels, I am choosing not to qualify what I’ve said so far. I’ll say it again: I’ve watched a lot of these movies and I have enjoyed them.
But I brought up my Christmas viewing habits tonight for a particular reason. The arc of the endings has given me pause for thought. They all follow the same formula: two disconnected people find each other, become attracted to one another, then something happens just as you think everything is going to work out to derail the love train, until they realize the complication was not the barrier they thought and they live happily ever after. What I noticed is the final turn always happens with ten minutes left in the movie. You can set you watch by it, if you still have a watch you have to set.
The consistency of the ten-minute pattern has given me what I think may be a viable plan for world peace. If we would set our alarms for ten till the hour and, when the alarm goes off, proclaim to whomever is around us, “We have ten minutes to make things right with one another. Let’s get to work,” I think we could change things. Ten minutes of every hour to clear the air, reset expectations, hug it out—whatever it takes.
Maybe I have watched too many movies. And maybe ten minutes could really make a difference.
the bible says
we are made of dust . . .
our bones, perhaps,
but our spirits are
made of the savor
of sautéed garlic,
the hope of rising
dough, the laughter
of bacon frying,the
simmer of friendship—
every morsel of our
mortality a reminder
to remember that we
came from love
and to love
we shall return
On the cusp of the passing of an unfair and unjust tax bill, and a couple of days after the fifth anniversary of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary school, and on the morning that a suicide bomber killed twelve other people at a church in Pakistan, and in the light of what feels like an endless string of suffering, how do we find the flame to light the candle of joy?
Ginger did it this morning by talking about Mary. Every time I hear the story, I am struck by the grit of the young woman as she encounters the angel and stares down both his presence and his proclamation, even as she tries to comes to grips with being “a most favored one.” She listens hard, asks good questions, and then says, “Let it be just as you say.”
Despite the fact that the dictionary treats joy as a synonym for happiness, Mary’s response demonstrates something more profound and and more informed that feeling happy. Joy has resolve and tenacity. Joy is courageous in the way Ginger defined it in her sermon: “Courage is believing something else is more important than fear.” Yes. Most every time an angel shows up in scripture, they lead with, “Do not be afraid.” I used to think they were simply trying to help whomever they were talking to deal with the fact that there was an angel in the room, but perhaps it was a larger challenge: don’t be afraid; be joyful. Learn what is more important than fear.
Ginger summed up Gabriel’s message to Mary in three phrases: God is proud of you; God believes in you, and you have God’s blessing. Then she asked what it would be like if we could all hear that message and take it to heart—and she had us practice. We turned to each other and said, “I’m proud of you, I believe in you, and you have my blessing.” For someone who inherited a legacy of feeling unworthy of love and who has worked hard to hear other voices, her words hit home for me. I found joy in both hearing the words and saying them to those around me. Joy is grounded in our belonging to God and to one another. Joy takes root and grows when we stand together.
Pierce Pettis has a song I have carried in my heart for many years called “God Believes In You.” The bridge says,
oh, everything matters if anything matters at all everything matters no matter how big, no matter how small oh, God believes in you, yes, God believes in you
And God is proud of you. You have God’s blessing. Let it be just as I said.
let yes be our response
to most any of life’s questions . . .
not an answer as much as
a declaration: yes to the chance,
the hope, the opportunity,
the near-miss, the adventure,
the small gesture, the long shot,
the promise, the possibility,
the unexplainable, the failure,
and even the grief: yes
to love, to one another, to life
together with arms wide open.
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-second
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.
As I read news reports of the election results in Alabama and the dumpster fire that passes for the United States Senate, it struck me that people in power are not interested in peace. They thrive on agitation, on disruption. We have become accustomed to the word grenades that get tweeted in the middle of the night, and the legislative gymnastics of the congressional leadership (though I use that word cautiously)—both are designed to hold on to power, not to lead us to peace. They don’t know much about peace because they operate out of fear, and they foment it as well.
The brave people are the people of color who elected Doug Jones in Alabama, where the fear-gripped legislature passed restrictive voter ID laws and then closed driver’s license bureaus in predominantly African American counties. And the voters still turned out. The victory does not belong to the machinations of power, but to the peaceful determination of those who are mostly disregarded by the very system they used to bring change.
In Writing Beyond Race: Living Theory and Practice, bell hooks says, “Communities of care are sustained by rituals of regard.” (141) Over the years, I have come to see the difference between a ritual and a habit. A habit is something you do because you just got used to doing it that way. Some habits are helpful: I have a routine I follow every morning because I am not awake enough to think about anything. Some habits are not, and our repetition keeps us from seeing wider possibilities. Ritual, on the other hand, is meaningful repetition. We do what we do over and over again because it grounds us in the stories that matter most. When I hear rituals of regard, I see repeated gestures of kindness, regular gatherings together around dinner tables, and repeatedly looking for ways to tighten the bonds between us.
While the dumpster fire blazed, people drove others to the polls, people voted, people encouraged and took care of one another—showed regard for one another—and it made a difference. Our nation is in crisis. The people in power are fine with that. It means they will stay in power, and they will make money. Their is nothing in their repertoire that calls them to rituals of regard. “Blessed are the peace makers,” Jesus said. Blessed are those who spread peace repeatedly and on purpose.
the Christmas party tradition
for the confirmation classes
is to sit in a circle and take turns
choosing a gift, or taking one
someone else has already opened
and replacing it with another mystery.
the giant jar of M&Ms changed hands
four or five times, as did the fluffy
socks; someone even wanted my thermos.
I came home with a cup of kisses
and a heart full of laughter—
there was enough to go around.
the truth is I need what you have
and I am counting on you to share
I’ll do the same—let’s unwrap our hearts
like we’re kids on Christmas morning . . .
it’s just what I always wanted
just what I always wanted.
As the second week of Advent begins, the light moves from hope to peace. The practice of Advent grows out of church tradition rather than anything Jesus said or did, or anything in the Bible. I don’t know the story of how the weeks became identified—hope, peace, joy, and love—or how the order was chosen, though I can see a logic in the progression. The idea behind the season is to get ready, to prepare, as Meister Eckhardt said, Christ to be born in our time and in our culture. Right now, the days in which we live don’t have much to offer when it comes to peace.
Hope may seem like an uphill climb, but even uncertain times offer the possibility of a new thing. Joy is the deep-seated surprise of the Spirit and can show up anytime. Love, as Paul wrote, endures all things. Peace, it seems, is the most fragile of our Advent gifts. This year, it feels as broken as the coffee mug I ordered for Ginger that arrived poorly-packed and in pieces. Our teenagers have never known a day in their lives when we were not at war. We have come to expect mass shootings as a normal part of American life. Our elected officials make decisions based on how to stay in power and how to do damage to the opposition rather than working to promote the common good.
We cry, “Peace, peace,” but there is no peace—or so it seems.
As your children’s choir sang this morning and then lit the Peace Candle, I wondered where we would find it. My last year in seminary, I had visions of doctoral work, so I took a French class to meet one of the prerequisite requirements. I never finished the degree, but I do remember something from the class. We had to translate the Beatitudes, and the French translation of Matthew 5:9 read:
Heureux ceux qui répandent autour d’eux la paix,
which translated into English as,
Blessed are those who spread peace around them.
My heart breaks for Palestine and Israel, for Zimbabwe, for Turkey, to name just a few places where there is little peace and I feel like I have little or no way of helping the situation. The peace I can spread doesn’t reach that far. But I sat in church for ten minutes this morning listening to people voice prayer requests for friends and family who were hurting, and I know other stories of lives I can touch who don’t feel very peaceful these days. The candle the kids lit this morning is not a particularly bright light, in terms of brightening the room, but it is a start. That I am a candle and not a spotlight does not mean this little light of mine doesn’t matter. Blessed are those who spread peace around them. That’s the place to start.
Sam Baker is a singer-songwriter I had the pleasure of meeting several years ago. In 1986 he was riding a train in Peru when it was bombed and he suffered a brain injury. He had to relearn both how to play guitar and how to use words. The next record he released was in 2004. As we begin our week of peace, I will let his song, “Go In Peace,” be our benediction. It is a song that sustains me.
go in peace, go in kindness go in faith, go in love leave the day, the day behind us day is done, go in grace
let us go into the dark not afraid, not alone let us hope by some good pleasure safely to arrive at home
As this first week of Advent draws to a close and we prepare to move form hope to peace, I offer these words from The Shape of a Pocketby John Berger:
Hope, however, is an act of faith and has to be sustained by concrete actions. For example, the action of approach, of measuring distances and walking towards. This will lead to collaborations which deny discontinuity. (214)
I spent the day cooking with friends from church so we could serve dinner to more friends from church. Even though we had our first snowfall of the season, we filled up the tables and filled up ourselves with food and fellowship. We collaborated to deny discontinuity. I didn’t realize that is what we did until I read Berger’s words tonight. Half of those who helped us cook this afternoon did so knowing they were not going to be able to be at the dinner. I asked for help and they responded—a concrete action, as Berger says, of measuring distances and walking towards.
I would translate the phrase measuring distances to mean figuring out what it takes to get from me to you, and then figuring out how to get there. Lila, one of our miniature Schnauzers whom we rescued, has this adorable way of jumping to you from wherever she is. She doesn’t measure a thing. She just jumps—and, sometimes, she misses. The distance was greater than she imagined, but she is undaunted. She howls, flaps her ears, and jumps again with a better sense of just how far she has to go. Canine hope personified. She is always coming towards.
Tomorrow, as in many UCC churches, we will begin our service by saying, “Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.” Wherever we are, may we all be walking towards . . .
