Has the hysterical laughter about me writing a blog post about silence abated yet? No? I'll give you another minute.
Silence is all over this time of year, except when it's not. "Silent Night," "the silent stars go by," "Mary pondered all these things silently in her heart," "but marveling at his answer they became silent." We are urged, through scripture and counter-cultural Advent practices, to be silent and to listen. It is more difficult this time of year to be silent, we are told, so we should seek it out more. We can prepare for Christmas externally by decorating a tree and wrapping presents or we can prepare internally by being silent and contemplative, but not at the same time.
This kind of dualistic thought bothers me. When is life so easy? When is making the best choice black or white, on or off? Pretty much never, and especially not when we are already trying to hold the tension of God and humanity in one, the all-powerful as a baby, the creator of all owning nothing. Why are we urged into silence as the antidote to the world's noise right now?
Especially when the justice the prophets speak of is so lacking in our world. When men can be killed for being at the wrong place at the wrong time while being the wrong color. When a young man I know can speak easily, almost lightheartedly, of his cousin's encounters with IEDs in Iraq. When I got a request for assistance in my inbox, not to make a family's Christmas easier by buying presents, but to make their life better by providing transportation, because public transit simply won't work for them and allow them to keep a job. Why hold a contemplative silence when there is so much to scream, or rant, or babble incoherently about?
I was inspired to think about silence because of yesterday's gospel reading. (Don't look it up yet, just hang with me for a minute.) I was structuring this post in my head before I put fingers to keyboard. When I did start typing, I went off to find the verse that says "Mary pondered all these things silently in her heart." Turns out it doesn't exist. She pondered all these things in her heart, to be sure, but Luke never tells us she does so silently. Can you imagine the processing and debriefing one would need to do after giving birth to God?
So that leaves us "marveling at his answer they became silent." Oops--turns out that's not part of the Christmas story either. That's from yesterday's gospel, after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, shortly before the crucifixion. The people who became silent are spies sent by the chief priests to entrap Jesus. They become silent because Jesus pwns them.
And I started a blog for Advent.
I'm not keeping silent. I'm not arguing that there is no value in silence, but I think there may be too much weight put on silence during this season. It is given value in its opposition to worldly noise, not for its own merit.
That's not to say that what we can learn from silence is invaluable, of course. It's how we carry out what we learn that matters. I am trying to be more aware of what I say. When a facebook argument with someone I care about got heated, I withdrew, because I value the relationship. I'm thinking about what I post on social media before I do so. I'm checking myself before giving a flippant reply. I'm expressing myself to elected officials. I'm trying to talk less and listen more. (Trying.) I don't want to be silent. I want to keep lines of communication open, to have fruitful and meaningful conversations. I want to express love and caring and have it expressed back to me. At a time of year and a time of history when people are hurting because what they see is in direct contrast to Hallmark, why be silent? Why not reach out?
So keep your silent night. I'm going with, "hey! Unto you a child is born!"
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Monday, December 1, 2014
Look!
Yesterday's #AdventWord was "look." The picture I chose for the day is a moment I captured during family game night Saturday evening: my cousin looking at the game and my father looking at my cousin. It was a great evening and a beautiful moment.
And then I read the background for the prompt. "Advent is a time to look for 'desert places': the place of solitude, the place of true silence." The rowdiness of game night last night was the exact opposite of a desert place. Solitude and preparation were the farthest things from my mind.
Isn't that what we do during Advent? It's at least what I do during Advent. I'm so often looking ahead during this season. I look to spring, first of all. I look towards the next time the streets and sidewalks are clear, the next holiday event, the next time there are cookies on the work table of doom, celebrating Christmas with my extended family, checking that last gift off my shopping list. Children are taught to look for Santa coming, their behavior regulated by this future event. Silence? Anyone who enters the mall can tell you that doesn't exist after Thanksgiving. It's filled by that terrible Bono Christmas song.
In many ways, it seems as though the church encourages this existence out of time during Advent. Sunday's gospel is Mark's "mini apocalypse," Jesus coming in clouds with great power and glory, promising his elect to be gathered from the ends of earth to the ends of heaven. Jesus seems to be saying, "look to this great future event when everyone you know and love will be gathered together." It's a great thought, and similar to what we often think about when we think about Christmas. The sudden shift from the norm, the gathering together.
But, just like that holiday to-do list, this gospel demands preparation. "Beware, keep alert," Jesus says. It's so easy to be in the zone, anticipating the next thing that needs done or will happen during this season. Even Saturday night, when I was at my parents' house waiting for my cousins to arrive, I could not relax and wait. The problem was--I wasn't preparing. I was just hovering.
It's so easy, I find, to look like I'm preparing when instead I am just hovering, marking time, waiting. The church season, with its focus on counter-cultural introspection and Christmas with its business, both seem to demand a level of preparation I often have trouble turning in. This is in some ways a great season for people like me, who can look busy without actually connecting.
The downfall, though, is that when I'm in the moment, when family has actually arrived, when we're sitting down to dinner or games or presents, I find myself thinking about how stressed I was waiting for the event--and why? I wasn't even really doing anything.
And that's the difference, I find. Beware, keep alert. It's not for that future moment, when Jesus comes in glory, when the food is cooked and the family arrives. It's for who I am in the hovering, in the moments that I'm frantically flipping the car radio away from the eleven billionth rendition of "Santa, Baby." It's being fully present during game night knowing that the joy and family time there is just as holy as a desert place and the time I spent waiting for my cousins to arrive. It's knowing that silence can happen in the midst of a rowdy dinner--the silence of that worrying, planning voice. Here's to the hovering and the looking--not ahead, but around and in.
And then I read the background for the prompt. "Advent is a time to look for 'desert places': the place of solitude, the place of true silence." The rowdiness of game night last night was the exact opposite of a desert place. Solitude and preparation were the farthest things from my mind.
Isn't that what we do during Advent? It's at least what I do during Advent. I'm so often looking ahead during this season. I look to spring, first of all. I look towards the next time the streets and sidewalks are clear, the next holiday event, the next time there are cookies on the work table of doom, celebrating Christmas with my extended family, checking that last gift off my shopping list. Children are taught to look for Santa coming, their behavior regulated by this future event. Silence? Anyone who enters the mall can tell you that doesn't exist after Thanksgiving. It's filled by that terrible Bono Christmas song.
In many ways, it seems as though the church encourages this existence out of time during Advent. Sunday's gospel is Mark's "mini apocalypse," Jesus coming in clouds with great power and glory, promising his elect to be gathered from the ends of earth to the ends of heaven. Jesus seems to be saying, "look to this great future event when everyone you know and love will be gathered together." It's a great thought, and similar to what we often think about when we think about Christmas. The sudden shift from the norm, the gathering together.
But, just like that holiday to-do list, this gospel demands preparation. "Beware, keep alert," Jesus says. It's so easy to be in the zone, anticipating the next thing that needs done or will happen during this season. Even Saturday night, when I was at my parents' house waiting for my cousins to arrive, I could not relax and wait. The problem was--I wasn't preparing. I was just hovering.
It's so easy, I find, to look like I'm preparing when instead I am just hovering, marking time, waiting. The church season, with its focus on counter-cultural introspection and Christmas with its business, both seem to demand a level of preparation I often have trouble turning in. This is in some ways a great season for people like me, who can look busy without actually connecting.
The downfall, though, is that when I'm in the moment, when family has actually arrived, when we're sitting down to dinner or games or presents, I find myself thinking about how stressed I was waiting for the event--and why? I wasn't even really doing anything.
And that's the difference, I find. Beware, keep alert. It's not for that future moment, when Jesus comes in glory, when the food is cooked and the family arrives. It's for who I am in the hovering, in the moments that I'm frantically flipping the car radio away from the eleven billionth rendition of "Santa, Baby." It's being fully present during game night knowing that the joy and family time there is just as holy as a desert place and the time I spent waiting for my cousins to arrive. It's knowing that silence can happen in the midst of a rowdy dinner--the silence of that worrying, planning voice. Here's to the hovering and the looking--not ahead, but around and in.
Friday, November 28, 2014
The Obligatory Consumerism Post
As I say in the introduction to this blog, I have always attributed my dislike of Christmas (and consequently the time leading up to Christmas, known variously as Advent or retail hell) to the consumerist culture in which I find myself. I'm not the first person to say that, of course. Almost anything on the internet in December is either how people are being creative with the Elf on the Shelf or why Christmas and too many presents are the worst thing ever. But why?
In my experience, just about every time I have seen an excess of Christmas commercialism, it has come paired with unhealthy relationships. I have too often seen the material stand in for the relational. For a holiday that is based on relationship--Jesus coming into a human family to make all of humanity one family--that seems to me like a fundamental misunderstanding of why one is celebrating at all. The context of Christmas is lacking.
One event I experienced as a young child (young enough to still believe in Santa, in fact) crystallized that correlation for me. I was at a friend's house a few weeks prior to Christmas. I walked into the living room and saw the tree already half-deep in presents. I must have looked shocked, because my friend's mother said to me, "does it look like Santa has already been here?" It did, in fact, look like Santa had already been there. There were more packages under that tree than there ever were for my sister and I combined--and my friend was an only child. I was not envious of the pile of presents, though. I wondered how much fun Christmas could be for my friend, because clearly Christmas morning couldn't be the moment of magic and wonder it was for my sister and I. All the presents were already there. I knew even as a small child (although clearly not in those words) that my friend's parents were providing gifts out of their abundance while mine were providing gifts out of their scarcity--that my parents' gifts were sacrificial. Our Christmas would be joyful and hectic; theirs would be dutiful and decorator-perfect.I knew that my family was in many ways healthier than theirs and for me, that meant that a consumerist Christmas was an unhealthy Christmas.
Which leads me, of course, to Black Friday. I am starting this Advent blog today because today is the day the world really gears up into the swing of Christmas (or, for many people, at 6:00 pm on Thanksgiving day). (Also, the liturgical week starts on Thursday, so it's legit.) Curiously, as I am giving thanks that I am not working retail again this holiday season and waiting for my husband to come home from his Black Friday shift, much of the antipathy I've held against the day in previous years has abated. Although it's hectic and insane and the music is terrible, Black Friday isn't a terrible day to work. People are viewing it as an adventure, often looking at retail employees as safari guides. Black Friday (when it starts on Friday) doesn't even necessarily cut into time with family--most people I know who go shopping today go with family or friends.
The problem comes, it seems to me, when a shopper loses touch of the context of their shopping. When the purchases become just a check off a list rather than an emblem of the relationship one has with the recipient. When the gift is chosen because it's a door buster, or it is what the person wants but you don't even understand what it does, or it's a gift card that will just happen to give you double gas points. When a group of people are standing in line on Black Friday and a mother says to her daughter, "do you know who I am buying this sweater for? I have no idea." (True story.)
Or, even, when someone has such an affinity for counter-cultural Christmas practices that they do all their shopping at fair trade retailers even when they are finding gifts recipients might not even like--just because it adheres to what the purchaser believes. (Not that I've ever done that myself....)
Today's gospel in the daily office is the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Jesus tells his disciples, "go into the village and find the colt. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'what are you doing?' you shall say, 'the Lord has need of it.'" There is no context to that statement. In other gospels, there is the promise to return the colt and the fact that it fulfills prophecies about the Messiah. Luke was written to the gentiles who would have had little use for the Jewish messianic prophecy. There this statement sits, then, a bit of of material changing hands with no context or feeling behind it. How much is that like much of the shopping taking place today and over the next month?
I mentioned in the introduction to this blog that I lost a friend over a flippant facebook post. My friend didn't stick around long enough to read the context. Over this Advent, my challenge to myself (and you, if you want to come along), is to look at the context. Look at the context of the gifts I buy (or make). Look at the context of my friends' Christmases. Look at the context of the gospel in my Bible and in my world. Look at the virtual Advent calendar (http://www.anglicancommunion.org/adventword.cfm). Look at the context of Christmas, which starts now.
In my experience, just about every time I have seen an excess of Christmas commercialism, it has come paired with unhealthy relationships. I have too often seen the material stand in for the relational. For a holiday that is based on relationship--Jesus coming into a human family to make all of humanity one family--that seems to me like a fundamental misunderstanding of why one is celebrating at all. The context of Christmas is lacking.
One event I experienced as a young child (young enough to still believe in Santa, in fact) crystallized that correlation for me. I was at a friend's house a few weeks prior to Christmas. I walked into the living room and saw the tree already half-deep in presents. I must have looked shocked, because my friend's mother said to me, "does it look like Santa has already been here?" It did, in fact, look like Santa had already been there. There were more packages under that tree than there ever were for my sister and I combined--and my friend was an only child. I was not envious of the pile of presents, though. I wondered how much fun Christmas could be for my friend, because clearly Christmas morning couldn't be the moment of magic and wonder it was for my sister and I. All the presents were already there. I knew even as a small child (although clearly not in those words) that my friend's parents were providing gifts out of their abundance while mine were providing gifts out of their scarcity--that my parents' gifts were sacrificial. Our Christmas would be joyful and hectic; theirs would be dutiful and decorator-perfect.I knew that my family was in many ways healthier than theirs and for me, that meant that a consumerist Christmas was an unhealthy Christmas.
Which leads me, of course, to Black Friday. I am starting this Advent blog today because today is the day the world really gears up into the swing of Christmas (or, for many people, at 6:00 pm on Thanksgiving day). (Also, the liturgical week starts on Thursday, so it's legit.) Curiously, as I am giving thanks that I am not working retail again this holiday season and waiting for my husband to come home from his Black Friday shift, much of the antipathy I've held against the day in previous years has abated. Although it's hectic and insane and the music is terrible, Black Friday isn't a terrible day to work. People are viewing it as an adventure, often looking at retail employees as safari guides. Black Friday (when it starts on Friday) doesn't even necessarily cut into time with family--most people I know who go shopping today go with family or friends.
The problem comes, it seems to me, when a shopper loses touch of the context of their shopping. When the purchases become just a check off a list rather than an emblem of the relationship one has with the recipient. When the gift is chosen because it's a door buster, or it is what the person wants but you don't even understand what it does, or it's a gift card that will just happen to give you double gas points. When a group of people are standing in line on Black Friday and a mother says to her daughter, "do you know who I am buying this sweater for? I have no idea." (True story.)
Or, even, when someone has such an affinity for counter-cultural Christmas practices that they do all their shopping at fair trade retailers even when they are finding gifts recipients might not even like--just because it adheres to what the purchaser believes. (Not that I've ever done that myself....)
Today's gospel in the daily office is the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Jesus tells his disciples, "go into the village and find the colt. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'what are you doing?' you shall say, 'the Lord has need of it.'" There is no context to that statement. In other gospels, there is the promise to return the colt and the fact that it fulfills prophecies about the Messiah. Luke was written to the gentiles who would have had little use for the Jewish messianic prophecy. There this statement sits, then, a bit of of material changing hands with no context or feeling behind it. How much is that like much of the shopping taking place today and over the next month?
I mentioned in the introduction to this blog that I lost a friend over a flippant facebook post. My friend didn't stick around long enough to read the context. Over this Advent, my challenge to myself (and you, if you want to come along), is to look at the context. Look at the context of the gifts I buy (or make). Look at the context of my friends' Christmases. Look at the context of the gospel in my Bible and in my world. Look at the virtual Advent calendar (http://www.anglicancommunion.org/adventword.cfm). Look at the context of Christmas, which starts now.
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