Barefoot and Proclaiming: A 2014 Resolution

Shortbread crumbs huddle in small clusters like chilled people around a fire, pictures are posted, comments are made, the laughter quiets, the garbage cans burst with the refuse of a holiday well had.  Christmas slowly dissolves into clean-up, diet plans, thank you notes and work schedules resumed.  The holiday fades and flits her way into photo albums and fond memories.

And Christ?
The birthday boy?
The reason weary, wisemen wandered?
The reason we all gathered?
The reason we all laughed?
The reason we all baked and ate and wrapped and gave?
He remains.
Ever present.

While the groan of the engine of our homes resume—washing machines grunt and gurgle, dishwashers slosh and whine—His presence is still this miraculous thing that doesn’t end with a baby, some hay, some sheep, a maiden clothed in blue, and a bearded man gazing lovingly into the face of God in human flesh.  His presence fills the flush of our lives.

It does.

And I am blind.
Dear God, I am so blind.

Blind to miracles that extend beyond December. 

Blind to miracles that dance in front of me.
Every.Single.Moment.
Blind.

And I beg God for sight—sight to see the sway of Sassafras limbs in winter wind.  He made them. 

Sight to catch the cardinal’s crimson red wings splash like paint across a whale-grey sky.  When He dyed the cardinal’s wings did He think of the blood His Son would spill on another grey day?

Sight to goodness-gracious-catch-any-tiny-miracle  in the hectic craze that will consume me when I flip the calendar's page and 2013 becomes a history recorded in Christmas letters while 2014 becomes the urgent tyrant that demands my presence, my cooking, my cleaning, my helping, my studying, my mind, my hands, my energy, my life. 

Because I read Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts and I want to slow and record and catch and praise and revel in the miracles of a God that drips and oozes sacred and holy and good . . .

But I can’t find my camera,

My phone battery’s dead,
And the gratitude journal my family started is buried under fifteen unread copies of Time magazine.
And Ann’s amazing, but I am ordinary.
Ordinary and extraordinarily busy.
Still, His words wiggle and worm their way into my spirit.

Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you,
who walk in the light of your presence, Lord. (Psalm 89:15, NIV)
 
And can I learn it?
Learn to acclaim Him? 

Even amidst the chaos?  Just learn that one thing this year?

Just one thing?  (Because at resolutions for New Year's, I tend to fail, but maybe this year?)

Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound!
They walk, O Lord, in the light of Your countenance. (Psalm 89:15, NKJV)

I do know it, don’t I—the joyful sound of a people who have lived to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living?

And haven’t I seen it?
His goodness?
When He provided not only what we needed, but a few of our wants too?
When He gave us the theme for a camp we were overwhelmed to consider leading?
When He healed the infection that threatened to claim my life after a botched surgery?
When He healed the marriage that was statistically doomed?
But then, what are statistics to a good, great, giant of a God?

I’ve uttered acclamation to a God who deserves constant praise, but learning to do it all the time?  Isn’t this what sweet Ann was attempting to do with those lists of gifts?

How blessed are the people who worship you! 
O Lord, they experience Your favor. (Psalm 89:15, NET)

The lists are worship.

They are acclamation.
They are shouts of joy.
They are a writer’s way or waving a flag each moment they catch a glimpse of His continual presence in a world that insists on distracting us from every holy moment.

And isn’t it ironic that the people who have learned to acclaim Him are the blessed ones?

This is the thing I keep missing, but it holds the secret of joy in its grip. 

 

The blessed ones aren’t the perfect ones.  They aren’t the talented ones.  They aren’t the ones who have it all together.  They aren’t the ones who write the books or go to college or marry the perfect person or win the lottery. 

 

They are the ones who have learned to acclaim Him, have learned to sing the joyful sound of a soul that stops, a soul that seeks to see, to see the sacred in ordinary life.

 
And they are these souls—the seekers of the Sacred—that experience HIS favor. 
His favor isn’t just bestowed on a few fortunate ones.

Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests. (Luke 2:14) 

And I’ve been duped and fooled into believing the lie that his favor is measured in material things, in people, in ease of life, in comfort, in tangible things I can take into the palm of my hand and count when all along His favor has been as near as my skin.  Nearer, even. 

His favor IS His presence.

His favor IS His countenance.

 
And somehow, isn’t this a game changer?

Isn’t this the thing that whispers hope into desperate heartache?

Isn’t this the thing that promises possibility amidst poverty?

Isn’t this the thing that changes the trajectory of tragedy?

Because sometimes someone is brave enough to be honest with you, and when they are, they’ll admit they’re disappointed with life.  Disappointed with God.  Feel like he doesn’t have their back.

When I think about stories like Elizabeth Smart’s—nine months of torture and rape and devestation indescribable—I can’t even fathom how she could have felt God’s favor was measureable.  Measureable by what?  Starvation and dehydration?  Measureable by the number of days out of nine months that she wasn’t raped?  Are you kidding me?

And yet she tells this story of a night when thirst had parched her throat for days, her body was ravaged by malnutrition, and she fell to sleep a broken, desperate soul.  Yet in the night, she awoke—her captors remained asleep beside her—to find a yellow cup of cold water.  There was no water in their camp.  They’d been out for some time.  There was no human being who would have brought her water.  No one knew of their camp.  No one unzipped the tent that was her prison cell by night to help her.  And yet this cup.

This golden cup of cold water.

She says she drank deeply.  The water, far more than hydrogen and oxygen molecules, gave her hope not because it alleviated her thirst, but because it proved to her the very near presence of her Savior.  And in her book, she will tell you, she acclaimed the Lord.  She knew Her God was present amidst her suffering.

Favor is not measured in the removal of tragedy, it is measured in the presence of God. 

And the people who are blessed?

The people who experience His favor?

They are the ones who worship Him.  Who SEE Him.  Who acclaim Him.  Who say—I see the pain, but I see the God who remains beyond December too. They are the ones who see the God who stays beside the thirsty child in Africa and the sex trafficked woman in Atlanta.  They are the ones who see the God who will go with the foster child removed from a safe place and sent back into a home where his prospects are poor.

Because somehow, though I don’t understand it and can’t explain it, in this life there is horrible suffering, and God is not to blame for that.  He does allow it, though.  And no theological, churchy, Christianese answer will ever satisfy the heart who hurts and hungers.  Because blessed people still weep.  But this I know.  Immanuel? 

That name?

It means God with us.

His presence remains beside us all.

And that IS the miracle of Christmas.

That is the thing to which we must hold until we can understand fully.

That is the only thing worth holding.

That is the thing which I must spend 2014 learning to acclaim—His presence.  Everywhere.

Every.Single.Place in my life and in yours.

In one fell swoop thousands of years ago He saved us from sin, but that isn’t the end.  Every day His presence saves us from a fallen world and ushers us into a holy moment.  A thousand holy moments.  Infinite holy moments.  Because when He died the curtain that separated us from His presence was torn, and we live in the Holy of Holies—In HIS presence every sacred second.  When Moses stood on Holy ground in front of a burning bush, he instinctively removed his shoes. 

 

And shouldn’t we, the ones on whom His favor rests, be a barefoot people?

Our lives are lived out on Holy ground because

He.Is.Here.

Hallelujah.

This song says it too . . . maybe better than I can write it.

 

It's a Boy!

 

I was looking for Christmas cards the other day and came across one that was all blue. (I'm not a fan of blue cards.) But this one . . . it caught my eye. Stenciled across its face were three short words.  Just three.

 "It's a BOY!"

 Because apparently sometimes we need reminding that Christmas is about Christ's birth. And sometimes over Christmas, we Christians can be the biggest non-celebrators (those who don't celebrate) of the real holiday that there are. Of course we go out and buy presents, we deck the halls, we stuff a turkey, we even buy an Angel Tree gift for the needy children in our church, but where's the birthday cake?

In our house, on someone's birthday, we pull out all the stops.  I mean, really.  We go crazy.  We do, say, and cook ALL the birthday person's favorite things. You want to eat a pound of bacon for your birthday?  Sounds great.  You want to have a medieval knight birthday party complete with handmade wooden shields?  Got it.  I live for those days.  I’m GREAT at those days.  Tell me what gets your heart pumping, and I will do my darndest to make it happen on your birthday.

But I have to ask.

Where are all of Jesus' favorite things?

I wonder if he would have preferred to hear our beautiful choir singing the Hallelujah Chorus in the Wal-Mart Parking lot while we handed out cups of hot cocoa and gift cards instead of inside our tired sanctuary with raspberry jam colored carpet where everyone is sparkling like disco balls and the lost tend not to come.

 I wonder if he would have preferred less fancy Christmas clothing and more donated coats to homeless people.

I wonder if he would rather have a simple meal shared with many hungry people as opposed to pate and caviar on artisan bread toasted golden.

I wonder if I can help my boys to celebrate Jesus' birthday this year . . . by doing all the things HE loves.

In fact, if you want to know the truth, I think my boys might need to help ME to celebrate Jesus’ birthday.  Maybe I am the obstacle that stands between commercial Christmas and Jesus’ Birthday.

 

Just the other day, I went to the boys and asked the annual question. 

To the youngest, I asked, “Corty, what would you like for Christmas this year?”

Without hesitation, he replied, “Seventy-five dollars.”

I know a smile snagged my lips and swung them upward.  “What would you like seventy-five dollars for?”

“A goat.”  Now, if you know my youngest, you know that he would like NOTHING better than to have another animal.  A goat.  A pig.  A chicken.  Any animal is pure delight to him.  So, I’m thinking in my head, “No way.”  But I say, “Where would we put a goat, Corty?”

“Not for me, mom,” he responds instantly.  “I want a goat for the children in Africa.  I saw how much they are in a magazine I was reading.”

And you know those moments when some invisible being sticks a vacuum cleaner down your throat and sucks all your breath out and you are left without speech?  Yeah.  That happened.  Because that wasn’t solicited or prompted.  That.  That?  That was Jesus’ heart pouring out of my sweet boy with unruly hair and freckles sprouting on his milky cheeks.

Later, I asked my eldest the same question.

He replied, “A goat.”

My knees are weak because if you know my eldest, you know he’s got ZERO interest in owning a goat. 

“Did you hear your brother and I talking?” I’m naturally a suspicious person.

“No, mom.  I just don’t need anything this year.  I’d rather help other people.  Please don’t make me come up with a list.”

And I’m looking into amber eyes that sparkle because tears threaten to break free, and I know he’s dead serious.  And I know it was my boys’ lips that were moving, but it was Jesus who was bringing me Christmas tidings of TRUE JOY through them.

Somewhere along the way these two boys with shoulders getting broad and upper lips getting fuzzy have figured out that Christmas is more than an opportunity to get.

Somewhere along the way they have understood that their heart is an inn and they’ve made room for the heart of Jesus to be birthed in them.

And most of us Christian adults are still sending him out back to the stable.  After all, we’ve got Christmas dinner to cook, presents to wrap and cards to send out.  So, if he can wait ‘til after the new year, then we’ll have room and time.  Right?

And isn’t that a little ironic?  I mean how can we sing Joy to the World  and push the very God who brings joy aside until a later time?  If we wish people joy and peace, shouldn’t we invite the very guest who created those blessed states of being?
For unto us a Child is born,
(Is. 9:6)
The child was born unto us.  Right?

So His birthday is our responsibility, right?

So, tonight, I find myself sitting here asking Him this question:

“Jesus, what would you like for your birthday?”

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you.  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25:35-40

It’s as though I hear Him saying,

for my birthday, I want

 

To feed the hungry.

To give the thirsty a drink.

To give the naked clothing.

To care for sick people.

To visit prisoners.

So, I start making my list.  I can do this, God.  I’ll give you a birthday bash even the angels will envy.  I’m on it!

And YOU. 

Huh? 

YOU too.  I want you.

I hear the phrases from scripture, “Be still and know that I am God . . . Mary has chosen the more excellent thing . . .Seek ye first the Kingdom of God . . .”

Me?

Everyone and their brother gets of piece of me on a regular basis.  And it hits me, what if WE are the birthday cake?  In our home the birthday boy gets the first and biggest slice of cake, but Jesus is lucky if he gets the crumbs of me.  I’ve got two boys, a husband, a huge family, a massive church family, a job, and well . . . me?

It stops me, you know?

Because life is a hungry beast and the urgent things get my time, my attention, my focus, my commitment.

Could I commit to one month of stillness before God?  Could I give Him that gift?  The gift of me?  Instead of 12 Days of Christmas, could I give Jesus 25 Days of Stillness?

Stillness despite the calendar/day planner that resembles some kind of gumbo made with a year’s leftovers?  Stillness despite basketball season?  Stillness despite all the other Christmas traditions?

But how can I truly know the heart of God if I fail to sit with Him a while?  Who am I kidding?

So today begins the

25 Days of Stillness

And an invitation to my children and husband and perhaps you too? to embark on a new Christmas tradition.  Spend 25 days in stillness and take the final 12 to offer Jesus additional gifts.  Gifts He’s shared with us while we were still.  I don’t know yet what they will be, but I have a feeling they will not look like the Black Friday Multi-Tool Home Depot had on sale or the Rubbermaid Tupperware set from Wal-Mart for $7.  I’m guessing they’ll reflect His heart.

25 Days of Stillness

12 Gifts for Jesus

Come celebrate the birthday of the year with us, will you?
After all, It's a Boy!
Shouldn't that be the message we shout from the tops of our Christmas Trees this year?

So I'm not serving Blackberry, Cranberry Compote This Year

Daddy, decked in camo and safety goggles, was dodging airsoft bullets shot by yardstick-high sons giddy with the gift of their father's presence.  And I was at my usual post, fingers flying in the kitchen, unhappy and longing to lay in hawk-like perch on the second level of the kids' fort with Cort's sniper in  hand.  So much yet to be done, and I was missing all the fun.

This is what I hate about the Christmas season.  Every year I try.  Really.   REALLY try to simplify.  To plan well.  To do in advance.  To remember it isn't about presents but about presence--that of our family and that of JESUS.  Try to keep Christ central.  But then comes the crescendo of last minute items unchecked from the lists of labors loudly lamenting my inefficiency.  That crescendo that crowds out the spirit singing Silent Night, Holy Night.  That crescendo that blows to smitherines all my careful, meticulous planning.

And tension mounts.
Grows like snow falling in Ontario winters.

Soft and slow at first, a blanket that wraps me, but it becomes heavier, weightier.  And it isn't long before I am suffocating, snowed in by it all, my shovel is still in Ontario, and I'm in Georgia and I can't get out. 

Blinded by the blizzard.
Blinded to the light.

That's where I was when Jeff was playing airsoft, and I was transferring my blackberry, cranberry compote from stove to fridge.  Blinded and singing myself a pity song.  That's where I was when the Pyrex pranced out of my hands and like Santa and his reindeer, pirouetted across the kitchen plopping herself onto planked-floor slinging her fruity purple slop on every surface within a twelve mile radius.  And I saw stars.  (Not the one on my tree or the one from Bethlehem.)  A bull chasing red, air coursed my from nostrils, and I'm sure my ears were chimneys and smoke billowed from them. 

Thirty minutes I spent cleaning that mess.  Wiping doors, table legs-chair legs-stool legs, pantry cupboards, under the refrigerator.  How is it possible for compote to centripetally sail in every direction when I had only been traveling in one?  I know it multiplied as it flew.  Thirty minutes I didn't have.  Not in my schedule.
Third batch of short breads waiting to be whipped, and two chickens chanting to be roasted. Counters littered with baking debris and my heart hurting.

"Lord, I know this is a season of joy, but I hate this.  I can't see you in this.  And how ridiculous is it that I, one so blessed, am seething when I should be singing?"

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God.  The Word was with God in the beginning.  All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of mankind.  And the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it." (John :1-5)

The darkness has not mastered it.

The darkness of life--of the moments when gooey, glorified fruit relish slink down our walls--can overwhelm.  Can blind.  Can snow a soul in. 

And I am ashamed when that is my darkness.  Want to deny it.  Pretend it isn't dark.  Pretend the picket fence isn't stained, and the world is perfect because how dare I consider my world dark when there is a deeper shade of black than I have ever known? Children hunger. Children thirst, cry for a mother who is gone, a father who never cared in the first place. Men and women in parks huddle hoping to stay warm on their bench-beds.  How can I, fortunate daughter of North America, claim darkness?

Darkness dawns many shades and she is all humanity's beast of the soul.

Christian.  Not Christian.  Child.  Adult.  Homebound or homeless.  Prince or Pauper.  We all know her shadow.  She has dressed as serpent tricking Eve to taste, she has heaved her heavy blanket on hunched shoulders and stayed until the doctors give pills, she has clinched fists and coerced them into slinging, she has blinded the rich man to the homeless man, and she has tempted the weary mother to wallow in the mire of miscellaneous mountains that demand her attention.  I know because I am that mother, and I have seen darkness dance.  I've taken her dangling arm and waltzed a round or two.

But the darkness has not mastered the light.

That word mastered means to overcome it, to overtake it.  The darkness has never overtaken the light.  Never.  No matter the shade, she cannot conquer The Light of the World. I recall the words of Peter, the young boy in Elizabeth Yates' classic, Once in the Year when he asks Benj to further explain what happened when the angels appeared to the shepherds, "What had happened, Benj?  What made the night turn to light?"
What indeed makes the night turn to light?

I sat on the floor, eyes giving way to waterfalls of emotion--a mother tired of mothering, and I whispered, "Immanuel--LIGHT with me."

"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us." (Matthew 1:23)

These dark moments.  They're why He came.  To redeem them.  To cast light when we can't see beyond ourselves.

These moments when celebrating Christmas is a serrated knife to our gut because we're saying goodbye to the family member we loved, when children still thirst in countries an airplane ride away, when teenage children are parents too early, and even the moments when we can't find a justifiable reason.  These are the moments Immanuel--God with us--came for.  They are the moments that make us eligble for His grace.

The moments when we say,
 "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me..."
But the darkness will not master light.
"...even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you."
(Psalm 139:11,12)

And that night was a mess, but it was indeed a holy night in my kitchen. 
Oh, holy night,  the stars were brightly shining.  It is the night of our dear Savior's birth.
It was holy not because I felt like the serene images of Mary--hair long, clothed in pallid blue, halo over head--but because Immanuel is brighter than the darkness that overwhelms. 

And the wise men followed a star that moved as they moved, guiding them to Ultimate Light.
And I too can follow The Light of Men, follow Him from darkness into light.

I cleaned in silence, wiping away the mess of my own making--my haste, my rushing.  It isn't the repercussions, the ramifications, the ripple effects that are altered by the light.  It is in the heart that walks through the ramifications--the valleys of the shadows of death, the cleaning of compote, the closing of caskets, the calling out to God for wayward children--that Light makes a difference.  Immanuel, God with us, God in us who follow Him, is the meaning of hope, the meaning of Joy To The World.

There is not just light at the end of the tunnel, there is light through the tunnel, within us as we pass her cavernous way.

And Christmas is about that light.
It is the slowing time.

The time when we light up a thousand trees and top them with glowing stars.  Just the other day I laughed in wonder at God's own light display dripping in my front yard. Not long after dawn He had ladled the dew so heavy on lanky limbs of maple trees that tiny one centimeter balls of liquid luminated the morning while blue birds made their nests nearby.  God's own Christmas tree.

And those bulbs would reflect the sun.

Too, I am a reflection of His Light.  The reflection of Son light in my home, my neighborhood, my little world.  Sometimes a poor one, it is true.

When the floors and walls were cleaned, I stood, still steaming slightly. Emotions don't always dissolve, but they are like the shadow of a monstrous cat that nested in the folds of insulation between the ceiling joists of my unfinished childhood ceiling, that dawn slowly erased.

And when, moments later, mom came I took shelter in the human arms that God sent, the mother's arms who never stops mothering.  Because we are human, after all.  We need the touching, the telling that all is well.
But my spirit already knew.  Immanuel was there.

And this is the hope of Christmas, that darkness will never master light.

There will be no cranberry, blackberry froo froo on my Christmas table this year, but lighted candles there will be.
To remind me.
He is here.
Here.
With Us.
Through it all.
Amen.

Pray with me:
Immanuel, God come down into my messy kitchen, stepping with me across sticky floors.  Immanuel.  Teach me to see the holiness in every moment.  Teach me to see the burning of your Light when darkness shrouds my soul.  Let me be a display of Your Light to those with greater darkness than my own.  Help me to fix my gaze on You that my eyes will be good and my soul will be so full that a shivering world is wormed by your reflection in me.  Amen

Just Jesus

"Auntie Sarah, baby Jesus is missing from our manger scene."  It was my niece, face the shade of almond skin--the one that never misses anything, but she was missing this.
"Oh, yeah?  Really?  Where'd he go?"  It is true, I wasn't fully listening; a list of to-do's plugged my ears and numbed my heart, and I was deaf.  And aren't so many Christians deaf to this truth--that it is sometimes US, those that are supposed to have Him, that are in fact missing Him?
"That's just it; we don't know.  He's missing."
"Who?"  Mmmhmm.  That was me, asking who when she'd already told me.  "Jesus?" And isn't it true that so many of US, that are supposed to know who, forget WHO this season is about?
"Yes, Auntie!  He's missing from our manger scene."
And like waking from one of those falling dreams, I felt I'd hit the floor; truth had her foot to my throat.  Because we lose Jesus at Christmas, don't we?  We never mean to do it.  But somehow, though He is the centerpiece, He becomes small. 
Her ceramic Jesus was missing from the nativity.  Jesus missing at Christmas.  Of all the pieces of painted porcelain, how could one lose the focal point?  Why not a shellacked sheep or shepherd? But Jesus?

Every year, four scraggly sisters and I took turns tipping our toes and stretching arms to reach the mantel top where we placed a member of the milk-white nativity on a stable floor of black velvet scrap.  And Jesus was shorter than my pinky finger.  But mom never lost Jesus.  He was always present, when she pried back cardboard boxes and unwrapped tissue paper padding, waiting to be placed up high for all to take in.

He's there this year too, in a blanket of ceramic straw atop the same midnight velvet on the same mantel.  But that's not the Jesus she never lost.  Hers is the living Jesus, the one who reigns in her heart--the one from whose offered cup of living water, she's awoken every morning of my life to drink. And in my haste to accomplish and make progress, I've thought more than once that perhaps for just one day she could suspend her routine.  But when my honey-hay haired niece told me she was missing Jesus, I swallowed hard the glob of doughy truth.  I miss Him too--miss Him at every turn.  He's not just in the stable, or on the mantle, he's in that sweet girl's chocolate cheeks, in my boys' laughter squeaking like clarinet in beginner's mouth, He's in the strong back of my husband when he carries a patient from home to ambulance.  He is present when husband and fellow fire-fighter drive home, and the car a few feet in front is stopped dead, and His hands cushion as they miss by inches, and though husband's hands shake, His remain steady.  Jesus in a manger; Jesus on the highway. 
Emmanuel. 
God with us. 
He's everywhere, and I miss Him.
And Herod too missed Him, hunted Him, wanted to destroy Him, had babies murdered in an attempt to eliminate him, but how can one destroy what they cannot see?  And Herod couldn't see. Herod hungered for the worship of mankind, and I hunger for autonomy in my life, but I can't have it both ways.  I must choose--no one can serve two masters.  And come now, how many of us want it both ways--especially at Christmas?And if I want Jesus, I must choose to lay aside my agenda long enough to notice Him, to drink from His living water.
John said, "Prepare the way for the Lord," (Matthew 3:3b) and I wonder if I have prepared the way for Him this Christmas season. 
The Jesse Tree
The Christmas Tree
The Birthday Cake
The Cantata
The Nursing Home Visits
The Elijah's Closet Toy Ministry
Surely I've made the season about Him, haven't I? 
But He isn't in a list, He IS the list.  John said prepare the way for Him because it is HE who IS THE WAY for life.  And when the Hebrews used that word, way, they meant a well-worn path, a dependable route.  It is He is that well-worn, that dependable route.  He is the firm footing for my fluttering size eights.  He is the box that holds all the great gifts, and yet, like the drum set your thirteen year old boy wants for Christmas, He is unwrappable, uncontainable.
My weary eyes have read a thousand tales telling me I need new things this season.  A Kinect 360, a Droid phone, more apps, a red toaster because black and stainless are not nearly as pretty anymore, Christmas sweaters knit and pearled by some machine that can't give life.  The flyers faint with the weight of all the stuff.  And how can my life be so full and yet, without Him, it is empty?  Because in Him is fullness of joy. 
"You lead me in the path of life; I experience absolute joy in your presence; you always give me sheer delight." (Psalm 16:11)
I can't help but think how many Christmas sermons I've heard, how many devotions I've read, and my mind is saturated with their refrain, but I desire to be squeezed free of the myriad of mantras, like confetti crowding my mind, so that I can see clearly.  See just Him.  Just Jesus. 
Is He really worth all this fuss?  Does He really make a difference?  Tell me, fellow followers, is it true?  Is there really absolute joy--absolute--in His presence?  Sheer delight?  Really?  Because if that's true, than it is no wonder my mother, body aching in exhaustion with the raising of five girls by herself, climbed the morning with the sun to greet her Jesus day after day, year after year. 
Errands took longer than I hoped this week, and I treated the boys and myself to a quick bite at a fast food spot. Who am I kidding?  I dallied with the doing of errands until stomachs demanded supper--I'd had a hankering for a Buffalo Bleu Chicken Salad for weeks.  But when I got home, I couldn't even get the groceries inside before I ran for glass and water.  Thirsty. Junk always leaves you thirsty.  And so do the other paths in life--they leave us soul thirsty, a condition beyond parched. 
Drained.
Dehydrated.
Desperate. 
And I have drank from rancid wells in my life, but this absolute joy is not that kind of cistern.  The Hebrew word literally means satiety--the condition of being satiated.  To be satisfied.
Just to be satisfied.  That in itself would be such a gift this season.  And my thoughts agree, "Yes, to be satisfied in my marriage, in my home, with my physical appearance, with my children's progress in school, with our lot in life, with...."
No.
No?
No, I am the way.
In My presence is absolute/fullness of joy.
I give sheer delight.
Already I missed Him.  Started hunting for wise men and shepherds. Satisfied with this, content with that. There is no satisfaction apart from the baby in the manger, the person of Jesus.  He is the way to satisfaction. Satisfied with Jesus can be a permanent condition when all other things will drive me to further thirst.  Everything else is a Dead Sea, and like a flopping fish my life will float to the surface because joy doesn't survive in salted waters.
When Mary, mother-to-be arched her back in labor pains, the inns were filled with travelers on their way to be counted.  And Jesus would not be born among the counted because you cannot count Him.  You cannot contain Him.  You cannot contain the kind of satisfaction, of joy He grants.  It is infinite.  It is satiety. 
And I see that it is not He who is missing, it is we who are missing Him.
And it is not just this season that He desires to be seen.  It is not just this one month, when carols call His name and candles are lit, when mistletoe is hung and hearts are tender, that He pours out living water while we swallow eggnog instead. 
He came that we would have life abundantly, more than just life in December.  His Kingdom is in our hearts and Peace can reign all our days, if we drink from His cup.  Jesus on the mantel, all year.  Never lost because He is never removed from His rightful Home. And all the world's a stable and wherever I go, the manger is before me. Jesus while I fold five thousand loads of laundry, Jesus while I rejoice over a miracle for my Aunt, Jesus while I weep over the separation of body and soul of a boy so young, Jesus while foreclosure court dates loom, Jesus when children leave for college and choose spouses.  Jesus.

Jesus, remaining on my mantel this year because "Better is one day in your courts, than thousands elsewhere."(Psalm 84:10).
Days ago I woke slow and on my way to coffee, my morning accelerator, I stopped to look out the backdoor.  An indigo bunting perched on the naked arms of some spent shrub in my garden.  She was like a wild blueberry that somehow survived harvest just for this moment.  This moment when I stop and see Him.  Jesus dropping in for coffee and living water.  Jesus saying, "I am the way, I am here.  I am joy.  Do you see me wearing clothing you can understand?  Do you see me perching my creativity for your pleasure?" 
And I do.
See Him.
I do.
Pray with me:
Jesus, teach me to slow down more, to lull and pause, to wait and wonder, to anticipate your appearance.  Teach me to seek You in the nativities of my life.  Teach me to discern when I am drinking from salted wells instead of your living water.  Thank you for clothing yourself in the form I could understand, the human form.  Let me live the Christmas season all year long.  Amen.

 

The Chreestmas Boys--When Less Becomes More

Little shades of brown in itchy blue oxfords wiggling, squirming, inching and us--almond milk skin, hair any shade we choose, and clothes any style that suits. We make small talk among ourselves and grin-gaze across the room at khaki pants and collars colored sky. We wait. Somebody's doing paperwork, and it seems like we're waiting an hour. They eye us cautiously, but familiar. They've done this before. We eye them, giddy. We're all thinking the same thoughts. Which one is ours? Which sweet thing do we get to take home and love on?

And maybe they were thinking too. Will I have a bed tonight or will I sleep on a pallet? Will I share or have my own? What will they feed me? Will the house be too worm? Will it be too cold? Are there dogs at the new home? I'm afraid of dogs. Will their children be nice to me? And it's me that finally asks because it doesn't seem natural for us to sit and stare--they're humans after all, not puppies. Can we talk to them?

Then there's an explosion of bodies, mixing, asking, helloing, and we're all on the floor with them--red and yellow, black and white. Hands shaking hands, ears straining to understand accents not native, and all of us smiling to tell them in the universal language that we are kind, we are safe, we will love them.

A few weeks prior, I asked him if we could host two boys from Children of the World. (http://www.worldhelp.net/cotw/) He's my husband; he knows my heart has rooms for a thousand more children. He knew it would impact us. It did. How can you invite two children from impoverished circumstances into your lives for a few days and NOT expect your hearts to be sliced just a little? We would give them the boys' beds; we would skip school on Monday, spend the day spoiling these little lives. We did that. We are still bleeding.

The man in charge enters the room, papers in fist--a list of rules--all of them designed for the children's comfort and protection.

Don't ask about their past.

But I want to know. I want to know just what it is they will return to. I want to know if they will make it into adulthood. I want to know if they have a mother waiting for them. Is she burying face in pillow at night crying out the raw loss of giving up her little boy for ten whole months? Is she praying he'll learn English well enough to give him a better chance in life? Is she wondering about him while I carry his suitcase--a Jenson containing everything he has in the entire world--to my hybrid? I look at night sky and tell her--heart speaking to heart--I'll be good to him. I understand he's precious cargo. And I long to hold her too, that sweet mother born in a world where her options were so few that separation from the child she grew within would be the sacrifice demanded of her.

Maybe it is me the rules are made to protect. Perhaps my heart would crush beneath the weight of the truth.

They travel the United States for the flipping of ten calendar pages and sing--a choir of needs and hopes in children's frames--to promote awareness, to get sponsors. They sing for their lives.

Water you turned into wine...

They sing these words--they that come from a world with no water, while mine flows freely from 7 different taps at any temperature I desire.

Open the Eyes of the blind.

And it is me that is blind--blind to the needs of the world. Blinded by my own wants, by a country whose God is their stomach, by a media that insists I need everything on sale on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and my online shopping carts are filled. My stomach is engorged, and I am blind. Open my eyes.

They are hungry. They are thirsty, and they sing about the God who is greater, the God that turns water--that precious thing they walk three hours one way for--into wine for wedding feasts.

God, you are higher than any other.

They sing and I wonder if they understand.

But they do. They understand more than I do. It is I who will learn this week.

If our God is for us, than who could ever stop us?

And If our God is with us, than what could stand against?

I wonder if it is I, a part of North American selfishness, that has stood against what God wanted to do. Could He have used me to share. Did I stand against these sweet children while I filled my closets and my stomach. Were they stumbling over dusty paths with parched tongues like double sided tape while I quenched my thirst with the flick of an oil rubbed bronze tap?

We travel home; the conversation is hard. I don't know what to ask--me, the girl who always has something to say. They respond with "yes" to everything leaving me aching for their true thoughts, their true opinions. My own boys know exactly where they want to eat, and the olive and the black skinned children are just 'yessing' me no matter what I suggest. Yes to ice cream. Yes to McDonald's. Yes to eating at the house. Yes to rice. Yes to juice. Yes to water. Yes to chocolate milk. Yes. Yes. Yes. And then, I hear it--a gasp in word form. The olive skinned one with buzz cut says, "The lights. I love the lights!" His exclamation was a whisper unused to expressing itself.

This one likes the Christmas lights. He thinks. He feels.

And he sings for his life. For the life of others and probably doesn't know the luxury of expressing his own opinions and ideas. But He likes lights; I heard the gasp. Without hesitation, I start driving to town Square where our tree is lit up, lighted holly and poinsettias dangle from lampposts. I drive by every single house I know of that is lit all the way home. He utters and exclaims, and I point left, and my own boys point right, and we are all in awe of the light.

Jesus says, I am their light. These that know the greatest darkness receive The Light readily because they're not blinded by the gaudy light of the world like I am. They see Him. They exclaim over Him.

Christmas music seeps from the speakers into the car, and I sing a bar--a note here and there to fill the empty spaces. They are timid; I hurt at their silent moments. Are they afraid to speak? Do they know the lady whose car in which they ride would keep them forever if she could? Do they understand that she is suffocating sobs because she knows what it is to love a boy, and there are two who just might need that loving bumping shoulders in her back seat? Do they know that were they to cry she would hold them until the night ended? The music is throbbing from the speakers and Drummer Boy begins. I turn the volume up and palm flat I bang the beat onto the console, "Uganda, do you know this one? It's perfect for you! It's the Drummer Boy! Can you hear the drum?" He hears it. He begins the rhythm with me. My boys join in. And we are an international percussion section united by a rhythm we all understand. Shall I play for you pah rum puh pum pum beats air and our hands are bang bang banging on any surface we can find. I wonder which is louder, the beating of my hand or the beating of my heart.

The song ends and we are happy, laughing. Their smiles are electricity; my boys are feeling the shock. We want them to smile enough for a lifetime. Can we give them enough to last? Away In a Manger begins. They recognize it, tell me it is their carol. They sing it. The tune is a little different. We laugh when we all mess it up. But there was no crib for his bed and I wonder what bed they will return to. When the second verse begins I am dumbstruck. Bless all the dear children in thy tender care. Where has that line been my entire life? How many times have I sung those lyrics and not prayed them, not understood I was asking Jesus to bless ALL the children? All of them, in his tender care. All of them. Even these. These two that for forty-eight ridiculously short hours will be mine to give smiles, laughter, joy. The remainder of their lives will be in his tender care. Can I accept His tender care as sufficient?

And how can I sing the words, ask Him to bless, but turn my own eyes away when they leave? What if it is through me He wants to bless them? What if it is through you? http://www.worldhelp.net/cotw/sponsor/

But what if it is me He wants to bless through them? It is He who turned water into wine. He doesn't need my pennies to drill wells and deliver rice. They don't need me--their God is greater--it is I who needs them. I need their need in order to be freed. It is I who needs to be freed from the American Dream--the I-can-have-it-all mentality of North America. Because you can have it all, and have nothing at all.

As they vie for nomination, the republicans debate the status of a country where once an immigrant could cross crashing cloudy seas to make his fortune. They insist we should return to our great economic state, but I mourn the reality that we are among the world's wealthiest ten percent and yet we want more, better, faster, mightier. And children are hungry. My heart knows there is no answer a President can bring, that true change doesn't occur from the top down, but from within to without. From within my heart, my children's hearts. From selfish to selfless to Christ-filled to hungry children filled.

I remember James' words, Grieve and mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. (James 4:9) I understand him. Be broken, he said. See things for what they really are. See them in light of Jesus' heart. The New Living Translation says, "Let there be sadness for what you have done...." Yes, let there be sadness for a life of selfishness, and let their be an anchoring of my soul this day. Let me be pierced deeply enough to leave a scar. Let me bleed a while that I might be left with weakness for those who have less.

Words we mulled on after dinner during memory time pulse in my spirit. Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But accumulate for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. I wonder if it is possible to have both? It isn't wrong to have possessions, is it? But the ones that I choose to store--meaning to keep for the future--should not be physical. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And I want my heart hunger to be eternal, not temporal. But the catalogues come in the mail. There is a new cell phone out that would make my life easier. There is a better gaming system that would surely mean family fun. And our BBQ is now 13 years old; is not that old enough to merit a new one for Christmas? The eye is the lamp of the body. So, the things I see then, the things I choose to see, to focus on will cast light for my entire body, my life. If then your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be full of darkness. And mine has diseases that cause blindness. Our nation too, needs bifocals. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. (Matthew 6:10-24 There it is in black and white--we can't serve both. We may have both, but we cannot serve both. We will be a house divided. We will eventually collapse under the pressure of two lords. But perhaps what I want is less that I may gain more. And if I left the grill to sit with all the other BBQ's at Home Depot and bought 3 goats instead http://goh.worldhelp.net/goats/ then 3 families would have milk--nutrition, and an income. And wouldn't that be more for me too? More for my children too? Wouldn't the nourishing of 3 families who have never owned a BBQ and cook their rice three times a day over an open fire with scraps of garbage as fuel become food for my family's soul?

My oldest is working on writing his life's purpose statement. He lamented to me, "Mom, sometimes I've been thinking about my life's purpose, and I see that a lot of things don't line up with it."

"It's hard, isn't it?" I look into his creek-water eyes and wish I could raise a boy to live the easy life, a boy that could take the road more traveled.

"Yes, it's the broken life." We've talked about this--broken living. It's the better way to take communion, we believe. There is a time for the wafers and juice, but we find that we remember Jesus better by breaking ourselves--stepping outside of what is comfortable. Giving up a meal, feeding homeless families, hugging powdery seniors' necks at nursing homes--things not comfortable for raggedy, rough boys--are a part of our family communions.

"Remember Jesus? It had to be hard for him watching his brothers and sisters growing up doing their own thing while He knew He would be breaking loaves and fishes, walking amongst the poor, the diseased, hanging from a cross. He lived to redeem. Lived broken so we could be whole."

"Yes. He probably didn't always enjoy that." My son relates to the idea of Jesus as a boy.

"When we give up here, we gain later. Those who live poor in spirit inherit the Kingdom of heaven."

"But we'll be rich in a better way in heaven, mom. That's what it means about storing up treasures in heaven. We'll have that in eternity." He knows. He gets it. He holds my hand and I look deep into his riverbed eyes--the pupils water smoothed pebbles--and love him.

The Ugandan and Philippine boy slept the last two nights in another host home, but they were with us still. We carry them now. We carry their people, their families, their thirst. A Christmas tree towers over ten feet tall in my living room--the room that only weeks ago I lamented being too small to host the homeschool mom's Christmas party, the room that when they entered, they exclaimed It is so big, Auntie! I had thought they would enjoy seeing the shiny decorations. Playfully, I wrapped one in strands of crimson wooden cranberries. "I'm a Chreestmas boy, Auntie! A Chreestmas boy," he had exclaimed.

Indeed, he is a Christ-boy. In his face I see a hundred thousand faces--hunger, pain, thirst, need, loneliness. Those were the real reasons Christ came, weren't they? The real reasons for all our merry making this time of year are about what we can give, not what we will receive.

Open my eyes, Father. Leave me bleeding a while longer. Let them linger in my heart--The Chreestmas boys. Amen.

http://www.worldhelp.net/ http://www.compassion.ca/