Category: Uncategorized (Page 57 of 188)

“Mom. She’d have the prettier Christmas tree,” said my sister. 

***

I’ve pretty much relegated all Christmas tree duties to JJ. His time at the funeral home equipped him to be much better at making things pretty than I can muster – and his patience with such activity has a higher threshold, especially with kids. So I make some hot chocolate while they dig out the ornaments and wrap ribbon. I have to say, our tree is the perfect balance of beauty and nostolgia. From here I can see ornaments such as baby booties (H Boy’s), a silver martini glass (a gift from my mom), a candy-cane inspired “H”, a pillow cross-stitched in 1981and bright red metallic “peace” “love” and “joy.” With white lights aglow, it’s quite perfect. 

I’ve always tended to sit on the sideline of Christmas tree events. Growing up we had the most perfect tree. It was (quite literally) 8 pieces. a pole, 7 large hanging racks and a topper. Through the early years we’d adorn it with macaroni-made ornaments, some tinsel and multi-colored lights. 

My mom hated it. 

If there’s one thing my mom does well, it’s make things beautiful. But the nature of our tree was anything but. As our home became more and more decorated by Taste of Country, or later, Pottery Barn, the kid-tree just wasn’t hitting the spot for her. So one day she declared mutiny. 

She bought all white lights. My sister was outraged. 

“But I want the tree to be pretty,” mom pleaded. “But it’s just not Christmasy!” Ang fought back. “They’re boooorrr-rrring.” After about 2 more years of making a ruckus, mom finally got her white lights. New ornaments started infiltrating our stockings to be hung the following year. 

Then came the campaigning for a new tree altogether. “Why would you want a new tree? This one works fine,” Dad argued. I believe these wishes went at least 3-4 years, into my late high school or early college years, before she’d had it. 

One day, she went to Bellefontaine and, after rounding a corner in our bus of a van, swiped a parked car. She was frustrated. She had to call dad. After explaining what happened, Dad told her he’d be down to pick her up in the car after a while. “Well, see, that presents an issue…. I also bought a new Christmas tree.”

Thus some serious discussion at home. It soon became a joke, the way mom had caused such a stirring in our arborous life. At some point a loud and comical conversation ensued about how this new tree was going to end our family, that dad would divorce her over an evergreen. Thus, him asking who we would live with. And Angie’s witty response. 

And it was all fun and comedy until we took it out of the box. 5,000 pieces. (Slight exaggeration). And mom had already given away the 8-piece tree to the high school. Color coded limbs, bags upon bags of pieces to figure out what level they needed assembled… “but it’s so full and pretty,” Mom reminded us. 

I believe JJ heard this story a few times before we were wed. He helped me put up my tree once while we were dating, with much complaint. Then again while we were engaged, with a warning: we were going to be purchasing a real tree for our married life. Between the nightmare 5,000-piece tree and his love of tradition (this being his own), he wasn’t going to risk any tree debacles. 

Thus, I sit back and enjoy my tree, as is. 

Surprisingly, the better the week, the more difficult the Sunday. As I’m able to celebrate more and more good things in our life, come Sunday I’m overwhelmed with an ache. A hurt.  As if the advent season digs up this internal reality of the understanding that we’re waiting and holding on for something… more. Something substantial, better than any blessing for which we’ve already given thanks. The penultimate “something more.”  

And now we can add in a tragedy, all these feelings and a sense of grief over the children in Connecticut. The event deepened an existing feeling that I’ve felt in my bones this whole season… God, we need you a little bit closer.

Today during the cantada a verse of We Three Kings struck me (and thus I subsequently cried), about the Magi following the light. I looked it up. After they had heard the king, [the Magi] went on their way and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  (Matthew 2:9-11) 

In the midst of the song, the reality I’ve cried over sunk from within my heart down deeper, down toward somewhere close to my liver… it’s in the darkness that we can recognize the light. Oh, how we dislike the dark. We stumble around like a bunch of bafoons, killing each other, blaming each other, or even just knocking into one another by accident. We feel pain but don’t realize that we can’t see the truth in front of us until the light begins to break. 

The most difficult part, the part that turns on round two of the tears, comes when I can’t seem to find the way to point toward the light. To be the light. All afternoon I’ve struggled, wanting to partake in an activity with the kids to help celebrate the meaning of Christmas. I want to show them what it means to be light in darkness, that Emmanuel is more than a song.  A quote by Rob Bell came to mind: Why blame the dark for being dark? It’s far more helpful to ask why the light isn’t as bright as it could be. (Velvet Elvis)

I believe that part of my Sunday misery arises from the fact that each week I come face-to-face with the fact that I’m not always living as the light. Often I’m not pointing toward a guiding star. I spend some time pointing to the darkness and stating reasons why, but I rarely light a candle and visit a neighbor. 

Specifically I feel powerless in the face of recent tragedy. I cannot bring children back. I will not tell others stupid pithy sayings like God “needed” angels or that it was in His plan. God never plans to hurt his people. 

I’m rereading for (14th hundreth time) A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and I just came to the part where Don tells of a friend who was ready to give up on God. This friend then visited Rwanda as an effort to learn more about the atrocities that had happened there. She visited a church museum where several people hid in an effort to be safe, believing they wouldn’t be killed in a church. They were wrong and instead the entire group was massacred. Don’s friend said she stood on the brink of telling God goodbye, that this was where they parted ways. And in that moment, God spoke to her in her heart saying, “This is what happens when people walk away from me.” 

Darkness is dark when no one shines a light. 

Thus, the tears again. God, I want people to know light is available. There is always another way. A kingdom reigning with grace and forgiveness and love exists if someone would just pass a candle. If I would just lift my torch just a little higher. 

But what does that look like? Not in a Jesus-will-make-your-problems-disappear way. But in a God-is-with-us, right here, right now kind of way. Will a plate of cookies show my neighbors that in the light, we see the world as God created it? Will a gift card speak to my mailman so he will know that in the light, we can see the goodness, not just feel our pain?  Will the wrapped packages under the tree remind my family that in the light, we recognize our company and realize that we are not alone?

My Sundays struggle because I know that to show people something more, I must do something more. Not buy something more, but show, in action, God’s presence in the world. I believe God’s presence is alive in my life – how does that seep into the way I live my life with others? God, show me what that looks like right here and right now. 

Amen.    

1. I hate guns. We have 3 of them in the house (locked in a safe). They give me the heeby-jeebies, but yet I support my husband’s enjoyment at using them to shoot at clay pigeons. What I believe to be a right and believe to be “good things” aren’t always the same. 

2. I’m a pacifist. And when I saw the photograph of a woman in sheer grief and agony, I thought – nearly aloud – if someone were to take a picture of me at such a moment, I’d cut them. Hardly a moment John Howard Yoder would be proud of. I recognize that my instincts and what I might want to do in moments of conflict  may not coincide with what I believe to be true and right and good. I think that’s part of the human nature. 

Now, my thoughts on yesterday. 

I’ve heard blame, the cries of “we must do something” (and I’m all on board if we have full-proof plans by the time H Boy enters kindergarten). The pundits allude to new discussion of how laws and rights will shift and change. But I believe this all to be the efforts of the powerless to feel a sense of control in a situation out of their hands. Perhaps by adding “regulation” we can feel like we’re doing something, but in actuality we’re not doing anything, we’re simply passing the buck and crossing our fingers. 

The problem isn’t guns – the problem is how we think about guns. 

Name the last movie you watched that didn’t include ammunition. Name the last top-selling video game  that lacked weaponry. Violence pervades our entertainment and our entertainment shapes the ways in which we view the world (I could make a similar argument using romance and love). Even those of us who consistently stay behind the trends by a good 6 months, can’t name the last 3 Academy Award winners or the 4 major gaming systems (are there only 4?)  become shaped and molded by what we see on the screen. 

I’m not saying it’s the fault of the media for producing violence-laden entertainment. I’m saying it’s the fault of society for not realizing that it can, and will, impact our perception of reality. Can a reasonable adult play a shooting game and be trusted not to let loose on the neighborhood? Sure. But can we at least ask that same reasonable adult to acknowledge that engaging in the activity has in some way glorified the heinous act of killing people simply in the act of making it enjoyable? Absolutely, I believe we can and should. 

In our culture’s version of “conflict” we crave seeing it in a physical form. It sells. So it’s highlighted, celebrated, and sought out. “Chick flicks” even require a certain level of action to pacify segments of the audience. We walk into a cinema expecting something to be blown up. And woven in the the messages of the stories to which we seek to escape are lies, lies, lies about violence. These experiences make violence simple, often non-emotional methods of finding solution. But they’re so common that we’re not always sure how to find resolution without the epic action scene of saving the girl and the building.  

Do I advocate a moratorium of movie-making? Not really. But rather than ask some lawmaker to pass a 465 page bill that no one understands which makes it more inconvenient for those seeking to properly use a gun, perhaps we as individuals, as parents, as families, as churches, as schools, as communities, should ask ourselves how we view – and glorify – violence and how it might affect those being raised in that culture. 

My 4 year old often picks up random toys, such as a plastic vice grip (I had to ask what it was called). He uses it as a “shooter”, to shoot-shoot-shoot at people. How exactly do I speak to this? How do we begin to talk about why people shoot other people? And if we feel it’s okay to shoot “the bad guys”, what defines a “bad guy”? How bad of a guy does s/he have to be? 

These are the questions we’re letting our media answer for us. And often, it doesn’t take much to define a bad guy. One could simply “hurt you.” Sometimes, it only takes being different from ourselves, being part of an opposing team, group or country. How does this speak for our views on acceptable violence? And when this is the pervading message of our culture, why are we shocked when its youth take these beliefs and live them out in extreme and horrifying means? 

“Gun control”? Probably not a solution. Banning all movies and games with guns? Probably not a solution. Calling members of personal society to personal reflections about internal beliefs about “acceptable” violence? Not an an easy solution. But for many of us trying to make sense of tragedy, it might be the first solution we can seek out.