From my sister Emily: I always find interesting little surprises around after Zora visits. For example, I just got into bed and found a curious tiny orange cubic ’something’ near my pillow. What could that be?? Cheese, of course.
Me: Well honestly what is bedtime without cheese?
Emily: Unfortunately, it was a little too far into that unnaturally oily stage and had lots of dust stuck to it. Otherwise I certainly would not have let it go to waste.
Me: I think Anna (our other sister) would have eaten it.
Emily: That was her first response to my text: did you eat it?
In part, for the sake of my own records, a few Zora moments that I want to remember for awhile. She is really, at 3, a very interesting person. And I am learning that interesting persons are not necessarily the easiest ones to raise.
Although she seems to enjoy being the water over the summer, three sessions into swimming lessons, she’s still doing her fair share of yelling that she doesn’t want to be there and holding onto me with the full monkey-grip (arms and legs) in the pool. There is evidence to suggest that this about (a) the pool being cold (b) and her not really wanting to do it (c) and perhaps some fear that she will be forced to “bubble” with the other two kids in the class who do it. However, we are going to keep going, if only because we now catch her in the pool teaching her washcloths to swim.
Why are 3 year olds amused by the word “butt”? And, what was I thinking when I pointed out that we might need to change her pants because her “butt crack” was showing? After a good week of explaining that “butt” is appropriate sometimes, but usually not, I’ve added to the butt vocabulary. I apologize to the rest of the preschool families. But, not 5 minutes ago, she used the word “poopy” and then turned to Erik, smiled, and said, “Was that inappropriate?” So she’s at least starting to get it.
On Sunday, Zora met the head pastor of the crazy big church where I used to work. Sometimes, crazy big church pastors get treated a little bit like they are not real people–when they usually are, and I sometimes wonder if they miss getting to be real people. This particular pastor is a very very nice man who really like little kids. So, I can only assume that he was quite pleased when Zora, who I believe was meeting him for the first time (save the fact that she was incubating the entire time I was working at that church!), very blithely, and without much invitation at all, swooped in and gave him a big old kiss on the cheek.
On the other side of Zora being comfortable with people, there is also her being comfortable with big places…churches in particular. Which is why, at the worship service where # 3 happened, she spent the last 1o minutes running circles around about 5 rows of vacant pews, sort of unsupervised.
Last night, Zora refused to let Erik leave her bedroom at the end of the bed time routine after the normal ending (which is a loud antiphonal recitation of “Good night! Sleep tight! Don’t let the bed bugs bite! And I’ll see you in the morning when it’s light!”). No, he was not allowed to leave until they added, after “Good night…” “The Lord be with you…” “And also with you.”
Further liturgical memorization: we’ve been intentionally saying the Lords Prayer with kids at the end of our children’s time, and right before we dismiss them to Sunday School, every Sunday morning this year. If Zora is any gauge, it is working. She can get the last few words in each line of the prayer, and she incorporates phrases from it into the libretto of her on-going “Day of the Preschool” Opera (i.e. the continuous narration song she sings much of the time). However, she has also caught on to where it FITS in our current worship order. Because she often ends the prayer this way: “…and the power, and glory forever, Amen. OK you can go to Sunday School now!”
Thursday night to Saturday are my version of the weekend. For me, this means squeezing out every last chance to be the domestic diva.
The tally so far this weekend?
Did a lot of dishes, but then made a whole lot dirty while I was making a pot of soup.
Cut out the fabric for Zora’s long-delayed Hello Kitty pajamas.
Dyed the eyelet trim for said pajamas hot pink (turns out that hot pink eyelet trim is not a standard part of the stock at fabric stores).
Ran two miles.
Crammed in one last church meeting before Friday, being the real and actual day off, began.
On tap for tomorrow?
Take Zora to kindermusik and swimming lessons.
More laundry than I should ever have to deal with.
Sew kitty pajamas.
Do dishes from soup-making.
Get bedroom under control.
Which brings me to the point that Friday is, in fact, my Sabbath. Honestly, I’ve just gotten to the point where I’ve accepted that Sabbath for women has probably never meant complete and total rest. If I snag 15 minutes of Sabbath, that’s going to have to do it for me.
I remember, during Zora’s first summer, realizing that beach reading would not be the same for another 10 or 15 years. Instead of cruising through novels, I was happy to get in a few pages of a short story.
Words taken from sermons on Martin Luther King, Jr. are in italics. (With some adaptation, mostly for gender inclusiveness.)
Holy God, sometimes we look around and it seems the world is crumbling…
…war after war, division after division, injustice after injustice, violence upon violence, and sin upon sin, we are surrounded by a world where not only the structures of society, but sometimes, the very ground beneath a city crumbles.
Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. We speak and cry out together as children of God, as brothers and sisters to the suffering poor of our country and every country.
We know that the curse of poverty has no justification in our age. And so it breaks our hearts to see Port Au Prince leveled by an earthquake that would barely harm Los Angeles or San Francisco.
It breaks our heart to see people afraid of what the future holds: when there is no food, no water, no doctors, when there seems to be no hope.
And it breaks our heart to realize that our hearts are only broken by utter disaster…when the injustice and poverty has been there, in Haiti, and throughout our world all along.
Call us to action, O Lord, call us to change. Call us to love.
We know the depths of love you made us capable of: the depths of love for father , mother, sister, brother, daughter, son, friend and neighbor…
We know the depths of love because of the pain we feel on behalf of those closest to us. So hear our prayers today for the ones we love who suffer:
(names)
And we know the depths of love because of the joy we feel on behalf of those closest to us. So hear our shouts of joy today on behalf of the ones we love who celebrate:
(names)
But call us to action, O Lord, call us to change. Call us to love.
It is love that cuts off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
And you, God of love, taught us that love is action, love is coming close to those who suffer.
We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.
We must use all your gifts to us: intellect, privilege, money, and time, all your gifts, to put love into action in this world.
Let us rise up with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, to make this world look more and more like your vision, like the kingdom of heaven, like the great banquet where there is room for everyone at the table, and where there is more than enough for every guest.
Oh God, help us in our lives and in all of our attitudes, to work out this controlling force of love, this controlling power that can solve every problem that we confront in all areas. Grant that all people will come together and let us join together in a great fellowship of love and bow down at the feet of Jesus. Give us this strong determination. In the name and spirit of this Christ, we pray. Amen.
What a powerful editorial…the first paragraphs really stick with me.
I have family in Southern California. When there’s a big earthquake there, I worry a little, but not too much (the biggest disruption one of the last big one’s caused my relatives was my cousin’s disappointment that school was cancelled that day because there was an earthquake drill scheduled and he was supposed to ring the bell!) Point being, it is really awful that LA or San Francisco can take a hit like this, but other places can’t. That is wrong wrong wrong.
We are blessed with pastors at our church, both in quality and abundance. On Sundays there’s often a line-up of three behind whichever pastor is preaching. In other words, there are four of us: Carl, Melinda, Bart, and me.
Sometimes, certain members of the line-up get a little giggly. Yes, I am that certain member.
This misheard line of Melinda’s sermon almost sent me over the edge on Sunday:
Here’s what I heard: “Karl Barth, Erica and I do not have all the answers.”
Here’s what the manuscript said: “Carl, Bart, Erica and I do not have all the answers.”
On Sunday, one of our 3 year olds (I’ll call her Claire) was sitting in the second row of pews with her parents. Next to her was one of our church elders, Harrison, who is also a pillar of the congregation in the best sense of the word and one of the few people I have ever met who is completely at home, able, and amazing with kids from age 0 to 25.
When this family went up for communion, Claire didn’t take any. But, after they got back to the pew, they saw a dad and his 3 year old go up and the 3 year old took communion (OK, full disclosure, that was my kid…who is not about to give up any chance to get her hands on extra grape juice). When Claire saw Zora taking communion she was a little peeved that she hadn’t gotten to. Parents sort of wondered about this, and Harrison explained that current PCUSA policy is that it’s up to parents to decide when kids may take communion, and if it was OK with them, Claire could.
Meanwhile, we were done with serving at the front, and my assistant and I were at the back serving an older gentleman who hadn’t been able to leave his pew. Harrison brought Claire to the back and walked her through the procedure, but she took two pieces first, and then lost them in the cup, and we just scooted those two into the bread basket to give her another chance with a new piece of bread.
It was a time I was really grateful to have a theology of communion that allowed me not to feel really anxious about the cup spilling, bread not being eaten, etc!
I love our church’s policy on communion and children (CRCNA folks, take heed as you make this big decision!). I love that every time we serve communion we might have a child who is taking it for the first time (in fact, I suspect there was another three year old who was partaking for the first time on Sunday).
I am grateful that we had an alert and loving elder in the pew who knew the policy and guided the family through it.
I am sad that we haven’t done a good enough job of educating our congregation, so that some of our parents don’t know how this works. We might need to fix that.
But I really don’t want to fix it by instituting some kind of class. Because I’m almost certain that in a church our size, we would start to have people come to the class at a certain age. And then the whole thing would get formalized and ritualized. And then we would have some sort of big “event”.
And I don’t want it be an event. I love that I can’t even remember Zora’s first time taking communion. I do remember what it was like to put that little bit of purple-stained bread in her mouth. I’m pretty certain it was her first solid food.
I love that Claire’s first communion was quiet and sweet and absolutely perfect, and that this part of her life with Christ was accidentally and providentially bound to the people who just happened to be in the pew with her that day.
It’s been over a week since you ripped open those treasure boxes under the tree. And for the most part, you know exactly what’s in them. And now you have a sense of how much you will actually use the gift. What each gift might mean, what it might really be for, which toy is your favorite, which gift you will return, which gift you wish you could return but can’t, what use you will get out of a gift, what you really love, which gifts you will remember forever, and what you will forget in a few weeks.
For those of you who are bummed out that the gift-giving is over, here’s an idea for a second shot at it (we might want to keep this a secret from retailers and marketers!): in some Christian traditions the gift giving happens not on Christmas, but on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany…when we remember the arrival of the wise men and their gifts.
Now, there’s a whole lot to talk about with the wise men. The details: (Were there really 3? And did they actually make it to the stable? How far away were they from? Was Jesus probably a toddler by this time?) The whole Herod thing: (what a terrible guy…the awful story of what he did…) The theological significance of these foreign visitors honoring a Hebrew king…
But this morning we are just going to peek into the treasure boxes.
Imagine what happens when Mary and Joseph unwrap these gifts: sitting in their home, probably one room with the carpentry tools stowed on one side and the kitchen on the other, and these marvelous magi admiring the toddler Jesus. And in the boxes and chests they set out are…gold…frankincense…and myrrh. Whatever they mean, they are riches that this little family of craftsmen in a tiny backwater town have never set hands on or even imagined.
Enough to ease their lives for a few years. And enough to make the mystery of who their child really was even greater.
Enough for them to wonder what to do with it…there was no need for a college fund, no such thing as an IRA or a stock portfolio. Could they invest in flocks of sheep? Maybe it meant another room added onto the house or money for an extra cow or goat.
But what did it mean?
Luke’s gospel sums up the story of Jesus’ infancy with this: “But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”
I imagine they had to treasure away a few pieces of gold, maybe behind a mud brick loosened from the wall of the house, and it sat there much the same way the strange events of Jesus birth and early years sat in Mary’s heart.
That’s the thing about some gifts…there are some that you just don’t really understand until later on. Some that change meaning as the years go on. Some gifts start out as one thing and turn into another. Gifts can take on different meaning.
When I was about 10, my great grandparents bought everyone of their great grandkids a Bible, engraved with our names.
I think I knew it was important at the time, because I handed it back to my Great Grandpa Hank and asked him to write in the front that he and Great Grandma Alberta had given to me. (I guess, with over a dozen great grandkids, writing us each a note was a step they understandably skipped)
When I was little, I thought the pictures in the Bible were too babyish for me. When I was a teenager, I learned to loved the words, but wished I had a more grown up Bible for youth group. When my Grandma Alberta died a few years later it meant more. When Grandpa Hank died my freshman year of college, it meant even more. When I stood on my Great-Grandparents grave to say prayers and help bury my grandmother right next to them, that Bible became irreplaceable.
So, did Mary remember, when she was helping to prepare Jesus’ body for burial, when the other women went to the market to get the embalming spices, the myrrh and the frankincense, that once, years ago, she had taken to market to exchange for the money? The frankincense and myrrh that had been a baby gift for her son?
And the mystery of everything that has happened is bigger than the treasure boxes of the wise men, the little treasure box of Mary’s heart…because the gifts of the season are not comfy sweaters or uggs or zhu zhu pets or Wiis or food processors…the gifts are not the boxes of gold and frankincense and myrrh…the gifts are not eve the amazing birth and surprising stories that Mary and Joseph pondered and treasured…
The gift is Jesus. And we say it too often that we forget…the gift is Jesus, baby born in Bethlehem, but also Emmanuel, God-among-us.
In Ephesians, Paul reminds us…it is not the gift of a cute and cuddly Baby.
This is a gift of cosmic significance.
So it may begin meaning simply that God affirms the life-giving love and care of a kind mother, the bright beauty of a baby.
But the meaning of the gift, the mystery of it, grows and grows each time we look in the treasure box.
This is a mystery: that God should grow in a woman’s belly,
This is a mystery: that God should be born among us…
This is a mystery: that the stars and angels should sing…
This is a mystery: that everyone from shepherds to wealthy men should come…
This is a mystery: that God would walk with us, pray with us, suffer for us…
This is a mystery: that God would save us from ourselves by becoming one of us, in such a strange and remarkable way.
This is a mystery. Unfolding and unfurling. Stretching out over time and space.
And every time we open the treasure box, we will see it a new way, in a way that changes everything we thought we knew, over and over again.
It is mystery. It is epiphany. It is a great and mighty wonder.
It is the greatest of all treasures.
So, keep seeking, keep pondering, keep taking it out of the box…
God-among-us, God-one-of-us, Savior of the World, Creator of the Universe, word made flesh…
It’s been a long day. Mostly church related. Not bad. Just long. I am tired, body, soul, spirit, voice and joints and the soles of my feet.
So, one quick thought, jumping off from a conversation with a colleague last week:
Advent is really supposed to be a season of preparation, pulling back, pulling away to prepare. It’s probably a good time to scale back and not do as much. But everyone, even churches, is packing in every last drop of Holiday stuff that they can fit.
So, do we suspend every last activity? We were talking about this in conjunction with the Wednesday evening Advent meal & bible study & kids activities tht three of us have been working our tails off to make happen.
For our bunch of people who are showing up for these nights, we know that this is a different “event”, a time when they do pull back: parents are able to leave kids with someone who loves them and go sit quietly together to think and pray. Kids are playing together and reading together in a way that is less structured and more playful and spontaneous that we usually let them be. And then we all come together for a big meal, eaten slowly, at big tables, with what feels like an enormous extended family. Dads come to church from their work commute. Moms hand babies to people past the baby-years. The kids run circles around the room and chase each other and shout alot. I know it’s more of a family dinner than we get in at MY house most weeks.
But still, there are the 3 crazy pastors running around and looking frazzled because we added the organization of this to a season that is terribly busy.
So, we asked each other, what kind of modeling are we doing for our congregation, that we are crazy and busy and frazzled?
I am so tired tonight, but it is all worth it because I know there are about 50 people who were able to slow down and do something different and be God’s people together for an evening.
And so, just like I don’t model Sabbath particularly well on Sundays (when I regularly put in 13 hour days!), I don’t model Advent very well. But I need to take a Sabbath for myself (oh, sweet, sweet Friday…I think of it as the day of he week that god made just for me). And I might need to remember to take Advent for myself…probably not in December, but sometime.