Angels

Just a few weeks ago, my middle child pulled out a book that had been in storage since last Christmas. Last year, he wasn't quite ready for it. It had a lot of words that required the art of sitting still for more than roughly 4 seconds at a time. Not his jive just yet.

This year he can, just occasionally, enjoy a good book. And as we read through it for the first time, his eyes got big. He pointed and asked questions. And every day he asks to read it again.

The book?

An Angel Just Like Me by Mary Hoffman

It's the story of a young black boy during Advent who wonders why all the angels he sees are blonde girls. Who wonders if it's possible that an angel could look any differently. Who goes looking in store after store to find an angel just like him.

Ultimately, he can't find one. And a family friend, an artist, comes to the rescue and makes him one. He opens it Christmas Day in wonder...and then asks if his artist friend can make more for all his other friends that wonder if there are angels just like them.

It's a beautiful story. My son's very favorite.

And when we get to the end, my son always points to the black boy angel and says "Just like Nate?"

Yes, buddy. He looks just like you.

Maybe the concept of angels not all being white is new to you. Maybe the concept that people in heaven will not be some weird pale ghostly representation of humans is surprising. But God makes it clear in the scriptures that he has made us all in his image. And that when we share that heavenly feast some day we will not actually look all that different from how we do now. Because how we look now is beautiful and purposeful and good.

My son has noticed his skin is brown from before he could really articulate it. He would point to black characters in books and then to his own skin. He would run to black men on the playground and yell "Daddy!" (Yes, that was painful for most involved.) He thinks he is handsome with his dark skin and black curls and brown eyes. And he's right. He's pretty dang handsome.

But a lot of what he sees around him, in stores, on billboards, in the toys at school or the nursery? A lot of those things are white. White people playing. White people speaking. White characters in books.

And because he has white parents and a brother, he sees a lot of white at home, too.

And friends, it's ok. White isn't bad. God made me this way. And my husband. And my firstborn.

But if white is all he ever sees, he can unconsciously believe it's better. That it's more desirable. That it's somehow more important.

And that is the last thing we want him to believe about us or himself.

So when we read a book like that? And he relates to the character?

Well, Mama starts combing the stores. Where can I find an angel just like him? And one that he can touch and hold (read, not breakable) and doesn't cost more than I can afford?

Well, almost nowhere, to be honest.

I had just put on my list for this week to get to a craft store, buy an angel and paint it black. Because I wanted him to have that angel he so desperately wanted. And when you can't find what you need, you make it, right?

This morning, I posted a picture on my facebook page of a Santa canvas that I had painted for him a year ago. Well, really, I painted it for all my boys. I don't want my white son to grow up in a white-washed world any more than I want that for my black sons or for me. Culture and differences are rich. I want us to bask in them around here.

I posted that Santa picture and shared a story about how much it meant to him to have a black santa in our house.

And just a few hours later, I was out walking my youngest. A neighbor of ours, one I am just getting to know, ran out of her house with a gift for us. She smiled, walked up to me and handed me a black angel. A black boy angel. That happened to look a LOT like my boys.

I was almost speechless. I assumed she had seen my post this morning and was so grateful.

But no. She had seen me coming down the street. She had owned this angel for years and she just knew, in that moment, that it was for my sons.

Ya'll.

I picked up my son from preschool, brought him home and handed him that angel.

Pure. Joy.

"It's me?? It's me!!! I'm an angel!"

Yes, baby. You are.

Choosing to Remember

The first Sunday of Advent turned out much the way I thought it would. Wonderful time at church with our community, a hurried lunch and cooking soup for our evening out and then a fantastic time making wreaths. My son made a new friend his age, I had a great time chatting with some recently made friends, the food was delicious and the celebration meaningful.

Then I hit Monday morning. I opened my computer while it was still dark and sipped my coffee while I read that morning devotional. I thought about the challenge issued to our community on Sunday morning- a challenge to breathe in Hope and breathe out Fear. And to try to do it constantly this week. I thought about all the articles on Ferguson I have open in my browser, all the pain I've been reading about and thinking about, the protests, the mess, the anger, the injustice. I thought about how my life right now is not in a tangible period of waiting or suffering. And I wondered how to truly dig into Advent when things feel good and right. Why should I invite the idea of suffering into my mornings when all is well?

My pastor never urged us to breathe out suffering, incidentally. None of the devotionals or articles encouraging us to step back from the harried season and think are encouraging us to avoid suffering.

I spent 6 advents waiting. 5 of those advents I felt significant suffering- the loss of Amara, the continual defeat of infertility, the loneliness of living in a place with few friends. But the bottom line was suffering and waiting were real to me. They were tangible. The act of digging in to the deep part of Advent was not actually that difficult. It was the hope and joy of Christmas that seemed elusive. 

During this season when joy feels present, when hope is easy for me, I have to remember that for a lot of people, the opposite is true. They are where I was last year, quite possibly walking in much worse places than I myself have treaded. To avoid this, to run from suffering, to only choose to remember the Light, is to forget what Advent truly means. It is to deny that there is real hurt, real pain being experienced by my fellow man. And that during Advent (and really during the rest of the year), part of the following of Christ means entering into the darkness of the world around me, empathizing, listening, grieving and, yes, still hoping. 

One of my favorite advent posts I have read this season came shortly after the Ferguson decision. Christina Cleveland writes:

"We do the Light a disservice when we underestimate the darkness... Advent is an invitation to plunge into the deep, dark waters of our worst world, knowing that when we re-surface for air we will encounter the hopeful, hovering Spirit of God. For when we dive into the depths of our worst world, we reach a critical point at which our chocolate and pageants no longer satiate our longing for hope – and we are liberated by this realization. Indeed, the light of true hope is found in the midst of darkness." 

So while it would be easy for me to find satisfaction in the chocolate and pageants and Christmas "spirit" that swirl loudly around me, the harder work of keeping my eyes open, of staying awake to the quieter pain is worth it. Even reading back through my own feelings in past years and remembering the sadness, the yearning, the pain, the never-ending wait is powerful. While I didn't enjoy those emotions at the time, I choose to remind myself. I choose not to skip straight to the joy. I choose to remember. 

Matt Jenson, in his post in the Biola Advent Project writes that "in Advent, not only do we anticipate remembering; we also remember to anticipate, to yearn for the day when Christ comes again."

Indeed, we are waiting and hoping in a Christ we know has already come. And at the same time, we anticipate another coming, another fulfillment, an end to the darkness. An end to injustice and fear and pain and miscarriage and unfulfilled longings. 

The hardest thing for me is to know the suffering and the darkness and not fear it. To know that while I am in a period of fulfilled longings right now, I do not know what pain lies ahead. To train myself to breathe in hope in the mornings and breathe out the fear of the unknown. To continue to learn how to wait on the Lord and the day of His coming, one day at a time, even when my earthly waiting is temporarily stilled and joyfully fulfilled. 

That is the work of advent for me this year. The choice to remember, the choice to see, to feel the darkness in the world even as I rejoice in the beauty of the gifts I've been given. And the choice to continue in hope, to invite the Light to shine into a broken, hurting, yearning world. 

Digging Into the Wait

One year ago, I was in a very different place than I find myself today.

One year ago, I dreaded Advent. Experience had led me to believe it would be a painful season, a season that only heightened my feelings of loss and frustration.

One year ago, God surprised me.

Not only with an Advent experience that ended up being full of peace, an experience that taught me more about Him, that helped me take the focus off myself- but weeks into it's celebration when He had already shown up and worked some healing in my soul, we also got the call that changed our lives. Last advent, the Lord met me in powerful ways- both spiritually and tangibly- with the gifts of hope and the (almost) fulfillment of a dream that was to come to fruition just a few weeks into the new year.

This year, I have been eagerly anticipating this time. Remembering dark, quiet mornings, sipping coffee, pondering the stillness. Knowing that there will be mornings I don't quite get to enjoy it that same way this year, but for a pretty good reason. This year, I have a crazy one-year-old careening around the house, pulling ornaments off the tree. We can't put up our stockings or he'll pull them down. He won't understand a bit of what goes on for the next month, but he'll enjoy the sparkly lights, the crinkle of the wrapping paper, the Christmas boxes that will be so much more fun than the actual toys that come inside them. My older son, however, continues in that sweet spot of parenting. Old enough to enjoy, old enough to participate, to continue to learn and young enough to want all three of those things. To find magic in awaiting the Christ child, to anticipate our nightly readings with the Jesse tree. We don't do Santa or the Elf around here- and I'm pretty convinced his Christmas is just as magical, and certainly as or more meaningful, as any other kid's.

This year, though, I want to dig in in a fresh way. I want to blog my way through the experience. I want to see it from my son's eyes, to experience the Jesse Tree like he does, to do my morning Advent Experience and to continue to train my heart that grew up without much idea of liturgy what it means to really live Advent.

So, today I start. This morning I'll start the Advent Project online. Then I will head to church to worship with my community where hymns and choruses will be sung, where the first candle of Advent will be lit. Later this afternoon, I will head back to celebrate with 70 of those people and our children as we make our own, fresh advent wreaths and celebrate the beginning of the season with a meal together.

Let's go, Advent. Let's see what fresh joys and challenges await.

The Dread of Advent

As December has approached, a time of year I have always loved, my heart has grown a little heavier. As I realized today that tomorrow is church, that tomorrow is a Sunday in December, it finally occurred to me. Day 1 of advent. Christmas countdown. That time of year when everyone talks about God in the form of a child, when we talk about waiting on the arrival of this little baby, when people read poetry about motherhood in an attempt to relate to what Mary may have felt. The time of year when I am told that to truly understand Christmas better, I need to focus on this concept of Advent. Of waiting. Of expecting. Of not rushing or wanting or striving.

The thing is, I feel like my whole year is lived in a quiet, but painful, advent. Of waiting and expecting. Of not having any control or ability to rush any of this. This year's Christmas season marks the 5 year mark since we started trying to have a baby. Five years ago it was exciting to think about waiting on a physical baby as we waited on the Christ child. That excitement has long since worn off. The rest of the year is one month after another with no results when it comes to that initial desire. With reading books about waiting better and faithfully desiring God and not focusing on this baby. Or finding articles and poetry and art that speaks to perseverance and hope. Of seeking to be content without another child. Of fending off questions and trying not to be annoyed when people try to attribute this particular wait with God's lesson for us or our own inability to learn something he has clearly been trying to teach us or being told for the 100th time that once we stop caring, then we will get pregnant or our adoption will come through. Yeah. Because all my hundreds of friends around me who have tons of kids didn't care about being pregnant. Clearly that's the trick. Manipulating God or anatomy or whatever into making this happen. Sounds like a good idea.

So when my husband asked me a few minutes ago if we were on for our usual plan for church tomorrow? My heart sank. My stomach began to churn. I began to wonder how many glowing pregnant women would totter down the aisle while the band plays "Away in a Manger" in the background and I try to look at the floor instead of envy their bumps. I began to wonder if our church here, in their desire to make and show videos on Sunday mornings, would come up with some artistic portrayal of motherhood and expectancy that I'll have to sit through. In short, I began to dread church. I began to search for legitimate ways to opt out of a gathering in which I normally find life and hope. I began to worry that I wouldn't be able to actually see God through all the God-infant imagery that will now bombard us for the next 25 days.

I hate that. I hate that this wait and the pain within it has robbed me of my favorite season in the church. I hate that I cannot overcome my sadness and my longing and just be able to fully enjoy the advent season. I hate knowing that come Christmas morning when my son places the baby Jesus in our manger scene at home, my heart will also pang with the knowledge that while that manger is full and that should be enough for me, our crib is still empty and I am still waiting.

And to be honest? I don't really know what to do next. People tell you to not think about it, to find other outlets, to pursue contentedness. To just seek God and not what he can give me. But how do you seek God well in a season where every avenue is reminding you to seek Him in the form of a baby, a form that only highlights your own desire for that good and beautiful gift of children? How do you do that well? Most of the year I can conveniently ignore the Christmas story and focus on the Easter one. But advent? Advent feels like one more big reminder that while I can wait on the Christ-child, while I can cultivate my experience of expectancy of what God can do, at the end of the day our long, physical wait still goes on.

And I am exhausted. I wish I could say I'll definitely push through and go to church anyway tomorrow. I don't know. I wish I had some neat package with a lovely Christmas bow that would tie up these thoughts. But much like advent itself, much like all the uncertainty we like to talk about as we celebrate it, all the fears Mary and Joseph must have felt, all the confusion about their future, this post doesn't have a neat ending. I will wake up tomorrow. Maybe I will go to church or maybe I will stay home and take a very long, cold jog with Tim Keller on my ipod. Most of the day I suspect I will be happy and enjoy my family and look forward to class on Monday morning. I will find joys in the quiet moments of the day. I may even listen to Christmas music. Most likely, though, I will not sit around and ponder the birth of Jesus. And I suspect God is ok with that right now.

The Christmas Creep

It's the night before Thanksgiving and I am pretty much done with my Christmas shopping. The last time I was in a store on Black Friday I was a sporting goods store employee dealing with harried, rude customers with a nasty turkey hangover fighting over the newest Columbia jacket. (You know you had one. You wore it every day to high school with jeans, hiking boots and a flannel shirt.)  I vowed as I left the mall that afternoon that I would never be responsible for subjecting any other human being to what I experienced that day. And I've kept my vow.

Here's the deal. I do my best to be done with Christmas shopping by November 1st. Sometimes that happens, sometimes life prevents it. Most years this has meant that I don't have to deal with the crowds or even the decorations and pop Christmas music being played over and over. And over. For the record, if you are sick of that music, think about the people who hear the corporate holiday cd played thousands of times over the course of the season. I'm surprised they don't all rebel and start throwing merchandise at the speakers (or us) by December 1st. Some of you might be thinking I'm crazy and why in the world wouldn't I want to shop to Justin Bieber's version of some previously sacred tune? The answer is simple: I want the Christmas season to actually be about Christmas. And the way America is going, that's getting harder and harder. The Christmas creep means that I've got to be finished shopping before Halloween to avoid the overblown Christmasland of the stores. Really, people?

I want to make something clear. I love Christmas. The reason I shop so early and am finished with that aspect of it is because I love Christmas so much that I actually want to be able to enjoy it. To remember what it's actually about. To not have December be my busiest, most stressful month of the year. To let my son see a mom who is just resting, soaking in the joy of the expectation of her Savior, rather than running from store to store frantically buying stuff, so busy that I even forget to do our advent calendar with him in the mornings. I want what he experiences in that final month before Christmas not to rile him up for what will be under the tree but to be a chance for him to continue to learn about this God who loved him enough to send his Son to earth in the form of a little baby- to really ponder that unbelievable, world-altering, life-changing good news. To cultivate in him at a young age the idea that Christmas isn't about Macy's or Santa or, to be blunt, him. I want the story of Christmas to saturate our household so much that when the day actually arrives the presents under the tree aren't the focus because it's not what we've been waiting for. Jesus is the focus because HE is what we've been waiting for. For the record, this is why we don't do Santa or Elf on the Shelf around here. I never want my son to think that Christmas morning is about him or that it's some kind of reflection of how well he has behaved this year. We give gifts because we give them. Not because he deserves them.

And I've decided that there is one kind of Christmas creep that I should be supporting. Advent is this beautiful time when we often get better about creating and implementing family traditions that point to our Savior. And why, for goodness sake, shouldn't that creep into the rest of my year? I should be creating these types of traditions for February and June and October, not just late November when we're setting up the advent calendar and manger scene and wondering, yet again, what this Jesse tree thing is. Sure, we talk about God around here, we say our prayers, we discuss what we learn in Sunday school and read the Jesus Storybook Bible to our son like everyone else our age seems to do, but what daily practices are we implementing into the life of our family to make sure that we are not just worshiping our own family life but that we are actually worshiping God?

This advent, with the shopping done and the decorations going up this coming weekend, I'm looking forward to peaceful mornings over coffee to ponder this question. How can the real Christmas creep into the rest of our year? How can I cultivate an atmosphere of joy and expectation of encountering the living God well after we take down the tree and turn off the Christmas lights?

And how, for the love of all that is good and holy, can I avoid hearing any more Justin Bieber music ever again? 

Chocolate Calendars and Being Enlarged

Growing up, my only real understanding of the word Advent was undeniably linked to chocolate. Each year, around Thanksgiving, we'd get one of those little cardboard calendars with all the windows in it. And then, each morning from then until Christmas, we'd get to open up one little window and start the day with a piece of, to be quite honest, pretty terrible tasting chocolate. Even though this was not a gourmet experience, I looked forward to it each year. When would we start the advent calendar? When would my door be adorned with a hanging festival of treats destined to rot my teeth and create nervous sugary energy for my first class of the day?

One of the great things about going away to college and getting involved in faith communities of people with varying backgrounds is that you begin to learn about other traditions.  Meeting and living life with so many people of various backgrounds in the past 14 years has shown me that there's so much more to Advent, even beyond all  the quirky family traditions out there.  My church didn't talk much about this current season- sure, we did it up for Christmas Eve, singing all the carols and rejoicing in the Christmas story, but I had no real idea that the season before that glorious night had any real purpose to it.

As a perk to my job I receive a box of books every other month. These are usually new releases from InterVarsity Press- I think the ideas is that as campus ministers we're the best way of getting the word out on a hot new book. So, I'm supposed to read these and then pass them along.  Admittedly, I rarely open these books. Maybe I'll read the back cover and possibly glance at the introduction. To be honest, I already have so many books on my shelves crying out to be read that these books usually find a place beside those, to be read at some distant time.  Last year, however, I remember opening up that box and seeing this book called Living the Christian Year. At the time, I was on sabbatical and navigating church hunting and trying to be open to a more liturgical and traditional way of understanding the Christian life. So, after reading the back and glancing through the intro I decided to commit to it. Ironically, though, as the chaos of pre-Christmas life took over, the book ended up back on my shelf.

This year, however, as the beginning of Advent coincided with some deep disappointments and setbacks, I ran back to that shelf and vowed that I would, finally, figure out what this Advent thing is all about. No poor-tasting chocolate substitutes, but the real thing. And I have been so met in the searching.  Kathleen Norris, who is quoted in the book, says "I've learned how much the Advent season holds, how it breaks into our lives with images of light and dark, first and last things, watchfulness and longing, origin and destiny."  And as I've read through this book and sat in the scriptures that are meant to frame this season, I have felt a deep mystery about it for the very first time. A deep longing and expectation, not that God will answer my own selfish prayers, but just that I would know the Christ child. That I would expect God's movement in our world. That I would desire more than what my own eyes can see and my own dreams can hope for.

The main idea that the author sits in for the season of Advent is the idea that we are enlarged by waiting. That through restraint, quiet, retreat, fasting and rich tradition, our own souls become so filled with longing for God that they are literally grown during this time. He asks some great questions. "How can we experience Christ coming anew into our already full lives? How can we be absorbed in hope when we are so harried? How can our lives be enlarged in so brief a time?"

Ultimately, he answers these questions with the following quote from Lucy Shaw.

During the waiting times God is vibrantly at work within us.And if through the Spirit of God we have been united with the Father in dynamic relationship, if God has sown his gospel seed in us, then Jesus is being formed within us, little by little, day by day. But we have to wait if the Word is to become flesh in us.  And that kind of waiting feels like work." 

If you're like me, waiting feels totally counterproductive. Who am I to sit back on my heels and wait for something to happen when there are roughly 2 trillion things to be thinking about and accomplishing at any given moment. Shouldn't I be able to DO something here? Can't someone write a book about advent with three neat little steps to help me accomplish this enlarging work of my soul?

But that's just it- the ringing answer is no. Probably someone has actually written a book that will tell me exactly what to do, but I'm pretty sure I shouldn't read it.  I'm pretty sure that really the only thing I'm supposed to do is step back and wait. Trust that the living and active God is deeply at work in my soul, stretching it and filling it with deep expectation for only Him.

This is not easy or passive work but surely this is better work than the enlarging that a chocolate calendar would likely accomplish at this point in my life!  My prayer is that, rather than consume a piece of bland chocolate each morning, God would slow me down before the day even starts. That the racing mind that I awake to each day would be stilled in the early morning light so that my day might not reflect our cultural obsession with busyness and consumerism this time of year, but that it would undeniably point to the Christ that I am waiting for.