Celebration of Christmas

by Julia Graves

Here I sit in my favorite chair wrapped in a warm blanket sipping on my soy late. I consider this a small piece of Heaven. I look forward to this daily ritual of luxury. As I sit my mind wonders over yesterdays events.

After Church I went home and readied the holiday meal. A simple meal prepared with love. The desserts that were hand made and loving prepared by the children were set out to thaw; chocolate covered cheese cake, chocolate cookie cream cheese truffles, cheery and apricot breakfast braids.

Next I brought out the everyday dishes chipped and warn from years of daily use. Basic white Corelle, it is amazing how it can bounce off the floor. If dishes could talk these would be filled with many, many exciting stories. This is and will be the only set of dishes I will ever own. They are loved dearly because of all the memories attached to them.

Then I finished off the preparation of the Christmas Stockings. These stockings are filled with an assortment of chocolate kisses, rice paper candy, maple syrup Santa’s, flavored coffee and hot chocolate samples, corn nuts, etc…. food items the children learned to love while growing up. Each brings up a memory of some past wonderful childhood experience. I look forward each year to traveling to different stores to collect these items. They are small, however the memories are rich. When the children dig into the stockings the experiences are discussed with smiles and laughter. These small items are inexpensive, the experience is priceless.

The chairs are placed around the living room, just enough to accommodate the number of guests. The aroma of the holiday meal fills the air. Every thing is ready, my excitement grows. The door bell rings. The guests enter who have traveled from many different locations, the meal is served, and the home fills with laughter and conversation. Empty dishes are gathered and put to soak to be dealt with later. Dishes can wait, moments with family and friends are more important.

Our attention turns to the gifts we have brought to share with one and other. Pickles organically grown and canned, hand print chocolate chip and thumb print cookies (these are gigantic because they are made by adult children’s hands!), and the deserts, truffles, coffee and cheese cake. My mother brought a note book entitled her memories. It is the beginning of her memoir. It shows her humble beginnings in the Deep South. There is a picture of the three room shack she grew up in, the outhouse, and the well where she drew water as a child. Her first set of shoes for school were made out of old truck inner tubes. I read her history and am in awe of how far my mother has come from such humble beginnings.

Desert is served and the conversation changes to our plans for the upcoming week. Leftovers are packaged to be sent home with the children to be enjoyed later. Coats are retrieved, hugs given, goodbyes said. The door is close and the house is once again quiet.

My mind wonders to the Holy Family. I think of the similarities of the Christmas story and my family experience. Mary and Joseph traveled many miles to be counted and taxed; Christ started his life sleeping in a trough designed for feeding livestock. I think of the Epiphany and the Wise Men that came bearing gifts. Gold, a gift fit for a King; Frankincense, some believe carries prayers to heaven; and Myrrh used for treating wounds and also used in the preparation of the dead.

For many churches the Epiphany marks the end of the Christmas celebration and the beginning of Ordinary Time. The colors of celebration, white and gold are packed away and exchanged for green. Similar to what we do with our Christmas decorations. They are put in a box and stuck in the attic or garage for next year. We sit and wait for the change of the seasons to spring and the greening of the landscape. And await celebration of Lent.

Challenge the ordinary and continue the celebration of Christmas. Don’t pack Christ’s humble beginnings into a box. May we continue to celebrate the birth and revealing of our Lord, Jesus Christ, God among us!

Where Are The Answers?

by Kyle Wiseley

It seems to me that there are four basic questions with which all humanity wrestles:

· Where did we come from?

· Why are we here?

· Where are we going?

· What does it all mean?

I suspect every individual, regardless of religious tradition or outside of such, ponders these questions at one time or other. In fact, it seems to me that all religious thought finds its foundation in these questions. I suspect that our individual commitment to this inquiry spans a continuum from those of us who have little or almost no interest in the matter, to those of us who are almost obsessive in finding the answers. The greater portion of us fall somewhere in the space between these two extremes.

Personally, I find this to be a “good news/bad news” situation; the bad news being that there are no answers, but the good news is that the questions are amazingly interesting and the process of seeking those perpetually elusive answers is one of the mechanisms by which we accomplish spiritual growth.

Different faith traditions approach this conundrum in a vast variety of ways, and even within some specific traditions the approach ranges across the entire continuum, with some finding definitive answers within scripture or institutional tradition and others finding nourishment in the seeking process itself. I can only relate the reality of my experience drawn from my personal faith journey, and by no means do I assert or even imply that mine is the correct or only way to approach the matter.

My experience began in a strict religious environment where there were a lot of definitive answers accompanied by stringent rules of behavior. Despite the sincere dedication of my parents to that particular approach to religion, I found there only confusion and overpowering guilt and never inner peace. Once I reached a place in my journey where I could develop appreciation of religious practice based on a balance of my own intellectual reasoning and my personal intuitional conclusions which seemed valid, was I able to find the sense of joy, awe and inner peace that gave meaning to my existence.

As Episcopalians we tend to put more emphasis on questions than answers and find support and nourishment as we attempt to assist each other in our struggles with the questions. Hopefully, we offer a safe haven where all who are searching can find support and companionship on our mutual journey towards the ineffable mystery.

Advent Calendar

by Kathy Douglass

Come, Thou long expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free

From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in Thee

Her name is Mary Elizabeth. She’s 96 years old. She’s my grandma.

She lives in the valley in a simple room at a comfortable place, the kind of place where people approaching the end of their lives, who cannot live without help, settle in for as long as they have. Here, her most basic, human needs are tended to by underpaid young women with lavish tattoos and loving hearts. They care for her so tenderly, washing, changing, turning. With gentle voices, they call her “sweetie”, they call her “dear”.

By her bed on the wall is a calendar. A black felt pen rests within reach on the nightstand by her bed, somewhere between the tissues, the emergency call button and the bowl of butterscotch candies she has kept nearby for as long as I can remember. Each morning, as she wakes to a new day, she crosses “yesterday” off the calendar.

She can’t clothe or wash herself, she can’t walk or throw an extra blanket across her bony feet. She can’t open the mail or tend to her African violets. But she can raise that pen to the wall each morning and cross off another day.

Grandma isn’t waiting to die. No, she’s just waiting. “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” has leapt off the pages of the hymnal for her.

Jesus has come to her over and again in her 96 years. He came to her in the tin-shack laden industrial town in Pennsylvania where she was born. He came to her in the lonely days of growing up with a daddy who was on the road, playing pro baseball, and whose image on a trading card could never make up for his absence. Jesus came to her as a young woman, as she gave her life to a man who dreamed of giving his life to the ministry. He came to her in the loss of a longed-for baby girl. He came to her in the suffocating silence that crept in after that loss, as she determined to never speak of such deep wounds. Jesus came to her in the small towns and churches filled with people who needed more than a young preacher and his wife could sometimes spare. He came to her as she found a way to spare what she could.

He came to her in the loss of her son, my dad, a loss that crushed her not so much because of the cancer that killed him, but the spirit of rebellion that plunged him into confusion and brokenness a few years before the diagnosis. She never dreamed her grown son would take a prodigal turn, and when she finally spotted him heading for home, he was taken.

Jesus came to her as she spent her later life tending to the lonely and forgotten. And He was there on that morning a few years ago, when grandpa touched his fingers to his lips, waved her a tiny kiss, and took one last breath.

Jesus has made himself at home with grandma ever since she invited Him to. As a fair companion on her journey, He’s held her through these sorrows and losses, but also kept sweet company with her through every joy, every delight, every surprise. And even in the mundane moments that make up a life, ninety-six years worth, He has been her ever-present Friend.

On a recent visit, I pulled a chair close to her bed, held her withered hand in my fleshy one, kissed her and stroked her face. I quietly told her a few stories; I asked her the simple questions I ask every time I visit. I asked if I could take her picture. She said I could, as long as her hair looked alright. I told her she was lovely. As we sat together in the stillness, I looked at the calendar. December. The fourth, the fifth, the sixth, all crossed off. I imagined her waking up in this room in the morning, reaching for her black pen, and crossing off the seventh. And in that moment, I realized, this is her Advent Calendar. This is her way of watching and waiting in the dark, in this time between Now… and Not Yet.

For years, grandma and grandpa kept a tiny ceramic plaque on the wall in their home. It followed them to a dozen humble parsonages; it kept them company through 70 years of marriage. It’s nailed today to the wall by the door in her room, positioned in such a way that she can see it from her bed. The inscription simply reads, “Perhaps Today”. I understood, even as a little girl, what that meant. Someday, Jesus will come back. Someday. “Perhaps today”. I never questioned it, but I did wonder. And sometimes I wanted to ask them both: ”I know you want Jesus to come back, but, um, grandpa, grandma, don’t you wanna live?”

Yes, yes she does. She wants to live. So she marks off her calendar, her calendar of Advent. About death, C.S. Lewis said that “one day we will turn the corner, and all our dreams will come true.” She wants to live in that place of dreams come true. “No more crying, no more separation, no more dying.” The place where “these former things are passed away”.

Her body is dying, and yet she is alive with the spirit of anticipation, the spirit of Advent. Her longing heart is filled with joy. She believes that Jesus will come to her still, again, and finally.

She’s 96 years old. She’s long-expected Him.

Let It Be

by Jack Bevilacqua

I’ve heard many people complain about the ads and decorations for Christmas starting up even before the Thanksgiving turkey has been lifted from the oven. We woefully note that our whole culture is in such a hurry. Celebrating Advent can be a way of slowing down this wave of commercialism for us. In my former church, we marked the four weeks of Advent by the lighting of candles - waiting to light the center candle on Christmas day. But on Dec. 26th, Christmas was definitely over! Then, depending on how long the needles stayed on the tree, we would begin to remove all the decorations.

Understanding Advent as a season has given new meaning to this time of waiting and has slowed down this whole process. In the Episcopal Church, “Christmas carols” are not sung during Advent. They are reserved until the baby is born. Only “songs of waiting” are sung. Christmas begins with the birth of Christ and continues through those famous “twelve days of Christmas.” Christ is usually born a “preemie” in our culture – delivered way before the due date! So this year I will sing the waiting/longing song: “O come, O come, Emmanuel” at Advent and enjoy the anticipation of singing “O come, all ye faithful” on Christmas Day!

I have yet to encounter a music CD strictly made for Advent, so I have been giving thought to great Advent songs and carols. It occurred to me the other day that this season of waiting and of “The Annunciation” was sung about in the famous Beatles song, “Let it be.” Growing up with this song, I had completely missed that it is based on Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel’s announcement that she would become the mother of the Messiah. “Let it be to me even as you have said.” Wow, suddenly Paul McCartney’s lyrics gain new meaning.

When I find myself in times of trouble

Mother Mary comes to me

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

And in my hour of darkness

She is standing right in front of me

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be.

Let it be, let it be.

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people

Living in the world agree,

There will be an answer, let it be.

For though they may be parted there is

Still a chance that they will see

There will be an answer, let it be.

And when the night is cloudy,

There is still a light that shines on me.

Shine until tomorrow, let it be.

I wake up to the sound of music

Mother Mary comes to me

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be.

Let it be, let it be.

There will be no sorrow, let it be.

This year I am letting Mary’s wisdom and the Beatles help me slow down and reflect on this coming birth – the baby is not yet born. I will wait to see God’s plan unfold in my life. LET IT BE!

The Advent Conspiracy

by Ian Doescher

When I was a kid, Christmas meant presents, and now as a parent I’m hoping that association isn’t being made for my own children. A couple of years ago, Jennifer and I learned about The Advent Conspiracy. If you haven’t heard of it, The Advent Conspiracy is a movement to encourage people to give money to relief and aid organizations in lieu of giving gifts. (The Advent Conspiracy itself doesn’t ask for or accept donations.) In other words, make a donation in someone’s honor rather than giving them that plastic Christmas tree they don’t want or need. The Advent Conspiracy’s web site (www.adventconspiracy.org) has excellent videos explaining what the project is all about. One of these says, “Everyone wants Christmas to be meaningful, but instead it turns into shop, shop, shop—credit cards, traffic jams, to-do lists, useless gifts. Then off to church. Sometimes we’re just glad to survive it. Did you know Americans spend $450 billion on Christmas every year? So we ask—how did Jesus celebrate? Jesus gave himself.” The video goes on to talk about the worldwide problem of lack of clean water, saying, “The estimated cost to make clean water available to everyone is $10 billion. $10 billion to solve world water, $450 billion spent on Christmas. Do you see what could happen?"

This year, we (meaning both my family and the St. Luke's church family) are trying to take more seriously than ever the goals and ideas of The Advent Conspiracy. Look for announcements soon about special Advent Conspiracy groups at St. Luke's. I also invite you to visit the web site and watch the videos for yourself, and think about your own giving this Christmas season. And may we all have a blessed Advent and Christmas season.

Advent

by Julia Graves

In my household a Nativity set remains on display throughout the year. It provides a daily reminder of the Holy family and the humble beginnings of Jesus Christ. It is made out of Olive wood and was imported from Bethlehem. Every time I dust it and oil the fine wood I contemplate on the life journey of Jesus.

We have another Nativity set that is taken out only during the Advent season. It is much larger and each piece is separate. The first Sunday of Advent the Crèche is located in a prominent place in the main living area of the house where everyone can see it. The inside is filled with fresh straw. The only things that reside in this Crèche are the animals who normally reside there. The rest of the Nativity set is separated and located in different rooms of the house. The wise men, Shepherd, Mary and Joseph, each make there separate journey to the Crèche.

This journey takes months to complete. The Crèche has a light that is turned on after the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day. This represents the star the Wise men and the Shepherd followed. The groups are moved to different rooms of the house. This enables each child to have a visit from each group and to assist them on their journey toward the Crèche.

Advent is a time of preparation and anticipation. It is also a time revisit past traditions and create new ones. Enjoy the journey.

Anticipation

by Kyle Wiseley

I suppose in some ways this seems like a strange topic for this time of year, but for me the fall has always initiated a feeling of anticipation. A new school year is under way. The holidays are ahead, promising opportunities to spend time with family and friends who one doesn’t see often. In our church life a new program year is under way. Soon Advent will begin with a new cycle of Sunday lessons and the anticipation of Christmas. As the old year winds down we are offered renewed chances to do better and repair past mistakes and consider new responsibilities.

This year, we Episcopalians have are also anticipating the choice of a new Bishop for our Diocese. To many of us that may not seem very important, yet to some, particularly those in leadership roles and ministries, it will have a significant impact.

At the heart of anticipation is hope. In fact, anticipation without hope is dread. Where does one find hope, especially in a contemporary world where life moves so swiftly and our cultural and political environment can seem overwhelmingly unmanageable? Just as anger is always based in fear, so hope has its foundation in trust. Trust is tricky. It often depends so much on our having had good experiences -- of life turning out the way we wanted. But when things don’t go our way, or more importantly yet, when really painful things happen, our trust in the goodness of life is severely shaken.

It has been my experience that when those dark times appear, I need to go inward and that can be a scary journey. I find that it helps if I have close friends upon whom I can rely to stand by me in those intimate times when I might otherwise isolate in self-pity and despair. The success of my emerging from my problems while maintaining a sense of optimism, depends on who I am at my very core. And if I can find that core and give up myself as I would define myself, there awaits Something that sustains and nurtures me even when all else is sorrow and sadness.

So even in the worst of times I find that I can look forward in anticipation rather than dread, and know that the One who has promised to be with us always will keep his promise and see me through. One of my favorite scripture passages is the final lines of the Psalm 100: “For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his faithfulness endures from age to age.” I can think of nothing for which I could be more thankful during this season.

Young and Old

by Kathy Douglass

I work in the city, and on any given day, there’s plenty to see on a sneak-out-of-the-building-for-a-few-minutes-break:

eggplant and peppers at the Farmer’s Market

outdoor chess matches at Pioneer Square

strong young men hauling their food carts to their corner

tiny lights adding a twinkle to the grand old trees on 5th Avenue

jewelry vendors displaying their hand-crafted wares on the sidewalk

new sculptures unveiled along the transit mall

the harried, the oblivious, the wandering

A sight I especially enjoy is “kids on a rope”. A few times a day, a nearby daycare center gathers up the kiddos and ropes them together for the day’s fresh-air stroll. It makes me smile every time. Toddlers holding on to their assigned knot in the fat red rope, enjoying their own space, but sharing the walk.

It’s their own little bit of journey. The rope reminds them to hold on tight, because it is safer out there when you are holding on. The rope reminds them that they are not alone. Just a bit of rope in front of them and behind, there’s a friendly face, a buddy who is holding on too. And leading them along is someone who is older and taller and wiser. Someone who is familiar with the path because they’ve been following it a long time.

I am observing the blessing it is that St. Luke’s is an intergenerational community. Its part of what draws me: the welcome and tenderness that’s generously offered to the little ones, the silver-haired ones, and the somewhere-in-between ones.

My own spiritual roots were nurtured in churches where the older and the younger met together to worship, to pray, to work, to eat, to cry, to celebrate, to walk. I still remember so many of them: Mr. Throckmorton, the McBees. Mrs. Plant and Selma. Mr. Moothart and Alma Beckley. Mrs. Crawford and Mrs. Fast. I remember a gal named Sandy. When I was about 7 years old and she was, oh, maybe 15, she took a special interest in me. I got to go exploring with her at the store where her father was a grocer, I got to play the piano at her house. A few times she took me out for ice cream for no particular reason. I felt like the only 7 year old girl in the world. I could hardly believe that someone like her was paying any attention to someone like me.

My roots thrived in that deep, rich soil of Christ-followers who were older and taller and wiser. I was starting out on my journey, and they were familiar with the path because they’d been following it a long time. I needed their wisdom, their perspective. I needed to be present to their compassion and grace, their faith. The kind of faith that comes from what is suffered and borne, from what is hoped for and not yet seen. I needed to be present to the gentleness that comes with years of living as forgiven, as beloved.

When Rev. Jennifer included me a few months ago in an email message meant for young adults, I was glad she didn’t ask to see my ID. Just a few winters from now, I expect to find an AARP membership packet in my mailbox. But I do my best to hang onto some child-like traits, or at least dust them off when I’ve let them sit for too long because I am busy being oh, so very serious. The little ones remind me of these things: to laugh with your whole belly, to cry with all your tears. To ask questions without checking to see how it sounds before I speak. To be present because there’s just nowhere else to be. Last year I was wandering around the children’s section of a used bookstore in Seattle and came across a poster spoofing Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-seller, “Eat, Pray, Love”. The brightly-colored poster showed the contented faces of children surrounding these words: “Snack, Play, Nap.” Now that’s some child-like behavior I can get behind. I need the little ones in my community. I need their sense of wonder, their openness, their spirit.

Rev. Jennifer shared at the Quiet Day a few weeks back that while our paths may diverge, our destination is the same. I don’t know what happened to Sandy. Our paths diverged a long time ago. But I believe that the connection we had all those years ago will be found intact one day, when the destination we share is reached.

When we value who we are, our stories, and what we have to offer, the young can teach the old, the old can teach the young.

A friend asked me a few weeks ago: “Kath, are we growing old together?” I was delighted to say, “Yes, yes we are.” We’re kids on the rope, holding on tight, because it’s safer out there when we’re holding on. We’re seeing just ahead of us, and just behind, the compassionate, spirited faces of companions, both young and old, who are sharing the walk with us. And we’re being led by Someone who knows the way.

Sacrament and Godly Play

by Judy Bevilacqua

Recently I had a long conversation with a friend about the meaning of the word “sacrament” and how this word gets fleshed out in the 21st century. It was a little intimidating to be asked this question, as I am still new to the liturgical church and its’ sacramental emphases and also because my friend is quite educated and philosophically astute! I had to ask myself, “How is it that I experience the sacraments?” I found out that I am not very theological about the subject. I am rather like the kid whose parents take him to OMSI hoping to excite a thirst for all things scientific, but their child would rather sit in the simulated rocket and just push the buttons and dream of space travel! (Yes, my Myers-Briggs is INFP.)

That’s why I like it when Rev. Jennifer conducts the Eucharist at Family Service. The kids are invited right up to the sacred table and taught about family hospitality - they are not bowled over with a sermon on transubstantiation or consubstantiation. To a child what the Host is or if it’s transformed when consumed is just not on their radar. You just eat the bread! And see what happens! Like Psalm 34 exclaims: “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!” It’s natural.

And I guess it is true for me, that the sacraments are best when experienced naturally. It’s a way we learn about God by the “doing of the thing.” It’s caught…. not taught. It captures our imagination. It is mystery and metaphor.

Emily Dickinson had a bit of a falling out with the church, (not God). She felt excluded. Her writing shows how she came closest to experiencing God when she was connected to the natural world. Her experiences of grace were discovered in nature:

Oh Sacrament of summer days,

Oh Last Communion in the Haze --

Permit a child to join.

Thy sacred emblems to partake --

Thy consecrated bread to take

And thine immortal wine!

In her little tome, The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work," Kathleen Norris finds her sacraments in the mundane: dishes, laundry and ironing. Those daily, mindless and sanctifying repetitions of duty became her rosary beads of beatitude, her bells to mark the hours.

Make no mistake, I find the sacraments serious and holy, not trivial or shallow. But at my spiritual best I am a child. As a parent, I learned that “child’s play” is actually the work of learning. It’s serious business to the child! So too are my attempts to enter this sacramental life. When my loving Father sees my desire to “play house with God’s dishes,” He smiles. Because this is how I learn! It’s the place where our creative imaginations and His mystery come together. One day after baking Eucharist bread, I wrote a nursery rhyme:

Bread for body and blood for wine

are served on little plates of thine.

All partake. All are fed.

All are nourished with wonder bread!

Perhaps it really is that simple. When I read the gospels, The Last Supper is not a complicated scene. It’s a natural place, a dinner table. We are all at that table. In sacramental living, mystery and metaphor get to trump the playground bullies of logic and skepticism. And faith finds her voice and sings from the altar. And sacrament may be, after all, just the adult version of “Godly Play!” It’s great to be His children, His family, circling His table. So when Rev. Jennifer extends the bread to the children and says: “this is Jesus,” - they just eat it and believe! Me too.