Here is the Perfect Place

Today, it is only 9 days until Christmas. Every nook and cranny of this house looks like Christmas — whether it's the hidden pile of gifts, the tinsel that has somehow wandered from the tree to my slippers, or the bucket of Christmas fudge my mother made, just begging to be consumed. It's everywhere. It's in our speakers, on the television, on the radio and twinkling from our neighbors' windows. And we start our days with squeals as the Advent calendar is opened, chocolate tumbles out and a little note reminds us what activity to do and who to pray for. Mother says "Let's make the recipe jars today!" and my little begs, "Christmas cookies today?" and my calendar for the week could all be categorized under some "Christmas" reasoning. Rehearsals, movies, gigs, wrapping, etc. 

I see Christmas everywhere...

And yet, in my own heart, in this tiny beating knot of life within me, I find something missing. This morning, I'm looking at the list, the want-tos, the to-dos, the need-tos, and I whimpered a little. My mother, the one who knows me best and has carried my bleeding heart on her hips since I was a wee babe, comes close. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and I leaned into her warm robe that smelled of her perfume and some Irish Breakfast tea. 

"Whatever it is you think you need to pick up today, let it go," she whispers this into my hair. My hair that is still wild with curls and is knotted on the top of my head. The hair that is unruly somedays and feels a lot like my temperament. Unpredictable. Moody. Wild and knotted. "Don't pick that stuff up." 

And she doesn't mean this in the "don't take responsibility for your life" sort of way. She means it in the "that's not your burden to bear. That burden is too heavy. That weight is not your life sentence." And as her words cover my heart, I feel it. I feel that sense of my heart putting down luggage, putting down my packages and all of the things I'm convinced make me stronger and better. I'm blowing the dust off my hands — the dust of expectations, worries, fears. 

I've often thought about Mary and her constitution. I've wondered at the woman God chose to carry His son. I think about her form and poise in these final days. The nights when she cannot sleep and the anticipation of what's to come seems too heavy to bear, and the delivery is an unavoidable certainty. When she's riding donkey-back and Joseph is leading her and the questions of love and choice, destiny and promise, deliverance and hope are all intermingled with the fear, the worry, the doubt. And God takes her to a stable, and creation around her is coarse, smelly and less than ideal. Here He tells her — lay this burden down. Here your burden becomes a promise. Here your weight becomes a watershed. Here, where you submit your body and soul to a greater plan, it becomes less about you and that's where the beauty happens. That's when the stars shine brighter, the angels sing louder, the earth nearly cracks under the beauty of what has come. 

Here, when the tiny beating knot of life within you begins to beat in sync with the knot of life that will save you. Here's where you find true joy. True rest. True peace.

And I think of this as my own mother wraps her arms around me today. The things that cause my mind and heart to race are nothing but a waste of time. But if I lay low, let them go, give into the greater gift of delivering peace, joy, and The Gospel into this world, I find that the things I have dropped become the things that "grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace." I think of Mary and stables, and I'm letting go of the coarseness in my heart, the mess of soul, and the stench of my sin, and I'm always caught off guard by the beauty when God says "Yes, here. This is the perfect place. Here is where I bring my promise."

I'm back to sipping my coffee, and Toy Story is playing in the background. Several Christmas gifts sit unfinished on the shelf next to me, and my daughter exclaims "I've lost the baby Jesus in the sun room!" She is worried and I tell her we'll find him. "But he's MISSING," she says and bites her lips. "BABY JESUS IS LOST FOREVER."

I want to tell her that's ok — plenty of us enter into this week before Christmas wondering if Jesus is actually going to make an appearance in our lives at all. But there's time, I tell her. We have time to find him. And come Christmas morning, we'll see his face, new.

The Long Christmas Eve

"I once had a dream that I died and went to heaven," my brother mused as we turned along the dark country roads. 

"I didn't realize you could actually die in dreams," I said, watching the frosted fields zip by.

"No, I totally did. And heaven was Uncle Cliffy's house."

"Sounds disappointing."

"No, it wasn't," he smiled. "I was downstairs, and it was Christmas morning. I could hear everyone upstairs, celebrating. And I asked if I could go, and I was told I could. It was awesome."

Christmas.

He went on, "Maybe that's why we love Christmas and having a home so much…we're craving Heaven."

We are getting ready to celebrate the Advent season. And in my heart I know somewhere around January 4th, the buzz will wane and I'll be left wondering how long is too long to leave up a Christmas tree. I know it's going to fly by and I know this — it will not satisfy me.

Don't get me wrong. I love Christmas. I might be obsessed with this season. I grew up in a Christmas-loving family. I will do my best to wring this season dry of every good and sweet gift it brings.

But it will not satisfy that hunger in me that wants to celebrate. The thing in me that leaps for joy amidst every beautiful thing. The craving for all beauty and coming home and all gifts and the ones I love and all joy complete. It's not meant to satisfy that in me.

I celebrate this advent because I know another one is coming. 

I know a Christmas morning is waiting. And we are playing and tiptoeing in a cold, snowy world on a long Christmas Eve. 

Waiting.

Christmastime is Here

Dear blog readers,
friends face to face,
friends in words,
family near,
family far....

Wishing you and yours a cozy, fun, warm, safe,
memorable in all the best ways Christmas.

May the presents pale in comparison to the joy that you experience.
May each moment be rich, sweet
and the sort that makes you want to bottle it up for the rest of your days.

If your heart is happy, revel.
If your heart is breaking, respite.

If your home is full, stop and listen.
If your home is empty, know Love still surrounds you.

Between trees and lights,
chocolate and coffee,
songs and prayers,
paper and hush,
candles and arrivals,
may this Christmas be filled with gratitude, grace and peace as we near the end of another year.

And somehow, someway, I hope you're caught off guard even
by the wonder of the arrival of the Savior.

That he showed up in the middle of our mess,
a Redeemer stepped into the story to rescue back what is His.
The impossible, unlikely and unimaginable happened,
turning this world on a dime,
when Jesus arrived on dark, starry night.

Merry Christmas.

"the way you keep the world at bay for me."

Sometimes all the words in the world can't say what needs to be said. Sometimes the easy silence is the best wonder of all. It's not always about the poetic wrapping of life. Life can be messy, unknown, scary, and still be beautiful in all its open wound, hearts hanging out, raw sort of way.

My great aunt, my grandfather's sister, stood a few inches shorter than me in the kitchen. She struggled to name faces as we looked at the black and white photos on her fridge. She leaned against me slightly as she started to cry, "Most of them are gone now."

These are faces from my legacy. Couples who fell in love, built homes, forged families, stayed at each other's side until death covered them in sleep. There are parts of my story that feel so largely unknown right now, and yet, I'm looking at photos of a life that came, wondered, dreamed, loved and is now collecting dust on an aging aunt's refrigerator.

"Christmas used to be so special," she says through her tears. "Now, we don't see anyone. Most of them are all gone." I am speechless. Completely, totally without words and it seems right. I have no wisdom to tell her. No smart responses. No prose. I am so inexperienced and without knowledge that I won't even pretend that I can understand the weight of her words. So I slip my arm around her fragile shoulders, lean my head against hers and point at another photo.

"Tell me about them," I say. And she starts.

The holidays bring faces I haven't seen in awhile. Stories emerge. Folgers coffee is served in mugs from 1935, pictures tumble yellowed and curled out of photo albums, and wool socks are pulled up to my knees in comfort.

i can't get past how handsome my grandfather is in this photo. "a jolly good man," my great aunt described him.

Winter is wooly bears and wood stoves. Twinkle lights, dark evenings, family movies. Late night shopping with a sister, coffee that seems to work by osmosis and fur-lined trapper hats. It's memories of all the years gone by, all the hopes we've held onto as each new year crests and washes. Winter is when we mourn what has passed behind us, and look to a future that is always new.

It's in all this easy silence, listening, stories, honesty, that I find the rich treasure. I don't know that I'll live to be 97 like my grandmother. Or if someday someone won't be able to remember my name. But all those things that I don't know? That I fear? They are no reason to not live anyway.

Into each other we lean, our tears fresh, our hearts raw, our lives real.

A Christmas Ramble

Last night, in between eating the chocolate and trying to watch Heroes, I was slipping pieces of paper and candies into each door of this little calendar.

Bible verses to speak truth, of coming life.
Families to pray for.
Surprises for cozy evenings.
And chocolate, of course.

This morning we opened up the first door. Out spilled the silver wrapped treasures into her hands and we sat to read about the Root of Jesse. How He will not judge by what He sees with His eyes, or by what He hears with His ears. (And I think, Oh how I need to understand that.) She is listening at my side, sneaking chocolate before breakfast, and I know that it's a lot to expect her to get it. I mean, the whole weight of Advent is something that only unpacks itself more and more as we get older. Right now, she hears words and I'm praying that something in her can differentiate between the bearded man who has flying reindeer, and the man who came to save the world.

Because one is fun to pretend.
And the other is our lifesource.

I don't know how to do it all, but we bow our heads and pray. For the name on the slip of paper. For hope. For the difference between dreams and reality, for patience, for the waiting.

It's all in the waiting until the next thing opens and spills into our hands.

Day one of the Advent season, and while it seems everyone is "adventing" these days, I still feel like I did when I was five. We hopped into the truck to go get the tree and the Christmas music is already playing. Bing croons and she belts out along from the backseat, and I feel that same magic that hits me every year.

It's the chilly night searching for the perfect tree,
the clear early winter sky that seems to dangle the stars low into our view,
a knit cap pulled over my ears,
the faint appearance of our breath as the temperate drops,
Christmas music serenading as the tree stands tall in the corner,
the collection of ornaments all at the bottom where she hangs them,
the pile of glass swept up from all the ones she dropped,
and then this.
This moment where you realize all of the stories and pretending, all of the imagining,
the bells ringing while angels getting their wings...
it might as well be real right now. 
She's looking for wonder and I am praying I can hand it to her over the next 25 days, 25 years even.

The Stories We Tell

It's the Monday after Thanksgiving. The first Monday of the Advent season. I am sneaking a peek at the end of the Advent Readings that our church gave us yesterday. We won't start the advent calendar here until Thursday, but I like seeing where this road will lead.

And I don't know why it never crossed my mind, but their choice for December 24th makes my heart swell.

Next to the scripture to read, it says this, "Jesus makes all things new."

If that isn't the point of Advent, I'm not sure what is. Once upon a time, a child was born and everything changed. Now all of this waiting and hoping, praying and believing in Grace is because one day this story will all make sense. Everything is being made and will be made right. 

Yesterday we sat in a circle and lazily soaked up the last Sunday of the season that allows for picnics and grass picking. I feel like I spend more time listening and thinking these days, more than telling and acting. It's better to sit back and let some things be, let stories come as our elbows get damp and sink slightly into the earth.

He and I wandered with my little M over to the cemetery after the picnic. Some say it's the Irish in me, others say I'm just prone to morbidity, but this cemetery was one of the most beautiful cradles of death I've ever seen. I can't really put into words what it feels like to see name after name, date after date etched in stone. So final. So finished. And yet the trees grow tall, branches dipping low and back to the sky, their life not suffering for all this fertile earth.

There is one family lot where we stop. Four headstones of children gone under the age of 5. All within 5 years of each other. Brothers and sisters, children of Hannah and Alexander, sent to the earth too soon some would say. Nearby their parents lay, some 150+ years ago. These are old stories but something in me rubs raw. I wonder how long Hannah lingered here at their gravesides, how frequently tears fell on these stones.

And I tell him, "These generations, all the ones who have gone on before us, they went through so much more than we'll ever have opportunity for."

The sacrifice. The loss.
The struggle for a better life.
Hard work and dreams for not just themselves, but for generations to come.

Now we reserve the hard work and sacrifice for the nameless or the great. Not that many generations back, I can point to my great grandparents who left Ireland and Poland and settled here. We are children of people who sacrificed for something greater. For a better life for their children, for me, and ultimately, for this little curly-haired girl. 

I don't know that I'll ever fully grasp the weight of those who traveled by sea with dreams. Those with adventurous spirits who claimed land, who started over again with no roots, those who wept at gravesides and worked hard until the end of their days.

Life is short, and even in death, beautiful. Madeleine asks where all the people are and he tries to tell her, "They're buried, in the ground."

"I won't get to meet them?!" she sighs with exasperation. No, love, you won't. But we continue the story they started. Adventuring. Dreaming. Believing for better. Holding out hope.

With the onset of Advent, I want to remember the stories. All of them. The hope that this world is not our home. That a young mother once cradled a baby in her arms, believing against common opinion, believing after hundreds of years, that the story was just beginning.

And it was.

White-Knuckling the Promises

We stirred early this morning. It's seems habit now that M crawls into bed next to me around 6:30 a.m. She tucks her cold little toes into my side and I ask her what she dreamt. This morning, she said "I played."

Sounds lovely. I snuggled her and prayed with her, for her. I want to say I dreamed about playing, but I didn't. I just thanked God that one of us is burden-free, and prayed that maybe I, too, could revel in some carefree-ness.

I'm finding these days it's easy to write about the heavy things.

That's probably why I've written six blogs in the past three days and not hit "publish" on any of them.

There's a time for brutal transparency. There's a time for tears. And lately that time needs to remain in my heart, in my room, in my quiet whispers at dawn.

We opened the fifth door of our Advent calendar last night. Christmas is absent of it's typical nuances this year. It's not worse or better.

Just different.

This year, I pulled out the old "family" Bible I picked up at an auction a few years ago. Something about it's old, aged pages, and spilling articles and notes dated back to the 1800s makes me feel like I'm brushing holiday shoulders with the March family. (Wouldn't that be grand?)

I laugh as M reaches for the chocolate. (She makes her priorities quite clear.) Her giggle is contagious as she grabs a kiss and runs off to catch the last 10 minutes of a Barney Christmas special.

So it's just me. Sitting on the floor. With an old Bible.

"This doesn't feel much like Christmas," I say to myself. No sparkling joy down to my toes. No abundant blessings filling my world.

Just dirty, chocolate hands.

A weary soul.

Ancient words.

These quick moments seem to drop gently on to me.

The reminder hits as Barney sings something about imagining and love.

Isn't the advent about waiting? Anticipating? Hoping?

The long watch. The desperate longing.

The open hands waiting for redemption.

I'm reminded that promises of redemption are made because things seem unredeemable.

Hope shines brightly in the dark, because if we could see, hope wouldn't be necessary.

Grace hits those spots where the wounds gape, because any other treatment wouldn't heal.

Maybe it's not time for celebration yet because we're still in the advent of this season.

Waiting.

Watching.

I'm looking back at promises, white-knuckling them, curling my toes into the dirt and holding on.

If that's not a good starting point for the Advent story, I don't know what is.

Preparing

I have to plan for the fallout. For the inevitable post-Christmas lull that sets in somewhere around January 2, just when beautiful dead pines are tossed on the roadside. Big plastic hearts and boxes of chocolate start replacing yuletide scenes and fake snow. It happens so suddenly, the disappearance of Christmas.

I wondered if I started being more grateful about the every day things, the little moments that happen on December 23 and December 26, that maybe my post-holiday fallout will feel a little less... empty.

Last night my husband and I talked about knowing our Father. As we drove the back roads, twisting and turning past Christmas-lit farmhouses and open pastures of black, I rambled on and on. He was patient, listening to me as I tried to explain why I didn't want to fabricate my faith. How I'm tired of people trying to superimpose their walk with God on me as if it's a formula or a 10-step process. How I've realized that I'm OK with not fabricating anything, and letting God stir the desire for Him in me. Afterall, isn't even the desire for Him a gift from Him? Instead, I want to experience and love what I have, the people around me, the moments that I see Him in every day. He is drawing me in as I beg Him to draw me in. And for me, it looks like this...


14. sitting at the breakfast bar with a sweet 14-month old who dips her binky (pacifier) in my cup of coffee.

15. irving berlin, who makes my Christmas every year that much warmer and beautiful

16. really beautiful skies in the morning and evening

17. family that is growing, loving and changing

18. a friend across the country, who sends a box filled with handwritten notes, tiny bows, arm warmers and bells.

19. those same bells, ringing on my daughter's arm as she shuffles around our home

20. winter winds in Texas. it just helps this Northeast girl's heart.

21. the hope for new things as this year comes to an end.

22. the end of 2009.

23. fresh paint on a stark white canvas

24. singing Christmas carols with my husband in our car, as he holds my hand and we navigate dark, country roads.

24. realizing that I can't manufacture faith, but that it's a beautiful, and sometimes slow, blooming gift.

December Delights

Advent joys...








Little girl's delights...



Winter's fingerprints...



Doing things...

December 5 & 6

We shared chocolate and Christmas memories.

My dad, who isn't one to reminisce outloud, shared some of his own stories of Christmas at Aunt Helen's, and memories of the holidays when I was still little. Mom told us about the year she saw a Betsy Wetsy doll on the tree and figured it was hers since that was what she had asked for. She went on to "take care" of the doll and wash it's hair before anyone woke up for the day.

Turns out it was for her sister.

Jer told us the story of his first guitar. The surprise. The buildup. The excitement.

I remembered the year of the purple toothpick, the magic of Christmas morning and how I had an obliging older brother who never yelled at me when I woke him up before dawn.

What good or funny Christmas memory can you recall?

December 4th

"From Home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to
another. The warmth and joy of Christmas, brings us closer
to each other. ..."

We celebrate family.

The ones we see daily and the ones we shout to across the mountains and fields.

The family of Christ. The family of blood. The family of friends.

The ones who drive us crazy and make us tongue-tied.

The ones we can share dreams, hopes and fears with.

We cry with the family who cries. Who mourn the loss of life, the loss of hope, the loss of stability.

We celebrate with family who sings with cheer, dreams realized, joy and the spring of New Life.

We celebrate family. One year olds who spill bowls of cereal and pitter patter the floors with bins of flour. Mothers and Fathers in spirit and skin and bones, who speak wisdom, love and experience. Our sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, children.

Family is celebrated this Christmas. Are you thankful for the people who surround you and walk life with you, near and far?

aDvent, day 3

Advent- D= Declaration
It was declared in Isaiah 7:14 —
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign- Behold a virgin will conceive and bear a son and you shall call him Immanuel.

December 2

This to smile about...




This to enjoy...

December 1

It's December. The month that distracts us with celebration as the last of the living things hide away, fall to the earth and brace for winter.

Whether it's the year, the season of life, the predictable waves of mood, we opted to celebrate the holidays throughout the whole season this year.

One fun and easy way for us was the Advent Calendar. It's not just a box with surprises or even just a nice piece for decoration. Instead, it's a daily reminder that He's coming. That there is a light about to burst onto dawn's horizon. That with every passing day, His footsteps fall closer to our doors. His songs of redemption and freedom echo in the hallways.

Advent Day 1: ADVENT - Celebrating the arrival of Christ.

(Deuteronomy 18:18) — I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren and will put my words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command.

Mom had one candy for each of us and we laughed as Maddie crushed a peppermint patty between her fingers and into her hair ears nose mouth.

The Advent Season

Advent — (from http://www.crivoice.org/cyadvent.html)

Advent is marked by a spirit of expectation, of anticipation, of preparation, of longing. There is a yearning for deliverance from the evils of the world, first expressed by Israelite slaves in Egypt as they cried out from their bitter oppression. It is the cry of those who have experienced the tyranny of injustice in a world under the curse of sin, and yet who have hope of deliverance by a God who has heard the cries of oppressed slaves and brought deliverance!

It is that hope, however faint at times, and that God, however distant He sometimes seems, which brings to the world the anticipation of a King who will rule with truth and justice and righteousness over His people and in His creation. It is that hope that once anticipated, and now anticipates anew, the reign of an Anointed One, a Messiah, who will bring peace and justice and righteousness to the world.

Advent: arrival that has been awaited (especially of something momentous); the season including the four Sundays preceding Christmas

We are celebrating this season with an Advent Calendar. Each day has surprises, scriptures, small gifts and ways to celebrate love, eachother and most importantly, the celebration of Christ our Hope.



My mother and I have partnered together to make it work this year. Scraps of paper cover my dining room table as we scribble and cut, tape and slice tiny papercuts.



This is how we're celebrating the Advent season this year. Will you join us in one way or another? How are you celebrating?