Advent Day 21: We Are Outraged!

It is the darkest day of the year.  Folks in the northern hemisphere will see just nine hours and thirty-two minutes of daylight today, and if you are here in Ohio, that light is blocked by a thick layer of clouds and rain.  

Time is short to spread the light, to let the light shine in your windows and on your Christmas trees, to let the light leak out from underneath your front doors and into the world.  The light shines in the darkness. The darkness has not overcome it.  

It has tried to overcome it plenty of times.  Daily we have evidence of the darkness trying to quell the light, and yet the light prevails.  How does the light prevail?  By practicing the virtues and characteristics that have overcome darkness for millennia, acts borne from love that grow into the fruits of joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control.

Instead, our fruit looks like self-righteousness.  Judgment.  Materialism.  Indignation.  Christians protest all kinds of things lately. We are outraged, just outraged.  These criticisms and statements are not light.  They are the shadows we make when we try to stand in the place of the light.  Where there ought to be a window to let the light shine through, we erect a wall.

Weigh our outrage against the fruits of the Spirit, the Sermon on the Mount, the definition of love, and the many other passages of Scripture we seek to defend the preaching of in order to determine if our outrage is justifiable.  Is it?  

Because that is the kind of light that is revolutionary.  Love for the weak and the persecuted.  Help for the hungry and poor.  Mercy for the criminal and prostitute.  Grace to the undeserving.  

These are the threats to society that make the darkness tremble. 

"When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 'In Bethlehem in Judea,' they replied, 'for this is what the prophet has written:

'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.'" - Matthew 2:3-6

Advent Day 14: Pajama Movie Night, Waiting out the Darkness

Tonight I made a big bowl of kettle corn and two mugs of hot chocolate with two big marshmallows each, started the first fire of the year in the fireplace, and piled onto the couch with my three beautiful, marvelous, remarkable children who know nothing of senseless rage unloaded onto the spirits of their peers, to watch The Lorax, who speaks for the trees.  The kids got up off the couch to dance when music came on, and then the trees, well, they grew from their tiny seeds into truffula saplings, hundreds of them with soft, pink tufts, blossoming happily ever afters to the tune of "Let It Grow."

Earlier in the movie, though, the Onesler cut down the trees, at first with an ax and then his brothers zoomed through the forest with their cutting-down machine, and one by one the truffula trees fell until the hills were dark and empty.  The Lorax could only speak for the trees and grieve.  And grieve.  And grieve. 

So helpless. 

"We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." (Rom 8:26)

We are seven days away from the turning of the solstice, seven days left of this gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of light.  And then four days later we remember and celebrate the birth of the Light of the world, the Shepherd, the Prince of Peace, the Mighty One, the Lamb of God.  Right now, we wait and wait and wait. 

Words feel so weak and weightless in the presence of darkness, and yet the same Light, Shepherd, Prince, Lord, Lamb, God also called himself the Word.  Truth.  Good news.  He delivered to us his word, gifted us his spirit, and the fruit of his spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  These are not the fruits of the enemy (and darkness and evil are the enemy) who robs us of joy and pours out terror and grief, who lacks all control, who is violent, who takes matters into his own hands, wields his power over the helpless and tries to evade justice.

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

Come, O come, Immanuel.  Be with us.  Come, God of Light and Life and Truth, and speak.

Reposting -- because I so badly want the darkness to pass away.

"Advent: The First Candle"

In November, our lips trembled
with the breath of winter etched
in frost across the windows.
We gazed at dawn’s arrival
casting bands of icy glitter
on brass and copper oak leaves
holding tight to frozen branches,
as if they could stop the turn
of seasons, suspend the spin
of Earth around the sun, but
nothing can slow this orbit
toward the solstice. Oh, Christ,

the prophets spoke about a day
when darkness would pass away.
Shadows broaden, days shorten.
We’ve waited the way I watched
my garden for the reddening
of tomatoes, the fleshing out
of vegetables, how I’ve held
my swollen abdomen, the fullness
of time a season, a month a week
a day an hour away. Now,

we unravel pine swag garland
and drape it on the mantle, melt
a candle, send a signal in a flaming
flicker, hope hot enough to kill
the darkness. Here comes the turning
of the solstice, here comes the night,
the star, and then the etching
of a few more minutes to stand
in the slow burn of frost,
the gradual stretching of the light.

Advent: The First Candle (Poem)

In November, our lips trembled
with the breath of winter etched
in frost across the windows.
We gazed at dawn’s arrival
casting bands of icy glitter
on brass and copper oak leaves
holding tight to frozen branches,
as if they could stop the turn
of seasons, suspend the spin
of Earth around the sun, but
nothing can slow this orbit
toward the solstice. Oh, Christ,

the prophets spoke about a day
when darkness would pass away.
Shadows broaden, days shorten.
We’ve waited the way I watched
my garden for the reddening
of tomatoes, the fleshing out
of vegetables, how I’ve held
my swollen abdomen, the fullness
of time a season, a month a week
a day an hour away. Now,

we unravel pine swag garland
and drape it on the mantle, melt
a candle, send a signal in a flaming
flicker, hope hot enough to kill
the darkness. Here comes the turning
of the solstice, here comes the night,
the star, and then the etching
of a few more minutes to stand
in the slow burn of frost,
the gradual stretching of the light.