Transmission

Captured at behind Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, near Bronx River Houses, last winter.  May we walk with eyes open to the beauty and opportunity around us.

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The last post by Dan about the Second Coming inspired me to write about it as well.

We may be inclined to ignore the Second Coming because there simply is no way to tell when it can happen, and Christ makes this explicitly clear (Only the Father…). In fact, the only thing we can expect regarding Christ’s return is that it will be totally unexpected. He will come like a thief in the night, and all of our vigilance is for naught.

Indeed, in almost every interaction with the Lord both biblically and in daily experience, the Lord acts in ways we cannot anticipate, and if we could anticipate them, they happen so contrary to our assumptions we make fools of ourselves.

The Magi followed a star to the land where a King had just been born. And being learned men, with much common sense, they did the sensible thing and went to the political authority of that area, King Herod, probably expecting to find his heir.  How could they have possibly deduced before getting there, that their King was born a bum in a manger?

A friend recently got hit by a car, and is temporarily incapacitated. Between groans of frustration that they can’t do the things they were hoping to soon do, and lamentations of their injury’s pain and inconvenience, they told me the accident happened to allow them to re-adjust the parts of their life that needed happening. Now I hope that a Divine smack-down via really fast and heavy metal object would not be all that necessary for someone to make a little life adjustment. But it does fit the narrative of a personal Second Coming, where the Lord comes to one unawares and as unready as a deer in the headlights, like the Zen sword master to the apprentice.

Our Father seems to be exacting, discerning, uncomprimising, and endowed with a screwy sense of humor. But that’s par for the course for most fathers. And as with most fathers, we cannot fight, compromise, or bargin with God and hope to come out on top. We can simply love the Lord and delight in all the unexpected gifts that catch us so offguard

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Something dawned upon me today as I thought about this “waiting” thing in Advent. I’ve been puzzled over what it is I’m supposedly waiting for. As Ula and others have indicated, the Lord’s birth already happened over 2000 years ago: it feels in a way like we’re waiting for a rerun.

However, maybe this waiting for the re-enactment of the birth of Christ is actually symbolic of something else: our hoping, our yearning for Christ’s return in glory, his second coming to Earth. We’ve heard about this event time and time again throughout Christian traditions: “O Come O Come Emmanuel,” “Thy kingdom come/Thy will be done,” “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again,” “be ready, for the day of the Lord cometh like a thief in the night.” Christ’s return is something we’ve always been told is on its way.

With that belief in mind, Advent could become a far more weighty time of expectation. However, here’s the problem: I don’t know so much as I ever really believed in the Second Coming. There are many Christians out there who take it very much to heart, from the people who made the “Left Behind” movies, to those who believe global warming and the Middle East conflict are sure signs of the End Times, but for me, I don’t think I ever really bought it.

Although my Catholic upbringing made me quite aware of hell and sin, along with virtue and redemption, the Second Coming was always kind of an ancillary tenet, something we all agreed on but didn’t talk about too much.

It’s strange, because so many other “fantastical” parts of of the Nicene Creed, are perfectly legitimate to me. I honestly CAN accept that Christ was born of a virgin, that he did perform miracles on Earth and was resurrected from the dead. I can believe in these things as miracles from a very different time from ours, the distance of antiquity perhaps making it much easier to accept.

However, when I turn my head away from that age and back to ours, the idea of the Second Coming seems somewhat preposterous. It seems as unlikely and mythical as Santa’s sleigh landing on my rooftop. These days, the world seems much less ripe for such God’s arrival in fire and light: it seems more like the miracles and the disasters are ours to make. As Edgar O’Shaugnessy put it, these days it seems “we are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams.”

But more importantly, my Christian upbringing taught me that that Christ is here already. That the second coming already happened, in a way on the day of Pentecost, when the Lord poured out his spirit on the people and gave them the power to do his will on Earth. If we are the body and blood of Christ on earth, then what need have we to wait for his return?

As the old song goes, “We have been told we’ve seen His face and heard His voice alive in our midst:/ Live in my love with all your heart.”

If that is the commission we’ve been given, then why wait?

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In Monday’s gospel reading, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane, preparing for surgery.  At his most human and most vulnerable, realizing that the outcome is not entirely up to him. “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

But, advent is for me always Mary’s time. The painting by Henry Tanner is my favorite Mary – at her most human and most vulnerable.  No reproduction could do this life-sized painting justice. Yet, even at this size, we can see a young Mary, a Jewish Mary, a Mary not wrapped up in royal blue. Mary at the moment of being told that she will be carrying God’s son. Her expression, as you stand before her, seems to change. One moment joy is on her face, another moment it is fearful awe. And then there are moments of  “You’ve got to be kidding!”

Mary is at her most vulnerable here. And yet, in a way, at her strongest. Knowing I would be leading ritual for Transmission the week before Christmas, I attended a program on Mary as a Mother given by Rev. Barbara Crafton a few weeks ago. She spoke of Mary’s courage in immediately accepting the announcement of her pregnancy. I said, let me play “devil’s advocate”. I have always been moved by Mary, long before I was committed to any religion or any view of God. But really, what choice did Mary have. God never asked her, never said he would change the situation if she objected.

Barbara answered (and I paraphrase) that the closest analogy she could make was to her own death. I cannot choose the time or the place that I will die. But I can choose the “who”.  Who will I be when I die. Who will I be when I meet God.

My surgery had not yet been scheduled at the time of that conversation with Barbara Crafton, but my aneurysm was present and accounted for, and challenging my every day. I did not offer to lead ritual on December 21 with a guarantee that I would be alive and well on that date, I offered to lead ritual with faith in the value of what we do and what we are.

So, what I ask for in preparation for December 21 is your response. What does Mary mean to you? Is she a part of your faith at all? What challenges does she pose for you, as we countdown (or countup) to Christmas?

Are there prayers, or poems, or pictures or songs that move you? That express challenges?

Like Jesus in the garden, I pray that I will be there in body on December 21. Mary and I will definitely be there in spirit.

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For me, dance can be an act of prayer. In movement I can pray the longings of my heart for which I have no words. In the dance that I have posted below (music by our own Isaac Everett!) I was dancing out my sense of longing, a hopeful expectation, calling out and listening for a response, and finding myself turned around and heading in an unexpected direction. (Oh, and keep watch for the amazing spontaneously transforming sign.) At the beginning of this third week of Advent, I lean forward and look out into the distance, toward the coming of God’s kindom, when God will fill the hungry with good things, raise up the lowly, set the prisoners free, and lift those who are bowed down. May it be so.

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One of my cherished Advent traditions for many years was a choir concert in an old chapel on my college campus.  Here’s a link to O Magnum Myesterium performed by Miami University (my alma mater) Glee Club:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP0QHkvJd84

If you listen to it, close your eyes.  Or even better, turn out the lights and light a candle.  Imagine being packed in on the worn wooden 19th century pew, hipbone to hipbone with townspeople and college students, winter coats occasionally shuffling in the dark.  The choir and stain glass are dimly lit by flickering candles.  You feel a connection to your beloved friends to your side and hundreds of neighbors, transported out of your context to gaze on something larger than yourselves, into the glimpse, the idea, the hope of heaven on earth.  Then?  Now?  How mysterious!

Then imagine yourself as a shepherd, a humble field worker with an indescribable stirring within you at this mystery; the import of this hidden-from-the-world event communicated in a language more felt than understood.  What can you say to your fellow field workers, your fellow townsmen, you G-d about what you have just seen and heard?

Latin text

O magnum mysterium,

et admirabile sacramentum,

ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,

jacentem in praesepio!

Beata Virgo, cujus viscera

meruerunt portare

Dominum Christum.

Alleluia.

English translation

O great mystery,

and wonderful sacrament,

that animals should see the new-born Lord,

lying in a manger!

Blessed is the Virgin whose womb

was worthy to bear

Christ the Lord.

Alleluia!

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Seinfeld created a fake winter Holiday called “Festivus” as an alternative to Christmas when one of the characters became fed up with the seasonal stress overwhelming him, born from the consumerist frenzy that he embraced so fully until he found himself physically fighting a stranger in the store aisles over a doll that obviously (to the audience and anyone else with common sense) would be insulting as a present to a typical male child, especially this character’s son.

Like I said last week, if you find yourself in such a situation, you are at the very least dangerously close to idolatry, and doing Christmas wrong.

And to disdain Christmas so thoroughly as to create a holiday solely in reaction to the common stumbling blocks of love is also wrong. More or less as wrong as disdaining the season with a “bah” and “Humbug” and “what right do you have to be merry? You’re certainly poor enough!”

These are wrong attitudes because they make tragically false assumptions. The Scrooge and Seinfeld attitudes assume that human capacity to love each other and be genuinely joyful is impossible, and that the closest deception we can make is to tolerate people we spend too much time with anyway a little more, at the expense of strangers and at the mercy of evil marketing weenies.

In reality, we geniunely love, and become genuinely joyful all the time. The regular miracle of the season is that though the nights are dark and cold, leaving us farther apart and isolated from each other, where this season should be the most difficult to be joyous and and show love, because the bringer of joy and the lord of love is born in this darkest hour, this is the easiest and most appropriate season for merriment in abundance.

A traditional (and legitimate, in fact wonderful) way to demonstrate our love and bring joy to each other is by saving up resources, searching frantically, and spending much time, energy and “wasting money” to give gifts to our loved ones. After all, how happy an occasion when there’s something you’ve always liked, or perhaps wanted, but never got around to getting for various reasons, and suddenly you get it for free!

There are common dangers though, based on other false assumptions and leading to the maddening Christmas stress that lead to fights with strangers and family members alike. I’d like to put all of the blame on those that think they have nice, cool or hip things people might pay money for, and do their darnedest to convince us that buying their wondrous “ProductMatic(tm)” for someone is the best way to show love and bring happiness to all. But honestly, they might seriously believe this, and for some situations it may be true.

The true dangers lie in the hearts of the givers and receivers. Givers: just because you can get the latest fad doesn’t mean the latest fad is the best gift, or that you should be entitled to an overflow of gratitude simply because you got someone a gift someone else (who took your money telling you this) said it would be.

More importantly, receivers: desire is an easily manipulated emotion and just because someone (who would take money from your friends or family) says this thing is desirable doesn’t make it worth desiring, and just because you desire something doesn’t make you entitled to it. Those that love you (especially parents) will do really stupid things for the piece of plastic crap you think is so valuable, but if they have better sense or less capacity, your desire for the thing can easily outshine the love that the giver has shown in getting it for you.
DO NOT CONFUSE THE GIFT FOR THE GIVING. It is the giving that is ultimately more important.

When you give, don’t give any random thing. Take time to figure out who the receiver is, what they like to do, and what they might be interested in, or something they might realise they need only upon having it. When you give, you are telling your receiver “I love you, and so I have paid particular attention to you over time and want to share with you what wonderful things I discovered about you.”

Avoid arbitrary things. Don’t give a gun-rack to someone that owns no guns a la Wayne’s World. Don’t give things because you like them.

No bunny suits for your son a la A Christmas Story; this is particularly insulting, as you basically say you love yourself at their expense.

Avoid straight up money or gift cards, unless your receiver is a ninja, like Ask a Ninja explains: “a gift card says ‘I have no idea who you are, and that’s exactly what a Ninja needs to hear’” but everyone else needs the opposite. (Exception: I recently received a gift card to a particular grocery store  from someone who I spent time with getting to know and sharing ideas revolving around food, and this gift told me that they paid attention in our time together, valued my thoughts, knew I shopped here anyway, and that I would grow closer to them when I shopped at this store again.)

Avoid things that your receiver has no space for, or clothes that are not in your receivers dimensions.

The best gifts I received through the years were completely unexpected and not even suggested, but were attuned to my interests or needs at the time and could engage me in my labor or recreation.

Receivers: remember that whatever happens, telepathy is impossible, and only God knows the hearts of humans. Your human givers are running on faith, assumption, and no grounds for certainty, even if they are your twin. They have gone out of their way to show you that they love you to their capacity, and what you expect may not be available to them, or they felt they found something more appropriate. Before becoming disappointed, either at not getting your specific desire, or receiving a gift that you believe reflects your giver’s utter failure to understand you, remember two things: first, they tried. Second, they might know you better than you think. Try appreciating whatever gift you receive before sending it to Returns.

If you get a gun-rack and you don’t own any guns, maybe some part of you that they saw wants guns, so you could get a gun, practice in the wilderness, and use your gun-rack for your gun, and suddenly you have a hobby you never thought to love before.

If you get something you don’t have room for, or time for, or lifestyle for, make adjustments to your space or time to try to accommodate the gift. You might find your new adjustment to your life helpful in itself, that fax machine you would never need actually quite useful. I have a too-large stereo that is out of the way, accessible, and convenient.

If you receive something that your giver likes (dear God, let’s pray no pink bunny outfits) reflect that your giver loves whatever this is, loves you, really wants to share this part of them-self with you, and genuinely believes you will find yourself enjoying it. Try to indulge them. Perhaps they are right.

If ultimately you really have no room, space, or inclination for your gift, remember that your gift-giver is prone to sin, just like you (you selfish arse).

Remember that just because a gift is monetarily cheap or worthless doesn’t make it valueless. Remember that an expensive gift is not necessarily a sacrifice to Mammon. Remember that just because someone doesn’t want anything doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be happy with anything.

Remember that you are paying tribute to the Christ in your loved one’s heart. By doing so, there will be no stress, only excitement; no expectation, only surprise; no disappointment, only appreciation, and the idols of a commercialized Christmas will be powerless

Posted by: Patrick | | 1 Comment »

Last week, I wrote about my belief that Advent should serve as a time when we can prepare ourselves to receive God’s message for our lives, by slowing down in the midst of holiday business.

This week I’ve been trying to walk the walk. I’ve tried to slow down and strip myself of distractions, and yet even as I stopped turning on the TV and started trying to meditate, I found fantasies and fictions still have quite a power. I dream of television characters and movies. In times of meditative walking, or other solitary activities, my head has been filling up with pop culture distractions that had been a convenience and a relief recently, whether YouTube clips from movies, TV shows, or of the fantasy novel I’ve been reading.

These fictions serve a purpose when they help me relax after a long day, or take my mind off of heavy issues. However, I’m now finding that they present an obstacle to my ability to be contemplative.

I am missing moments of the day, washing dishes, riding on train cars, walking down city streets: I am not there in mind — I am in a scene from Inception, or imagining moments between Alison Brie and Joel McHale (Jeff/Annie), or the Terry Pratchett novel I’m reading rather than living the moment.

Realizing this, I frustratedly push to clear my mind of the distraction and find a sadness lying beneath. Why? Because without the distractions, reality seems very dull all of a sudden. I am making myself the same breakfasts, lunch and dinners every day, doing the same physical exercises, praying the same way, going the same places and doing the same repetitive tasks at my job every day.

I would have hoped that when I cleared away my distractions, I would have begun to have some sense of vision, or an ability to connect with the voice of God. Instead, there is silence, and the dull white walls in my apartment and office.

But rather than just turn on the radio or TV again, rather than seek somebody else’s fiction to fill up that lonely space, maybe it’ll be helpful for now to be in that emptiness and hear what it might have to say. I’d rather be with my lack of vision, and the unaccompanying unhappiness, than just shake it off and turn on the holiday tunes. Because maybe the emptiness has something to say.

On the Day of the Lord’s coming, it was written in the book of Joel,
”I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”

I pray that I, and all people of faith, may find dreams and visions awakened by this Advent. It may take some slowing down, and wrestling with emptiness, rather than settling for easy distractions (of which there are plenty) but maybe there is something we can hear once we reach the silence.

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a short play by j. Snodgrass:
[audio:nativitymystery.mp3]

Posted by: Isaac | Tags: advent, skit | No Comments »