Transmission

People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

It starts with a bleep at 1  AM, and then a few more bleeps and flashing lights.  Soon the entire hotel building is throbbing as the fire alarm grows in intensity.

This cannot be happening this morning. I am staying at the hotel because I was burned out of my apartment. My friend of 30 years died. I lost everything. Except my life.

Sirens blare. Firefighters arrive and arrive. Huge men, with stoic expressions, carrying medieval-looking hooks and pipes and boxes.  A woman comes in from the outside, looks quizzically at the firefighters for half a second, and takes the elevator upstairs.  I cannot stop shaking.  Long after the firefighters leave, after the managers are smiling, I cannot stop shaking.

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars…”  (Luke 21:25, the gospel reading for the second Monday in Advent.) And yet, in my experience, we all live calamity differently.  The unmistakable signs do not seem universal. Nor are they always writ large.

My sign, my calamity, my foreboding is writ very small – measured in millimeters, visible only with special equipment. An aneurysm in my brain, threatening my perceptions, my intelligence, my very life.

In my entry for the first Monday, I questioned what we are waiting for in Advent, or even whether it is us mortals who are doing the waiting. In this entry, I now know what this mortal is waiting for – and scrambling for – and foreboding. My brain surgery now scheduled for December 16.  

“Now when you see these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” May it be so. For me. For all of us mortals, struggling to see the signs with “power and great glory”.

 

 

 

Posted by: Ula | | No Comments »

Wait for the Lord,  his day is near.

Wait for the Lord,  be strong, take heart.

This beautiful song repeated and repeated and repeated as I waited for communion to circle around to me at table on the first Sunday of Advent. As we took turns handing each other bread and wine, and saying words of institution.

I had always heard that Advent was about waiting, and I had never thought that waiting was a problem for me.  A problem for other people, maybe, but not for me.

Growing up in New York in the middle of the century, waiting was a fact of life. No one drove, we waited for the bus or subway. No television on demand, no dvd’s, we waited all week for an episode to be broadcast. My own favorite kind of waiting was waiting for my turn when playing a board game. I preferred going last. It all made sense. The rules were in front of us, and we all followed them. Why whine?

Then I got  a little older. And sometimes I found myself waiting patiently for things that never happened. And then I started to whine. It’s not fair. I’m playing by the rules. Why aren’t you?

Just what are we waiting for in Advent? For Jesus to have been born 2000 years ago? In what mirror universe do we wait for something that happened long ago?

What rules are we playing by here? Is the bible the equivalent to the instructions on the game box?

If so, Jesus doesn’t play fair.  In the gospel reading for the the first Monday in Advent, Jesus is confronted about where he gets his authority.  His answer? “I won’t tell you.”

Into this mirror universe, I am going to toss a possibility. Perhaps.., just perhaps, we’ve heard it a bit wrong. Perhaps Advent is a season of waiting.  A season when God waits for us.

Posted by: Ula | | No Comments »

This fall, I got to hold a friend’s newborn baby in my arms. He seemed fragile to me, with his delicate fingers, unfocused eyes, soft skull, and feeble neck muscles. It was seeing that final detail in person that made me understand the total dependence of infants on their families in a real and visceral way. He needed my help to hold up his head.

A couple of years ago, I was talking to some friends at a seminary, and they started discussing an ancient Christology that eventually was declared heresy. According to the understanding of the nature of Jesus that was developed in Adoptionism, he was born as an ordinary human and then “adopted” by God at his baptism as God’s spirit, shaped like a dove, descended on him; God’s nature and God’s power did not enter into Jesus until this moment. Two of my friends argued that they believed this to be true, that God’s nature and God’s power could not possibly have rested in an infant’s body.

There was something very disturbing about this idea to me. I want to believe that incarnation means that God understands what it is like to live with the fragility and limitation that being human entails. I want to believe that God knows what it is like to be poor, hungry, tired, unable to communicate clearly, and dependent on people for life itself. When I need God and can’t even put words to my prayer, I want to believe that God “remembers” what it was like.

The scripture in the lectionary for today, the second Sunday of Advent, is Isaiah 11:1-10. It begins, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” This image speaks to me of fragility, of the seedling that needs protection, of the green life that needs care to thrive. This Advent, I am keeping watch for fragile things, the green shoot bursting into my life from some dark corner, the infant idea that needs my help to hold up its head, the emergence of God in delicate and breakable moments. Oh come, oh come Emanuel.

Posted by: Sarah | Tags: advent, bible study, Jesus, musings | No Comments »

From the Book of Common Prayer, December 4

Praise to you who lift up the poor: and fill the hungry with good things.

Psalm 22:22-25

I will declare your name to my people;
in the assembly I will praise you.
You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.

From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows.

Commenting on the activities of the early church, Roman Emperor Julian said, “The godless Galileans feed our poor in addition to their own.”

Lord, keep us from trying to distinguish between the deserving and the undeserving poor.  Help us work to alleviate suffering and injustice wherever we find it, trusting that the rest is up to you.  Amen.

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you

may he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm

may he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you;

may be bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.

Posted by: amber | | No Comments »

I’ve been reading recently about how Advent is supposed to be the time of waiting and preparation for the coming of the Lord. I’ve never been one for waiting—when I travel, if I have the option of driving on a highway at 10 miles an hour, or get off at an exit onto a local road that’ll take me the same amount of time to reach my destination but lets me drive at 40-50 miles an hour, I take the exit. Because it allows me to keep moving, keep busy, avoid being idle.

When I think about this tendency of mine in relation to my faith, I think of the story of Martha from the Gospel of Luke. Jesus visits two sisters, Mary and Martha, and during his visit, Martha gets all wrapped up in the chores associated with his visit while Mary sits at his feet, listening. And Jesus turns to Martha and says,
“Martha, Martha, you worry and fret about so many things and yet few are needed,
indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part.”

Martha sounds a lot like many of us in these busy holiday times, juggling busy work deadlines, getting ready for holiday vacations and trying to take care of gift buying for friends and family.

But few of these are truly needed. We are called to choose “the better part,” to stop fretting, and prepare ourselves to take in what Christmas 2010 may have to reveal to us.

For me, Christmas ceremonies don’t reveal much, don’t mean much in my faith life when just sandwiched into my busy schedule. Such church ceremonies, whether at Easter or Thanksgiving, often seem the stuff of TV re-runs. I’ve seen the mangers and the plays, sung the carols, and sat in the candlelight. Though the feelings and sentiments are often quite comforting and peaceful, I find it can also be all too familiar by the end.

The inherent problem with the liturgical calendar is that on their own terms, they largely take us in an annually-repeating circle. And for those of us who like to think of our faith journey as a road, that involves exploration, breaking barriers, going new places and reaching new heights, what’s the point of going in circles? The cyclical repetitive nature of these holiday can leave their messages meaning less and less every year they’re repeated.

Unless we stop ourselves. And observe. Look for a way to sit at God’s feet, and listen to his Word for signs of where we are being called in our faith journey. Armed with such a vision, Christmas 2010 goes from being a re-run to a source of nourishment for the journey ahead.

Psalm 46:10 said, “Be still and know that I am God.” The existence of Advent prior to Christmas seems to me to be a message, a warning of the stillness it truly demands to know that fact and what it means in our lives. We can be still for one late December night, and know the joy that Christ was born, but to know what that birth means for us this year, at this moment in our journey, may take a little more time. When it comes to our spiritual journeys, this is a time calling us to sit in the traffic, and take in exactly where it is we’re headed.

Posted by: Dan | | No Comments »

Tonight is the third night of Hanukkah, which celebrates both the new found political independence of Judea from the Seleucid Empire, and the eight day reconsecration of the Temple of Jerusalem, which Antiochus the IV dedicated to Zeus, thus defiling the most sacred site of Jewish faith. The revolt began in earnest when a Jewish priest refused to sacrifice to Zeus, and killed the one who came to sacrifice in his place.

Tonight is also the sixth night of Advent, the season of anticipating the birth of a true king, worthy of homage, during the reign of a client king of an occupying power who claimed its political leaders to be divine.

We pay particular attention to joyfulness and giving this season. Giving usually means spending money somehow. And Americans are well practiced money spenders, so there should be no surprise at the level of commercialization during this season, though it’s sometimes overwhelming to see so many demands to buy products you haven’t heard before and promises that true joy and happiness follow their owning the new 5Gen WidGet!(tm) or that those who love you don’t really love you unless you get a Baloney MyBox, the bigger version of the MyKick you already have.

So between the historical roots of this time of year of enforced false gods and the contemporary sensation bombardment of chocolate jesuses and soda-pop saints, I think it would be a good idea to reflect on Idolatry.

Before we make a differentiation between a true and false deity, let’s ask what a deity is. Here’s my best answer right now: the principal foundation of a human’s heart by which all other perspectives and behaviors will defer and accommodate. Kind of an abstract definition, but I can demonstrate:

That priest held the Lord so dear that even under threat of death he could not show worship to anything else, and murdered another out of distress that his victim was about to do what he risked death to refrain from. This man would become Maccabee, or Hammer, leading a rebel army and winning political freedom and the beloved temple back.

The unseen father of the friend in “Ferris Beuler’s Day Off” made the car the center of his life, with consequences on his troubled and terrified son, who ultimately took violent action against it

So a deity does not have to be a supernatural force, or have an inherently spiritual connotation. Well, an Idol doesn’t, at least. All an idol needs to be an idol is to seduce you thoroughly enough for you to act foolishly and dangerously for its sake, even so far as to alienate those who love you the most. Terrifyingly, this is the price of the true deity too: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother… he cannot be my disciple.” (l14:25-27) But fortunately, we can find the Lord in our neighbors.

An Idol, though, has no power. Or more accurately, it could have a lot of power, but only the power humans grant it. The car, no matter how cool it is, is only responsible for the family’s misery by the dad’s devotion to it.

We should all be for acting foolishly and dangerously for the sake of the Lord, and we naturally find it commendable and reasonable to act foolishly and dangerously for our family. But I (try) to draw the line at judo-throwing someone for the sake of a video game. Or mooning a live television camera for money (though a buttload of money might be tempting…) Or killing someone because a General said it was Okay.

Now WidGet!(tm)s are nice things. I have quite a few myself. And they actually could make nice gifts. But they are made by the hands of humans, to serve humans and to be dismissed by humans. Worshiping such a thing (whether it’s recognized as such or not) is not only stupidity, it is deadly. It either means that another human, who is a weakling sinner bag of flesh living in just as much uncertainty as you, is imagining themself your master, or you are ultimately worshiping yourself, which you can do until the horse you ride on gives you a good buck off a cliff and you realize you are subject to physics, not the other way around, and even the horse you think you controlled is stronger than you and decided it didn’t like your attitude.

Now next week I’ll write about the act of giving, the act of gratitude, and how to do them both properly (even when the gift is a WidGet!(tm)) without all these stupid idols screaming for our submission.

Posted by: Patrick | Tags: advent, community, musings | No Comments »

Honestly, counting days to Christmas is not the most exciting thing about Advent to me. In fact, it feels a little false – after all, the people who were waiting for Christ the first time around didn’t know when Jesus was going to come. They didn’t have fun little advent calendars to help them count the days, nor did they have advent wreathes to mark the passing weeks.

No, when Jesus was made known to the shepherds, they were just chilling on a hillside and then suddenly: HOLY CRAP! ANGELS! Similarly, the Magi took a couple of years to make it to Jesus because the star took them by surprise, too. Even John the Baptist, the guy who made his entire career by announcing the coming of the Messiah, didn’t get going until Jesus was well into adulthood.

Jesus took everyone by surprise. The season of Advent certainly captures the feeling of waiting, but it misses the feeling of uncertainty – the process of waiting in hope and faith for something even though you have no idea what it is.

That’s pretty much what the Kingdom of God is like, though – we can’t predict it, we can’t control it, and we don’t always recognize it when we see it. Emmanuel – God With Us, the Incarnate Deity – is revealed to us when we least expect it. Jesus didn’t tell us to wait, he told us to keep watch, for we do not know when our Lord will come.

This year, instead of thinking of Advent as a countdown to Christmas, I’m going to treat as a challenge to keep watch for every way I see God breaking into our world.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Posted by: Isaac | Tags: advent | 1 Comment »

Happy December 1st!  I know its not my day… again.  I keep checking it like a little kid who can’t wait to see what picture is behind the little paper door on the Advent calendar.  And since December 1st is when those paper (or chocolate!) Advent calenders started for me as a kid, figured I’d offer up another post.

I’m so glad to have peeled away from lesson planning and research papering to meet up with Ula, Dan and a warm collection of Followers in the family room of Radical Living for their Advent/Book of Common Prayer Release Party in Brooklyn tonight.  Following the prayers and scriptures that we shared together for December 1st (We even got a call from Shane Claiborne sending his love), there’s a note on Advent for December 1st in the Book of Common Prayer, and a link to an interesting looking website-    http://www.adventconspiracy.org/story

I suggest checking out the “about” section- Worship fully, spend less, give more, love all; and the stories which I’ve linked to, which share our communities around the world are applying the above guidelines creatively in the celebration of Advent.  One of their stories might also be something great to share with us in a future Advent blog post, if you’re blanking on what to say that day.

grateful,

amber

Posted by: amber | Tags: advent, alternative worship, event, musings | 1 Comment »

True, its not my advent day.  But since we’re 2 posts behind, I thought I’d take the liberty to kick us off, with the words of… someone else.

Here is the true message of Advent: Faced with him who is the Ultimate, the world will begin to shake.  Only where we do not cling to false securities will our eyes be able to see him, and to get to the bottom of things.  Only then will we be able to guard our lives from the frights and terrors into which God has let the world sink to teach us, so that we may awaken from sleep, as Paul says, and see that it is time to repent, time to change… It is time to awaken from sleep.  It si time for an awakening to begin somewhere.  It is time to put things back where God put them.  It is time for each individual to go to work with the same unshakeable sureness with which the Lord will come, and – wherever he can- to set his life in God’s order.

- Alfred Delp

Posted by: amber | Tags: advent, alfred delp | No Comments »

My brother is an electrical engineer who works with robots, so I always keep my eye out for stories about robots and innovations in robotic technology. Last night, as I was thinking about this blog post, I ran into an article on the New York Times website: Robots, the Military’s Newest Forces. Reading it made me proud of my brother, who recently went through a logistical nightmare to switch work groups in his PhD program because he feared his ideas and inventions would be used to create machines designed for combat.  It also made me despair for our country and our world. On this, the first Sunday in Advent, we read the famous prophesy from Isaiah (2: 1-5), “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Last night I sat in front of my computer reading about robots designed to bring death and wondered when we will start investing in the technology of life. In the plowshares and pruning hooks, books and dry erase markers, windmills and solar panels, water filters and medicine that we need to make our communities thrive. When will we stop learning war?

Posted by: Sarah | Tags: advent, bible study, community, links, musings | No Comments »