I told how I had gotten Teddy when I was two, how I had slept with this patchily fuzzy bear nearly every night of my life.

I told how Teddy came to grade-school sleepovers with me and to summer camp all the way through high school, how I took him with me to college and how, on my quarter abroad, he traveled around the British Isles crammed into my backpack.

I told how in my horrible first year out of college, Teddy was one of the few stable things in my life.

And I told how one day in April of that year, I sat in the lunchroom at one of the many offices at which I temped during those months. As I ate my soup and read from Richard Foster’s book Freedom of Simplicity, I came upon his suggestion that I, the reader, let go of the possession I held most dear. Not consider letting it go, but actually let it go.

Like a knife plunging down from Heaven, I suddenly had a terrifying sense that God was asking me to let go of Teddy. My stomach clenched into a knot. I burst into tears. I quickly gathered my things and fled the lunchroom in fear and humiliation.

I could not give Teddy up. I would not give Teddy up.

The thought of him sitting for months on a dusty shelf in a thrift shop with a bunch of cheap plastic toys and then being thrown in the garbage made me physically ill. And no one I knew had a child young enough to want a patchy old bear. I wasn’t sure such a child existed anyway — who besides me would love this tattered stuffed animal?

In the end, I gave him to my dear friend who was moving to Spain for a year. She understood what a huge gift he was. I couldn’t have given him to anyone who didn’t.

She brought him safely home, and for years – until this year, actually – he sat on my bed during the day.

He no longer sits there.

I’m not sure when or how it happened. All I know is that Jane began to play with him when we’d sit on my bed, me nursing a baby (sometimes two), her chattering to me, dancing Teddy around as she talked and sang.

She kept circling back to him, playing with him, cuddling him while I nursed the babies. One night, in February or maybe March, she asked me. “Mama, may I sleep with Teddy tonight? Please?”

I thought of those months of anxiety when I was 22, when I feared Teddy would languish in a thrift shop because no child would love him, patchy and falling-apart and slightly sad-looking, and I smiled at Jane, my heart brimming in my eyes. “Of course, sweetheart. I’d love for you to sleep with Teddy.”

She took him with her to bed that night, and every night since, her body curled over him and her tiger, Jojo.  She chose Teddy and Jojo as the “friends” she would take with her on our road trip. When she left Teddy in the car one night, she cried until Doug took her outside to get him.

“Mama,” Jane says when I’ve kissed her good night. “You can’t leave yet. Teddy wants to give you a hug.” She fumbles under her covers, untucking the blankets I’ve just tucked in, extricating Teddy from Jojo, who both lie squashed beneath her chest.

She holds him up to me. She moves his arms to squeeze my neck. “He loves you, Mama,” she says. “I love you, too.”

She pulls Teddy back to her chest, tucks him under the covers beside her, wraps her arm around him. “I love Teddy, Mama. I love him so much.”

I nod in the dark. I know. I know.

So one afternoon, they pored over catalogs from Compassion Intenational and World Vision. Her youngest wanted to give mosquito nets and bees. Her oldest sidled up to her after they’d chosen their gifts and said, “Mom, can we do this again next year?”

My friend smiles as she recounts this. “I think we just created a new Christmas traditon. I don’t think we’re ever going to go back to giving each other gifts.”

I smile, but weakly. I want to be happy for my friend, glad that her children are so generous, so joyful in their giving, so spiritually sensitive.

But the ugly truth is, I’m jealous. My kids didn’t decide to forego gifts in order to celebrate Jesus’ birthday with the least of these.

No, while my friends’ kids were busy studying gift catalogs for the needy, Jack and Jane were huddled together working on Jane’s book, a bit of pulp fiction called “Death Canyon: Secret of the Zombies.”

I don’t know where she gets this stuff. It’s not like we watch a lot of Day of the Undead around here. Apparently, we don’t need to. My kids come up with the undead on their own. I suppose that’s spiritual sensitivity, of a sort.

Just not the sort I want.

*****

A morning later in the week, I see the moon from the dining room window, a crescent hanging between fig branches, pillowed on the deep velvet blue of dawning sky. And I think, how lovely.

Then I read Ann Voskamp’s words about the moon and stars, and my heart squeezes tight with longing.

With, let’s face it, envy.

When I looked at the moon, I saw, well, the moon. I did not see the wise men or the wonder of Christ. But Ann Voskamp did. She always does, her sacramental eyes seeking – and seeing – Emmanuel everywhere she looks.

The green-eyed monster that lurks in my belly raises its Hydra-head once more, and hisses in my ear, “You don’t see as deeply as she does. You don’t write as beautifully. It’s no wonder her book is a New York Times bestseller and yours is out of print.”

The words echo. Out of print out of print out of print.

It is hard to stop the onslaught because the monster speaks truth, hard to remember that it is a twisted, coiled truth designed to accuse and demean and divide. And even when I tell it to Shut UP, still its ugly words ripple in my mind.

It is hard these days to look at my life and not wish certain things were different. I wish my book were still in print. I wish I had another book contract. I wish I had more time to write, to practice writing, to work at becoming a better writer.

I wish I already were a better writer.

I wish I didn’t have endless piles of laundry to fold, that my dishes didn’t pile up in the sink like some food-encrusted tower of Babel, that I had an au pair to watch my kids so I could take a nap or run to the grocery store without four kids in tow, that I had a full-time housekeeper, that my parents didn’t live so far away.

But such wishing only encourages the green-eyed monster to hiss louder in my ears, to take up residence in my eyes and distort my vision until I see the people I love with loathing because they have something I don’t, something I want, or because they’re not who I wish they were.

This is not who I want to be.

*****

In the dark of our bedroom, before we fall asleep, I tell Doug that I’m struggling, that right now, other people’s lives look so much better than mine, richer, easier, more meaningful, more organized, more energized, more whatever-it-is-I’m-not.

He nods in the dark and spoons me close. “I’m sorry it’s hard,” he says. We lie curled together in silence a moment. Then, softly, he says, “Is there anything about your life that you’re grateful for?”

I sigh, loudly. He’s right, of course. There’s much I’m grateful for. “Our kids,” I say. “Their health. You. Our house. Lighting the Advent wreath at dinner tonight. Getting to see Lynne today. Bed. Sleep.”

The list goes on, and on, this list of gifts, of grace in the life I have. I fall asleep counting my blessings.

It’s so White Christmas.

****

After dinner, we’re cleaning up the kitchen, Jack and I. He’s telling me about his writer’s block. “I’m just not sure how I’m going to get John and Sara out of the giant’s fist, Mama, and I can’t write anything until I figure that out.”

We toss around a few ideas until Jack lights on one he thinks will work. “You know, Mama,” he says as he puts away a serving bowl, “sometimes you should work on your novel that you haven’t worked on in a long time.”

I nod and rinse off a plate. “You’re right. I should.” I slide the plate into the dishwasher. “But I’m not sure when I would. You and Jane and the boys take up a lot of my time.”

“We should have a mother-son writing date,” he says. “We could go to a coffee shop, and I can work on my book, and you can work on yours.”

I grin at him. “That’s a great idea.”

“And when Jane is old enough to work on her book without us having to spell all the words for her, she can come, too.”

It’s not a gift for Jesus, exactly, this writing date. It doesn’t matter. It’s a gift to me, that he thought of it, that he knew I would enjoy it, that he’s even willing to let his sister come (when she can spell, of course). It’s yet another gift in the life I have.

I wipe crumbs off the counter. The granite glistens in the glow from the overhead lamps, and I smile.

“We made it,” he said. “180 days of pure joy lie before us.”

I smiled into the phone.

Charlie’s call was a flicker of light in the darkness that engulfed me. It was a glimmer of the joy that he proclaimed.

This is why I love Christmas in the northern hemisphere: the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

And though the days of Christmas last year were still dark, Charlie was right: after the solstice, the days did lengthen. The light slowly, so slowly, returned. But it did return.

And with it, joy.

That is what we wait for in Advent. That is the promise of Christmas: not 180 days of pure joy, but endless days of pure joy.

Behold, the dwelling place of God is with people… He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore… And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and … its gates will never be shut by day – and there will be no night there.

Revelation 21:3-4, 23-25

In a recent post, Patricia Spreng wrote that Advent snuck up on her and she didn’t have her Advent wreath out yet, but hey, she’d wear her purple suit coat to church on the Sundays of Advent so that she could be the Advent candle, the living light.

I thought, what a lovely idea. Then I thought of my pink coat (it’s bright pink, perfect to liven up gray Seattle days), and I thought, hey, I could be the pink candle.

There’s just one small problem. The pink candle is the joy candle. I would have to be the joy light.

Pardon me while I snicker into my sleeve. Me? The joy light? Hardly. Growing up, my sister’s nickname was Sunshine. I didn’t have a nickname, but if I had, it would have been Rain Cloud. (There’s a reason I felt an affinity for Seattle the first time I came here.)

You see, I’m a slogger. I gut things out. When life is good, I get nervous, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yeah, I know, God only has one shoe. But what if He hasn’t dropped that one yet? Hm?

I’ve had to work hard not to be a glass-half-empty kind of girl. I’ve had to cultivate gratitude, teach myself to see the good and the true and the beautiful right here, right now, in my life, just as it is. And I’m way better at it now than I’ve ever been.

But the joy light?

It sounds so … sunny. So happy. So, well, celebratory. And I suck at celebrations. Too much work. Too much planning. I like my safe little habits and rituals. Celebration busts those wide open, blows me out of my comfortable little rut.

And really, who wants that?

But still, I wonder, ponder: what would it look like if I could embrace that pink coat I wear? If I could be the joy light? Or at least a joy light?

I think of what Susan told me a few weeks back, about how “Thank you” is the prayer that never fails, how it always brings joy.

Maybe that’s why this third week of Advent – this week of joy – is focused on Mary. Mary, who rejoiced because “God has done great things for me.” Mary, who rejoiced because she saw the gifts God had bestowed.

I see the gifts, too, I do. So. Maybe I already am a joy light. A wimpy one that gutters out on a daily basis, it’s true. But that’s why I look for the Light: because by His light I see light. By His light, I get to be light.

Even – yes? – joy light.

Gathered in Julia’s living room, we sit in a half-circle, some dozen volunteers in our church’s Godly Play program, sprawled on sofas and chairs and the floor. Debbie sits before us, a large piece of purple felt spread on the floor.

“This is the season of Advent,” she says as she smooths a long thin piece of tan felt over the purple, “the season when we get ready to celebrate the mystery of Christmas.”

She gently sets a beautifully-carved facade of Bethlehem at the left end of the tan felt. “During Advent, we are on the road to Bethlehem.” She sets the star above the city. “Who will show us the way?”

She sits for a moment, quiet, letting the question linger, echo in our minds. Quietly, she holds up a piece of wood with an Advent wreath carved on one side, a prophet on the other. “The prophets show us the way.”

She lays the wood on the felt and holds up a small carved figure. “This is the prophet Isaiah, who proclaimed that one day, the people who lived in darkness would see a great light. He can show us the way to Bethlehem.”

She sets Isaiah on the felt road and holds up a purple votive. “This is the candle of the prophets. It reminds us that the light is coming into the world. It lights the way to Bethlehem.” She lights the candle.

In the silence that follows, you could hear a pin fall onto the soft carpet on which I sit.

Over the next half hour, she lays out four more carved pieces of wood and half a dozen more carved figures: Mary and Joseph and their donkey, a shepherd and his sheep, the Magi and their camel.

Each time, she lights a candle. “The Holy Family can show us the way to Bethlehem. The shepherds can show us the way to Bethlehem. The Magi can show us the way to Bethlehem.”

Finally, she holds up the baby Jesus, his swaddled body in the shape of a cross, his bed a manger. She sets him in the center of Bethlehem. All the other figures stand around him, adoring.

We sit in our half-circle, a mirror of the one around the Holy Child, looking at the story unfolded before us, contemplating, maybe even adoring.

After a long moment of silence so deep I can hear my own breathing, the breathing of the woman next to me, Debbie says, “I wonder where God met you in this story.”

Julie says quietly, “Awe. As you told the story, I felt this deep sense of awe. How often do I begin Advent with awe?”

Around the half-circle heads nod. Yes. Yes. Yes.

“And silence,” I say. “It was such a gift to sit here and be quiet and still and listen.”

Another moment of silence, so quiet, so rich, and then Carol speaks, wonder lacing her voice. “Seeing the figures gathered there, around the baby – it reminds me of the story of the banquet, when people come from east and west and north and south, to gather at the table of the Lord.”

I think of the stained-glass window I saw in Chartes when I was pregnant with Jack, how the baby Jesus lay not in a manger but on a table, an altar. And I think of that word manger. In French, it means “to eat.” This baby is our food, as He will one day declare to His disciples. “My body,” He will say, “my blood. Take and eat. It is for you.”

It is all here, in this story, the whole Gospel.

“I wonder,” Debbie says, holding up the little cross-shaped child. “I wonder how such a tiny baby could be the light of the whole world.”

We all look at the baby. At the cross He already carries. No one speaks.

****

“Who will show us the way to Bethlehem?” Debbie asked at the beginning of the story.

“I wonder,” she said at the end.

I wonder, too: who will show us the way to the Christ Child? Who will light our journey? The prophets, yes. Mary and Joseph, yes. The shepherds, yes. The Magi, yes.

But also – Debbie.

And Julie. And Carol. And maybe me, too. And maybe you.

Maybe we can hold hands on this dark road and help each other to see: “Look, there is the light!”

“And there!”

“And here!”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

 
This post is part of the Community Writing Project for Advent over at The High Calling.

Each of the four weeks of Advent has a watchword. The word for this first week is wait.

Advent waiting occurs on two different levels. Certainly we wait for Christmas and the celebration of Christ’s birth in history past, but we also wait for the risen Christ to come again.

In fact, the Gospel passage for the first Sunday of Advent is not the story of Jesus’ birth, not the story of the Annunciation or of Mary’s response to the angel’s startling proclamation or of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem. Rather, it is part of Jesus’ speech about the signs of the end of the age, when we will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Lk 21:27).

The Church’s choice of this passage speaks of the larger significance of Advent. Yes, it is a time of waiting and preparation leading up to Christmas — the celebration of Jesus’ birth in history — but ultimately, we are not waiting for Christmas; we are waiting for Christ’s return.

In English, the word “wait” tends to imply passivity, maybe even boredom. But this is not the implication that Jesus would have had in mind when he spoke of his disciples waiting for his return. In Hebrew, the word for “wait” is also the word for “hope.” (Thus translators can render “Wait for the Lord” as “Hope in the Lord” with equal accuracy.)

This linguistic equation of “wait” with “hope” means that for Jesus, immersed as he was in the language of the Hebrew Bible, there is no conceptual differentiation between waiting and hoping. They are one and the same activity. This melding is especially apropos during Advent, when we wait in hopeful expectation for the return of Christ. Henri Nouwen calls this “active waiting.”

Active waiting, he says, “means to be present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it. A waiting person is someone who is present to the moment, who believes that this moment is the moment.”

One of the traditions I find most helpful in cultivating this attitude of mindful attention during Advent is our family’s nightly lighting of the Advent wreath.

Each week during Advent, we light an additional candle, proclaiming as we do so, “Jesus Christ is the Light of the world, the Light no darkness can overcome.” This progressive lighting of the candles reminds us to wait with attentiveness through the darkness of December, because the Light who is coming into the world already shines in the darkness — if only we will watch and see.

This Advent, I invite you to pay attention: where is the light of Christ breaking through the darkness of the world?

And I invite you to share a few of those God-sightings with others (maybe in the comments?). Let’s help one another see the light as we wait for the Light.

–an edited excerpt from my book,
The Circle of Seasons: Meeting God in the Church Year

This season of getting ready for Christmas doesn’t have to be co-opted by Amazon and the mall. To help minimize the consumer insanity, may I suggest a few resources for thoughtful living during the coming weeks?

First, a Jesse Tree Devotional.

The Jesse Tree is a way to prepare for the coming of Christ. That word coming? In Latin, it’s adventus, where we get our word Advent.  Through the weeks of Advent, the Jesse Tree helps us tell the stories of faith, so we can see the whole Story that culminates in the birth of that baby in Bethlehem all those centuries ago.

I got to write the text of this devotional, and 40 artists of all ages from our church contributed art for the ornaments. For each day of Advent and Christmas (because Christmas is a season, not a day), there is a story from Scripture, a prayer, a question for reflection or discussion, and an activity (though I highly recommend only doing one or two of the activities each week so as not to make yourself crazy).

Made by and for our church community, it’s a family-friendly little booklet – and it’s free. (In order to make a Jesse Tree, you’ll also want the ornament template.)

*****

Second, a book of meditations compiled by Christine Sine. Each year, Christine asks a number of writers and bloggers to reflect on an Advent theme on her blog, Godspace. She’s collected many of these pieces (including two of mine) into a lovely book called Waiting for the Light. In addition to a meditation for each day of Advent and Christmas, the book also includes a liturgy for each week of Advent and for the Christmas season.

A print version of Waiting for the Light is available through Mustard Seed Associates for $18 (including shipping). You can also get a Kindle version or a PDF version for $10 each. All proceeds go to support MSA’s mission work.

*****

Finally, an article that I’ve returned to almost every Advent for 15 years. Published in Christianity Today in October 1996, “Why the Devil Takes Visa” provides a helpful look at the history of American consumerism and offers several case studies of ways that Christians have attempted to live in this cultural milieu without being absorbed by it.

If you only read one thing this Advent, please read this. It’s thoughtful, thought-provoking, and more than worth every minute you’ll spend.

But, even though I’m not hawking a jeep today, I am selling something. And selling it cheap even.

You see, I have over 900 copies of a certain book sitting in boxes in my basement. I would love to see that number dwindle. I would love to have those books out in the world being read instead of moldering in a cinderblock room.

Since Advent begins in just over a month, I thought now would be a good time to peddle some books on the church year. Through the end of November, I’m offering them for $3 each, including shipping (unless you live outside the U.S, in which case we’ll have to talk).

If you already have a copy, thank you thank you thank you. If you don’t, well then, you really should take me up on this offer. And you can buy more than one: they’d make a great gift, especially at this time of year (not to mention this price; did I say three dollars?).

I feel sort of shilly writing this post. I’m not a salesperson. If I had to live on a commission, I would die. Of starvation. Or exposure.

But I risk shilling because it would please my husband no end to see the number of books in our basement shrink. He’s not so keen on the box wall I’ve erected down there. (See how selfless I am? Thinking of him instead of myself?)

Seriously, though, friends, I would love to get this book into your hands, or the hands of your mom or friend or neighbor or pastor. I think it’s worth reading (I wouldn’t have spent a year and a half of my life writing it if I didn’t), and I hope it will deepen your relationship with Christ and your connection to Christians who have observed these seasons for the past two millenia.

I’m offering it to you for the cost of shipping as a way of saying thank you for your faithfulness in reading my blog. Your reading supports my writing: in the humbling face of boxes of remaindered books every time I go downstairs to toss in another load of laundry, I can laugh (most of the time), largely because you all encourage me so much simply by reading my words.

And if you feel inclined to shrink the number of boxes of remaindered books in my basement, that would also be very encouraging. Very, very encouraging.

So if you would like a copy or two (or ten or 80 or 900), please send me an email and let me know how many you’d like, if and to whom you’d like me to inscribe them, and your mailing address.

Let the book binge begin (I hope).

To my surprise, he let her.

To my further surprise, after she’d played with it for a couple minutes, Jane said, “Here you, go, Jack,” and gave it back to him.

It was one of those graced moments when the precious oil of anointing falls on your life, and you know you are blessed.

And at the same time, it was such a small thing I feel a little silly mentioning it, like I’m making a mountain out of a molehill.

But then I think of the mustard seed and am heartened: great things come from small and humble starts; faith as a mustard seed can move mountains. So I’ll keep looking for the kingdom of God in my own small life, in the nooks and crannies (or toy stores), anticipating glimpses of Resurrection, the new life of unity in the Holy Spirit.

an edited repost from the archives

Years ago, someone at my mom’s group made an Easter garden, and I thought it was a cool idea, but I never did it myself because I’m not artsy-fartsy. That was my excuse anyway. The truth is, things like this intimidate me. I always worry they’re going to look lame and I’m going to feel lamer.

But the Lenten tree turned out okay. Better than okay. So I summoned my courage and enlisted my kids’ help, and together we made an Easter garden.

It turned out beautifully.

The basket is what I usually keep my cleaning supplies in. The path is made of plum pits – Jack’s idea because he and Jane couldn’t find enough flat rocks – the little pond is a tea light holder, and the tomb is a baby food jar that Jack coated with mud (also his idea; what would I have done without his creativity?). We each picked out a plant at the nursery.

We made the garden on Maundy Thursday and lit the candles at dinner. After our meal, Jane blew out the candles. They would remain unlit throughout the Triduum, their little black wicks a reminder of the Light going out of the world.

On Friday, Jack rolled the stone in front of the tomb and made a purple origami butterfly, which he set on the sideboard. “You have to put in on the tomb on Easter,” he told me.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Because,” he said, “it’s like Jesus. Like that Caterpillar poem. You know, Spin and die / To live again a butterfly.”

Somehow I hadn’t made the connection between butterflies and the resurrection. I know. I know. What hole have I been living in?

Holy Saturday we left the candlewicks black, the stone in front of the tomb, the butterfly on the sideboard.

On Sunday morning (early! we had breakfast at six), I lit the candles, rolled away the stone, and placed Jack’s butterfly on top of the tomb. Then I lit the white Easter candle, and Doug and I went into their room to wake them up.

I placed my hand on Jack’s head, buried under the covers. “Christ is risen!” I said.

He was already awake. He popped his head out, a grin on his face. “He is risen indeed!”

He hopped out of bed, and Doug carried Jane, and we all stood in the dining room, grinning at the Easter garden, at the lit candles lining the path to the empty tomb and the purple butterfly ready to take wing.

*****

The poem Jack quoted is Christina Rosetti’s “The Caterpillar.”

And it’s not too late to make your own Easter garden: Easter lasts 50 days, till June 12.