Christmas: Fragmentation and Wholeness

I've been thinking about Advent and Christmas for awhile, but the thoughts below finally crystallized as my own version, or response, to this post in Blue Eyed Ennis.  One of the things I enjoy about blogging is the ways in which unexpected conversations take place across time and geography ~ Blue Eyed Ennis quotes Dating God ( a recent and favorite discovery of mine), which quotes Thomas Merton, who says, 

"The certainty of Christian hope lies beyond passion and beyond knowledge. Therefore we must sometimes expect our hope to come in conflict with darkness, desperation and ignorance." (See Blue Eyed Ennis for the entire and quite wonderful essay.)

My contribution to the conversation:

I could just - not. I could just not do religion.   I could have left seminary.  I could have finished my degree and decided to take on only work in which Christmas was not a feature.  Something academic, perhaps.  I could revert to the stance of my family of origin, which has generally been that life without faith is much easier than life with.

I did some bizarre things during the sleepless nights that became my lot after Josh died.  One evening, I spent hours and hours online reading everything I could find about the response by people of religious faith to death from suicide.

In one sense, it didn't matter.  Had I found nothing but condemnations of suicide victims to hell, I would have walked away from the church with nary a second glance.

In another sense, it did matter.  I heard nothing other than words of comfort from those in my life connected with both  Jewish and Christian religions, and I was well aware of mental illness as a factor in suicide, but I had been teaching history, and studying world religions and religious history, for years.  I wanted to trace the history of the religious response; how had it changed since the Middle Ages so that rabbis and priests alike could offer words of reassurance to me? What was going to make it possible for my own pastor to preach a funeral sermon affirming the resurrection of the dead?

When our children were young, and then older, Christmas was a magical time.  Family magic, as we created and followed a plethora of traditions that filled our lives with humor and joy. Friend magic, as we participated in the events others hosted and opened our own doors to a dinner for as many as ten or twelve families celebrating both Christmas and Hanukah.  And yes, a  sense of religious magic, in Services of Lessons and Carols and watching Amahl and the Night Visitors and helping to produce The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and Christmas Eves filled with music and candles and a sense of the Holy among us.

All gone.  Just.like.that.

Like so many families whose children have died, we turned our backs on all that we had known and created and treasured, unable to bear the associated anguish, and traded snow for palm trees without a glance backward.

Each year, the ground shifts a bit, and the path widens.  Or changes.

This year, we'll be at home.  Worship services for me to lead on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, and today we decided that in the afternoon we will join our friends for the annual dinner that migrated elsewhere when we headed for Key West.  I expect it to be a fairly difficult couple of days, with my own feelings somewhat mitigated by the requirement that I put many others ahead of myself.

But something else is changing as well.

It seems that when the beloved traditions are no longer tenable, when they become cherished memories no longer manageable, there are two choices.  I could turn my back on all of it.  (That first year, we came up with Baghdad and Pakistan as potential destinations, so eager were we to escape Christmas.)

Or . . .

I could focus more deeply than ever on the reality behind the traditions.  As wonderful as they are, or were ~ the lights, the gingerbread, the candles, the crafts, the trees, the baking, the presents, the music, the togetherness ~ they all serve as a front for the reality:

The embodied presence among us of a God who comes to save us, a God whose love is so great that it sweeps all of us into one great embrace, a God who sends a son to live and suffer as we do to ensure that, in the end, we will live but suffer no more.

Advent is a time in which it seems that my personal experience of loss knows no bounds. For me, personally, the cultural holiday glitz is the equivalent of 40 days in the wilderness.  But if Christmas is, indeed, the first step toward Easter, then it is also the day on which we should register our desperate, agonizing losses as those of perishable bodies that will be changed in the twinkling of an eye.  We will be changed, because death will be swallowed up in the victory of the small and vulnerable Christmas infant.

Christmas seems very possible when I look at it that way.

Image: Mary in the Storm by Patricia Brintle, a friend of a friend and  my favorite artist tonight.

I Now Have All the Answers

I just got home to discover two arrivals:

My long awaited copy of A Sunlit Absence (neither Amazon nor UPS came off well in this transaction, but I trust that Marty Laird will) and

a postcard inviting me to an event in the theater down the block sponsored by a heretofore unknown local church that promises CHRISTIANITY EXPLAINED.  Apparently with respect to politics sin heaven bible religion morals salvation the crusades evolution God sex Jesus gospel faith resurrection rules church hell cross right wing baptism.

Looks like I'm good to go.

Friday Five Faith and Culture Edition

 A terrific Friday Five from Terri today! She writes as follows:

This week the church I serve is a host site for the University of Michigan, Dearborn, Worldviews Seminar. It's a week long summer education course open to anyone, with continuing ed hours to be earned. It's a survey of the world religions with a morning lecture at the university, led by Lucinda Mosher. Then the group drives over to the church for lunch, a short lecture, and then they board a bus for a tour of local religious buildings. They tour Buddhist temples, an Antiochean Orthodox church, a synagogue, a mosque, and many other area houses of worship.This year is the tenth anniversary of the seminar.

In addition to the Worldviews Seminar the congregation I serve is planning to participate in Episcopal Faith Shared and Faith Shared. I am working to have members of local Jewish and Muslim congregations present and participating in our Sunday morning service.

So, in honor of a week of interfaith study and celebration:

1. Have you ever had an experience of a religion other than your own? And, if so, what was it like for you to experience something different? If you haven't, what religion might you like to study, experience, and learn more about?

I spent six years teaching in an Orthodox Jewish day school, which was like entering another culture each morning.  Since I taught literature and world history to intensely curious students who seldom encountered anyone outside their own community of faith, we had some wonderful conversations about belief, practice, and culture.  Typical ninth grade questions:  Why are Christians polytheistic?  Why does Mel Gibson hate us?  Do you really believe that Jesus rose from the dead?  And what's with those pumpkins on Halloween?  The whole experience was challenging, often disconcerting, and led to wonderful friendships with students and teachers.  As usual in such situations, I learned far more than I taught.  Probably the most important thing I learned is how much respect is generated when people adhere faithfully to their own beliefs while maintaining a stance of openness and generosity to others of different traditions

2. Have you ever studied, traveled, or explored other cultures? What and where, and when?

Most of my travel has been either in the United States or Europe, so I can't say that I've been far afield, culture-wise.  However, when our son Josh spent his 11th grade year in France, we  got a tiny taste of French life and culture through the time we spent with his family there.  I have maintained a warm relationship with his French mother and brother for the past almost-ten years, despite our infrequent communications and the tragedy we have all shared.  Gregarious Son leaves for a law student program in Novgorod and St. Petersburg day after tomorrow, so we're about to learn something about Russian culture ~ I hope!

3. Any stories you wish to share about a person (author, teacher, etc), or a friend or colleague, from another culture or religion, who has impacted you in some capacity?

The rabbi who was the principal of the aforementioned school had a big impact on me.  His own pre-college education had taken place entirely in the black hat yeshiva world; his high school friends considered him in danger of worldly influence when he decided to attend Yeshiva University in New York City -- a bastion of Orthodox Judaism from most points of view, but in theirs, a hazardous place in which people study law and medicine and secular  literature as well as Torah.  He explained once that his parents, while deeply religious, were also brilliant, alert, and attentive to the world around them.  The mix of worlds produced a quietly compassionate and effective man, one who could talk with authority on almost any subject, was genuinely curious about everything, and was universally respected by those he encountered across a wide spectrum, from teenagers in trouble to adults who had far-ranging educations and life experiences of their own.  He and I had a number of fascinating conversations over the years.

*****

I started this entry early this mornng but ran out of time before I had to leave for a meeting.  One of the pastors from my field ed church of year before last recently invited me to join the board of a nonprofit that promotes interfaith dialogue.  That organization is one of a number co-operating on an interfaith commemoration on 9/11, which is how I found myself hosting a meeting of the publicity committee this morning at my home Presby church, a committee whose membership is Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish and Christian!

Conversion Takes a Lifetime

A few months ago, The Lovely Daughter, midway through graduate school, advised me as follows:

"I think it's hopeless, Mom.  If people don't believe in God by the time they reach adulthood, it's not gonna happen."

"Not so," I responded.  "I was well into adulthood before I thought there might be a God. "

"Really?" She looked at me skeptically.

"When I was your age, I never gave any thought to God.  And if anyone had asked, I would have described myself as an atheist."

I'm not sure that she believed me.  But our conversation came to mind as I drove down a street in a neighboring suburb last night and saw a law school classmate walking home from Shavuot services with a friend.

In law school we knew one another well -- our last names start with the same letter and so we were placed in the same section of our course in legal research, writing, and advocacy, thus becoming members of a small group destined to spend many of our waking hours together for our first year.  As far as I know we both lived lives that were basically secular:  culturally identifiable as Jew and Christian around our respective holiday times, but otherwise indistinguishable in our lives from others who had no religious affiliation of any kind.

Today she is an observant Orthodox Jew.  Her husband is one of the city's most successful businessmen, and they are major supporters of many major Jewish projects and institutions (including the Orthodox day school in which I used to teach).  She looked great last evening, her long skirt swinging well below her knees and a boyish cap topping her blonde curls.

And today I'm a spiritual director and a candidate for ordination in my denomination.  I have a lot more flexibility in my attire than she does, but the invisible changes in the religious landscapes of our lives are remarkably similar.  And from our conversations over the years I taught school, I'd say we are both engaged in a lifetime experience of growth toward God.

Nope, LD, there is no timetable for religious conversion.