A Different Kind of Getting to Know You Exercise

Let me remember to record a really neat getting to know you exercise that we did the first night at the Create in Me retreat.  It's something that could be modified for non-retreat groups, and I'll give some ideas at the end of the post.

Advent

Our retreat theme was "Nature, Imagination, and Liturgy," so our opening exercise revolved around the liturgical seasons:  Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time.  

Epiphany

When we checked in, we had a nametag with a piece of colored paper in it--we sat at the table that had a larger sheet of colored paper that matched the color in the name tag.  It was a great way to make sure that we mingled new folks with returning folks.

Lent

The color of the paper matched the liturgical season (purple for Lent, for example).  We had a sheet of facts about the season, along with a small, blank banner.

Christmas

There was a table of all sorts of supplies.  Our project was to make a banner that matched the season, along with a song or prayer or poem.  We only had 20 minutes.

Ordinary Time

I admit that I was skeptical at first, as we sat there, every table staring blankly at the blank banner.  But it was a room of creative people, so soon we sprung into motion.  The energy level and discussion level rose.

Pentecost

When we were finished, we went around the room, explaining the banners and presenting our song or prayer or poem.  I was impressed with what we created--and impressed with how this exercise helped us get to know each other through a joint task and some friendly competition.

Easter

Could I create a non-religious variation for the first week in class?  I've used getting to know you Bingo, which is good.  The banner creating meant that people didn't have to move around the room and approach strangers, which is a plus for a lot of people.

Holy Week

I have a vision of this exercise, but with secular holidays and seasons, along with the holiday of Christmas, which is universal for my students.  Could non-creative students rise to the challenge?  I think they could.  Let me tuck this idea away.

The Day Before Ash Wednesday

 Today is Mardi Gras, and it's also Shrove Tuesday. It's the day before Ash Wednesday, the day before Lent begins. The holidays of Shrove Tuesday, Carnival, and Mardi Gras have their roots in the self-denial of the Lenten season. These holidays are rooted in the fasting traditions of Lent and the need to get rid of all the ingredients that you'd be giving up during Lent: alcohol, sugar, eggs, and in some traditions, even dairy foods.

Mardi Gras and Carnival, holidays that come to us out of predominantly Catholic countries, certainly have a more festive air than Shrove Tuesday, which comes to us from some of the more dour traditions of England. The word shrove, which is the past tense of the verb to shrive, which means to seek absolution for sins through confession and penance, is far less festive than the Catholic terms for this day.

In the churches of my childhood, we had pancake suppers on Shrove Tuesday. In the church of my childhood, a church could count on its members gathering whenever the church doors were open. Thus we had Shrove Tuesday pancake suppers and Wednesday Bible study meetings and groups of all sorts gathering throughout the week.

These days, most mainline churches feel lucky if members come on Sunday, much less at other points in the week. Many churches have Confirmation classes during Sunday School time, unlike my experience of trooping back to church in the late afternoon of a Sunday. Many churches do the whole Holy Week journey on Palm Sunday because they know that church members won't be coming back on Thursday and Friday.

It feels like we should do something special on the day before Ash Wednesday, but I suspect many of us aren't interested in traditional Mardi Gras festivities which often include large amounts of alcohol.  This blog post has a recipe for a quick yeasted bread that is relatively healthy.  It's fairly simple to make, and easy to make more festive if that's your thing.

We have had a burst of spring-like weather in the mountains, and today is the last day to see the trolls at the arboretum.  It's a strange Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday celebration plan, but I have high hopes for it.

The Day before Ash Wednesday

Happy Shrove Tuesday!  Happy Mardi Gras!  Last week, when I mentioned to my Tuesday/Thursday classes that we'd be meeting on Mardi Gras, I got blank looks.  I still don't know whether they were blank looks because my students haven't ever heard of Mardi Gras or because they see me as an old lady who can't possibly understand the joys of cheap, plastic beads and buckets of alcoholic drinks.

I do realize that both may be true.

I usually don't have much in the way of plans for the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.  But tonight, my local Lutheran church is having a pancake supper to raise funds to send the youth to the big Gathering later this year.  And we are planning to go.

I say my local Lutheran church, which means the one around the corner from my Lutheridge house, the one with the quilt group that has become dear to my heart.  I rarely worship there anymore, because I go to my other church, Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee, where we'll celebrate Ash Wednesday together; they, too, are having a pancake supper tonight.  And I'm still a member of my South Florida church, Trinity Lutheran in Pembroke Pines; they had beignets this past Sunday.

For my three classes today, I'll present three different love poems and have them write a bit.  I decided to go with love poems and not Ash Wednesday poems, and I decided to stay away from traditional love poetry.  Here's what we'll be doing, if you want to read along:

The poem that's closest to a traditional love poem is Leah Furnas' "The Longley-Weds Know."  The one with the biggest Ash Wednesday vibe is Maggie Smith's "Good Bones"--it's a hopeful Ash Wednesday vibe, but an Ash Wednesday vibe nonetheless.  And the poem that is the one that makes me feel a spark of hope in an Ash Wednesday kind of way is Naomi Shihab Nye's "Gate A-4."

I wasn't able to find much poetry with an outright Ash Wednesday theme, apart from T. S. Eliot, whom I'm not going to tackle with first year students.  And I thought about my own--I've got a series of Ash Wednesday poems, but I don't feel like including them.  I've posted some of them here in the past.  Maybe tomorrow I'll unveil a new one.  Maybe today, I'll write a new one.

Sketching for Schoolwork

I am really enjoying my Foundations of Preaching class.  I'm impressed with the wide range of activities that we do to show that we've learned the material.  

I'm also surprised by which parts take the most time.  A few weeks ago, we had to make a PowerPoint to teach others about the worship traditions that formed us.  Not only did that project take less time than I had budgeted (hurrah!), but it also made my inner artist happy, although my inner tech person was exasperated with the deficiency of the software (and unwilling to learn a new system like Canva in short order).

The project for last week seemed like it would be solidly in my skill set:

A creative activity! Imagine you are trying to explain Christian concepts of time for a child/youth.

 

1) Draw your own lectionary wheel, with informative notes on each season. 

 

2) Draw an infographic on the Christian concept of time, including how "Sunday" was established as a tradition.

 

3) Upload drawings as your activity submission.

 

*You will not be graded on your artistic talent. ;) 

I spent so much time on this one.  Part of it was my fault; I didn't sketch with a pencil, so once I made a mistake, I had to start over.  It was hard for me to figure out how to divide the lectionary wheel, since some seasons like the time after Easter and the time after Epiphany vary widely from year to year.  And I wasn't sure what an infographic should include, the proportion of pictures to words.

I'm not going to post my work here, not until it gets graded.  I would hate for the plagiarism detection software to flag the work that I turned in, because the software found it here.  Plus, it speaks to another issue I had:  the photo isn't as good as the work itself.  I'm not sure that here you would be able to see it clearly.

Now it's off to Faith Lutheran, where in addition to preaching, I am leading a several week session to get children ready for First Communion.  It's an interesting endeavor, and I'm really enjoying it.

Ash Wednesday Arrives

  After the pancakes, the ashes.  Yesterday, many of us had pancake dinners, Mardi Gras beverages, all types of festivities:

Yesterday I did not have pancakes, but I did have good lunch with seminary colleagues and later, I went to a pizza place, where I did not eat or drink.  It wasn't an early Lenten fast.  Our Queer Theology class was invited to go for pizza with the Ethical Self and Witness class.  My first thought was dismay about having an evening class.  I decided that I could join them, that I had enough time to walk there and back and to socialize a bit in between.  But I didn't want to drink, because I don't drink when I need to be alert later.  And I wasn't sure I had enough time to order food.  So in the end, I drank water and chatted, which was more a Lent vibe than a Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras vibe.

I was happy to be invited to the kind of event that I thought would be more frequent if I lived on campus--which was both a Mardi Gras and Lent vibe, the happiness of being together with only water to drink.  Many of my fellow seminary students also work at churches, so they were feeling the stress of an Ash Wednesday service to plan and/or needed to head back for Shrove Tuesday events.

I've decided to mix up my usual Ash Wednesday routine--usually I've had to work during the day, so I've gone to evening services.  This year, I'll go to the 7 am service at nearby St. Columba's.  I'm not sure what to expect.  Perhaps it will be drive up ashes, which I've never experienced.  The website does say that there's a short eucharistic service.

Will I go to the National Cathedral for the evening service?  Perhaps.  Let me see how the day unfolds.

How to Celebrate Reformation Sunday

I'm biased. I think the best way to celebrate Reformation Sunday is to go to your local Lutheran church, sing "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," and celebrate the Eucharist. Then you could come home, drink some German beer, and take a nap.

Even when I wasn't a member of a church, I've always been intently aware of the liturgical season and the holidays that the Church celebrates. I grew up in a Lutheran family that went to church every time the doors were open--and that included when we were on vacation. So those rhythms imprinted themselves into my brain.

I love to celebrate, and I love that I have additional things to celebrate by being liturgical. But I know that not everyone is good at creating celebrations.

So, for those of you who are on your own this Reformation Sunday, here are some things you can do to celebrate.

--Go to a German restaurant and eat a German meal. Think about Martin Luther, who ate this food. Drink a German beer. Think about Martin Luther, who was not inhibited about the earthly delights.

--As you're drinking that German beer, write your own hymns. Not a musician, you say? Use popular drinking songs as your base! Lutheran legend has it that some of our greatest hymns have tunes that originated as drinking songs. So, the melody is already created for you--write a hymn.

--Not in a songwriting mood? Write your own 95 theses. What do you see as wrong with the Church? Do you have any suggestions? Extra points if you can back them up with Scripture.

--One of the Church's actions that outraged Luther was the selling of indulgences, which he saw as victimizing the poor. We like to think that the modern church has moved beyond the selling of indulgences, but history suggests that we're fooling ourselves. In what ways do you see the Church selling indulgences? Another way of thinking about this question: in what ways does the Church abuse its power?

--If you want to follow in the footsteps of Luther, indulge in some guilt. Luther held himself to some stringent standards, especially in his early life. Think about all the ways you've let God down--and then remember Luther's teaching about Grace, and feel better.

--Read the Bible. Rejoice in the fact that you can read it in your own language. Thank Luther for being one of the earliest translators of the Bible into the common language.

--You don't want to worship at a Lutheran church today? Go to a Catholic church. Remind yourself of where you'd be if Luther hadn't started the Reformation.

I'm being a bit facetious with this one. I know that if there had been no Luther, there'd have been others to lead us down the Reformation road.

Our Reformation Sunday Gospel finds Jesus promising that we will know the truth and the truth shall set us free. The truth can be terrifying and send us hurtling down paths that seem dark and dangerous. At times we may not know whether we're heretics or whether we're struggling to birth something new and inspiring. If we keep ourselves rooted in church traditions, we're less likely to flirt with the heretical. Yet, as the life of Luther reminds us, sometimes there are traditions that have gone completely rotten.

On this Reformation Sunday, I pray for us all to renew the Church the way that Luther did. I pray that God will show us the truth. I pray for us to be set free.

Seeds of Reformation

It's that time of year, that strange intersection between Reformation Day (for those of us Protestants who celebrate that part of our heritage) and Halloween. Many of us will spend tomorrow morning singing "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" and the next night trick-or-treating. I feel lucky to be part of a church that sees no special problem with this dichotomy. This year, though, I won't be handing out candy, and it's not because I disapprove.  No, I'll be attending my synchronous online class by way of Zoom.

During the past ten years, I've missed Reformation Sunday several notable times. One time was my first time at Mepkin Abbey in 2004. One of my friends who was also a Lutheran was relieved to miss Reformation Sunday. She much preferred the fierceness of the Psalms to the hearty singing of Lutheran hymns. In the evening, as we watched the sun set over the Cooper River, we watched people trick-or-treating and the flickers from Jack-o-Lanterns. We walked down the main driveway, a road flanked by giant trees draped with Spanish moss, and from a distance we saw two monks who were also out for an evening walk. I said to my friend, "If we were characters in a movie, something very bad would be about to happen." Happily, nothing did. The monks asked us if we would vote in the election on Tuesday, and one of them cackled. "I hope you vote for the right one." It was strange to me to think of these monks, who I think of as cloistered from the world, having political opinions.  That was back in 2004, and it's unsettling to think about how much has changed since then.

Two years later, we missed Reformation Sunday because we met up with some grad school friends at Kiawah Island--one group had come all the way from England. During a Reformation Sunday walk on the beach, three of us confessed to being unhappy in our current church homes. Now it's interesting to reflect that we've found a better fit: I changed to a different Lutheran church, one friend switched from the Church of England to being a Quaker, and one has found a wonderful Unitarian church. Did that walk on the beach foster our courage to find a true spiritual home? The spirit of the Reformation was swirling around us!

A simple walk can change our spiritual trajectory? Yes indeed. The biographies of many spiritual giants show that sowing the seeds of small changes can lead to enormous harvests. And this year, more small seeds have bloomed in my life.  Here I am in a seminary apartment, deeply immersed in my studies.  Tomorrow, I will attend Reformation Sunday services, also virtual.  I'll tune in to my church in North Carolina, so I can hear my spouse sing.  I may also tune in to my Florida church's worship service.  Later, my spouse and I will have our daily video chat.

In 2004, when I visited Mepkin Abbey, I could make a cell phone call to let my spouse know that I arrived safely, but I wouldn't have been able to do a video chat by Facebook.  Again, how much has changed in such a relatively short period of time.

As I think back to Martin Luther and the historical forces at work, I realize he didn't have the bigger picture that we now have.  And we can't always see the larger forces at work in our own time, as we try to communicate and plant the seeds that will bloom into our best lives.

So, as you prepare for Reformation Sunday and/or Halloween, may you have the courage of your convictions that Luther did, may you not be spooked, may you not be haunted by the past, may God grant you to fortitude to do what must be done.

The Last Sunday in Ordinary Time: Hildegard of Bingen's Mantle

Today is the last Sunday in Ordinary Time.  Next Sunday will be Christ the King Sunday, which takes us out of Ordinary Time--and after that, we plunge into the season of Advent.

When I was a child, I thought of the time between Pentecost and Advent as the long, green, boring season.  Truth be told, I still do.  I love the possibilities for observing and celebrating the time between Advent and Pentecost--the season of Ordinary Time often feels arid. 

In many ways, I think that the challenges of Ordinary Time mimic the challenges of a regular life.  We've got lots of highs and lows early on (until about age 25-35), and then we've got a long middle ground where we need to do more work to make meaning of it all.

Some of us will do this through the highs and lows of family members.  Some of us will make meaning by our involvement with larger communities.  Some of us will turn to art.

This morning, I wrote a poem.  I'd like to say that I wrote a poem, as I do every morning.  But I don't do that every morning.  I wonder if I would wrest more meaning from life if I did write a poem every morning.  I suspect I would have a similar reaction as I do to liturgical seasons.  Some of my poetry writing mornings would feel important and significant, but many more would leave me wondering about the larger meaning of it all and reflecting on drudgery.

This morning I baked the gluten free communion bread.  It needs to be made on the day of the worship service because of the nature of gluten free bread; I know from experience that it doesn't freeze well.  As I stirred together the ingredients, this line came to me:  On the last Sunday of Ordinary Time, I bake the communion bread.  Once I got the bread in the oven, I sat down to write.

I played with the line--should it be bake or create?  The idea of Hildegard of Bingen bubbled up in my brain--a creative woman of her time, a woman I see as subversive, although I don't know that she saw herself that way.  I wanted to hear some of her music, and we live in a wonderful age where the Internet can provide.  I spent some time writing my poem and listening to this group sing the medieval music of Hildegard of Bingen.

I was struck by the woman with the green swoosh in her auburn hair and the chunky boots visible from the slit of her formal gown singing the music written by a monastic woman centuries earlier.  What would Hildegard have said?

I like to think of Hildegard of Bingen smiling at the many ways we've seized her legacy and taken up her mantle.  Some of us do that by writing, the way that she did.  Some of us have seized her mantle by singing the music that she left us.  Some of us tend our gardens, the ones we grow for food, the ones we grow for herbs, the ones we grow for the beauty of the flowers, the interior gardens that we may or may not share.  Some of us take on the Hildegard's mantle when we scold bishops and legislators and remind them of the obligation of creating a more just society.  We wear Hildegard's mantle as we care for the next generations, some of whom we're related to biologically, some of whom we will never meet.

Passiontide

We used to call the last two weeks of Lent Passiontide--today, the 5th Sunday in Lent, would mark the beginning of Passiontide, which would last through Holy Saturday.






In these days of compression and short attention spans, many churches celebrate all of Holy Week on what once would be called Palm Sunday.






I yearn for a return to the old ways, when crosses would be draped in black or purple for these last two weeks of Lent.






I want to slow down, to savor this season, the austerity of it, the Lenten practices which give our days a discipline.






I want to take time to ponder this Lenten journey from ash








to resurrection.






I want to take my lesson from the monks and others who call us to the old ways, who remind us that those ways still have much to teach us.

This morning, I'm wondering how our experience of Holy Week might change if we stretched it out, rather than trying to contain it all into one Sunday morning. Two weeks to spend with one of the central events of our faith: how might we change?

Ash Wednesday Is Coming

My thoughts on hurricane wreckage has left me thinking of Ash Wednesday.  I've also been doing a lot of scrubbing the dust away as I've been cleaning and sorting recently.  I know that I'm wiping away the detritus of stars, but it's still astonishing how much dust there is. 

It seems to regenerate.  We're shedding dust continuously, but we don't die immediately.  Is it time to retire the metaphor of dust for Ash Wednesday?

I'm not really suggesting that we do so.  But it is good, in this time before Ash Wednesday, to consider what metaphors we will use.

As I've decorated the chancel for the Baptism of our Lord, I've thought about past altarscapes and chancel decorations.  Some churches I've been part of have used the Christmas tree to create a rugged cross.

My current church uses fake trees (don't judge!), so we can't use that.  The most startling change to the chancel that my pastor ever did involved a stark, tree-like thing, with empty branches.

For Easter, we made origami birds, which transformed those branches.

Here's a different shot of the chancel:

He's also used battered sandals in his altarscapes.  We use a lot of burlap in our decorating.

 Some years, we have a variety of cactus plants.

I have a vision of an moving hurricane wreckage into the chancel area, but that's not really practical.  Still, as I drive by trees bent over from the storm, I have a vision.  It won't work for church, but it makes me think of possible art projects for Lent.  Stay tuned!

New Year's Eve

You may think I'm a bit early--or maybe you worry that December zoomed right by you.

No, I'm not talking about December 31, 2017.  I'm talking about the liturgical year, which ends today.  Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent, although with Christmas Eve on a Sunday, many churches might have already started observing Advent.

What if we used this day the way that some of us might use New Year's Eve?  We could serve champagne and stay up to greet the new year at midnight.

Far better, though, if we use this day to think about our spiritual lives, especially the past year of our spiritual lives.  What has fed us spiritually in the past year?  What might we like to see more of in the year to come?

For me, it's been a stormy spiritual year.  My work life has consumed more hours than I'm used to, as we geared up for an accreditation site visit.  Many of my friends have been working through new milemarkers in their lives:  new jobs, new houses, impending moves, children/family members in transition too.  And then, there have been literal storms, like Hurricane Irma, which has left many of us considering our life choices.

I am pleased that I held onto some of the spiritual practices that moor me, even as I've felt increasingly adrift.  But make no mistake:  I am tired of feeling like a tiny ship taking on water on a stormy sea.

I am ready for the occasional retreat that helps to restore me.  This past year, I couldn't go to the Create in Me retreat because it coincided with our accreditation visit.  This year, I've already requested and been granted the leave time for that retreat.  I'm hoping to get to Mepkin Abbey too.

I am ready for regular creative practices that inject delight into my week.  I've done a fair job at my sketchbook journaling, but I finished a poetry legal pad today, and I didn't write as many rough drafts of poems this past year as other years.

Perhaps it is time to get more involved in worship planning.  I've done some of that in the past year.  I've written prayers for the liturgy, which I always enjoy.  I've liked the days when I've been in charge of the whole service, although those days do leave me exhausted.  For Advent, I'm in charge of 3 of our interactive service, which I'm looking forward to.

In this new year, I also want to stay open to all of the possibilities.  I want to remember the Advent message of the importance of staying alert and awake.  And I want to remember that new life can come out of the ashes--when it looks like all is over (think Elizabeth), the new vision might be unfolding.

The Last Sunday of the Church Year

It doesn't feel like New Year's Eve, does it?  Yet, in some ways, it is. 

Here we are, once again at the end of a liturgical calendar year, the last Sunday of year A.  It is Christ the King Sunday, a holiday that has never been dear to my heart.

This year's Advent readings come from Mark--ah, apocalyptic Mark.  I am oddly ready.  It has been an apocalyptic year, full of people at midlife battling dread diseases and relationships spiraling apart and all sorts of ghastly news events.  The year 2014 has already been Markian.  The Advent readings will be an appropriate way to end the calendar year.

I often think of Nora Gallagher's comment in Things Seen and Unseen; she talks about feeling like she's moving on an alternate calendar to the Day Timer that charts the calendar year.  I can relate.

It's a great time to read a book about the liturgical year. Even if you're already part of a religious community that follows the liturgical calendar and you think you don't have anything new to learn, Joan Chittister's book, The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life, is worth a look. And for those of you who can't comprehend the value of a church calendar that follows a different cycle than the worldly calendar, Chittister will explain, in elegant, beautiful language.
So, start the new year by reading about the old year, the liturgical year. Even if you're anti-Catholic, like some of the reviewers at Amazon, you'll likely find something to enrich your spirit. And even if you disagree with most of it, it's good to read something completely outside your realm of experience (in fact, a brain researcher, Barbara Strauch, says that's how our brains stay young, by wrestling with ideas outside our realm of experience--go here to read the article).

Prepping for Advent

Last year, a variation of this piece ran on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  Since that day is a huge shopping day, I've decided that it makes more sense to post it here, before we get lost in our Thanksgiving cooking and eating and football watching and clean up.

Many of us arrive at Christmas in a state of sheer exhaustion. Many of us arrive at Christmas having succumbed to colds, flu, or worse. Many of us leave the Christmas season several pounds heavier with heavier credit card debt to make matters worse. But a bit of planning before we leave the Thanksgiving season can help us avoid Christmas depletion.

Here are some things to think about as we leave Thanksgiving and launch ourselves towards Christmas. You’ll likely be more successful if you include the rest of your family in these conversations.

--Choose the spiritual traditions you’ll incorporate this year. Will you have an Advent wreath? Will you meditate? Will you help with the Christmas pageant? Will you participate in special musical events? Will you attend church each Sunday in Advent? Will you go to extra services? Be realistic. Maybe you can’t find time to light the Advent wreath every night and have family devotions. But maybe your family will find it more meaningful to light the Advent wreath once a week and have devotional time.

--Think about your family’s traditions. Which are most important? Which can you jettison? You might have a discussion and find yourself amazed to discover that no one really likes going to see The Nutcracker, but nobody has wanted to say anything because they assumed that everyone else really loved that tradition. Keep the traditions that add meaning and richness to the season, but don’t be afraid to let some of them go.

--Think of ways to simplify and streamline. Do you really need to bake every kind of cookie that you remember from past holidays? Maybe you and your friends could have a cookie swap. Or get together to bake cookies together. Have a wonderful afternoon of cookie dough and wine and leave with enough cookies to get you through the holiday. Consider ways to make the holiday meals easier on everyone. Maybe this is the year to change the holiday card tradition to an easier e-mail greeting. Ask yourself which church events mean something to you and which you're attending because you always have.

--Don’t forget that Advent is a great time to work for social justice. The words of the prophets ring in our ears, and we can find many opportunities to actually do something. Some of my favorite holiday memories involve helping others. My Girl Scout troop used to go caroling at nursing homes. The church of my adolescence assembled gift baskets for homeless women. The words of Isaiah are knitted into every fiber of my being: "learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Isaiah 1: 17). My parents, along with social institutions like church, Scouts, and school, modeled the good behavior of working for social justice. It's stuck with me. Advent is a great time to train the next generation in the habits of social justice and charitable work. And it’s also a great time to give back to our communities.

--Before the Christmas season descends on our heads, let’s make several budgets. Let’s start with a time budget. It’s easy during the Christmas season to accept too many invitations and thus find ourselves overextended and irritable. Maybe we want to declare that we won’t go out on school nights. Maybe we want to only accept one social engagement per week-end. Maybe we only want to attend the events that are essential to our family’s traditions. There are no right or wrong decisions, but if we don’t think about these issues before the season starts, we’re likely to find ourselves spending more time than we want to give.

--The same is true of monetary budgets. Before you start shopping, make a budget and stick to it. And before you work on the budget, talk to your family members about your gift giving traditions. Maybe instead of giving gifts to each other, you’ll agree to give that money to a worthy organization. Maybe the grown ups would like to draw names and only have one gift to give. Maybe you’ll decide to order gifts that support artisans or small business owners. Maybe you want this year to be the one where all the gifts are made by hand.

You may do this work and planning and realize that you do want to stand in the dark for a chance to get a really good deal on items that are part of your budget. You may do this work and realize that there’s no need to go to a mall between now and January.

Hopefully, you’ll spend a bit of time deciding what kind of Advent season you want to have, and you’ll choose a few concrete actions that you can take to make your Advent meaningful.

Transfiguration Yearnings

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time thinking about transfiguration.  I was working on a blog piece for the Living Lutheran site; it will appear on Monday.  I was also writing my blog piece for yesterday's meditation on Sunday's Gospel.  In between, I spent time with my friend.  We worked on transforming scraps of cloth into quilts, while we talked about how we'd like our lives to change.

I was also thinking about Ash Wednesday as I thought about possible projects that would fuse photography and poetry (for more on that project, see this post on my creativity blog).

Today, I'm thinking of Ash Wednesday and Transfiguration Sunday from a different angle.  Today is the fifth anniversary of the death of my friend's mother  (a different friend than the one in the first paragraph). 

During the last year of her mother's life, I tried to help by being an occasional driver. I remember driving down to the Catholic hospital in Miami. I don't think I realized that it was a Catholic hospital until about the 5th time I saw a crucifix on the wall. Not being a Catholic myself, I thought, how gruesome, can't they choose something more cheerful for decorations. And then, it hit me; I thought, "Wait, I bet this is a Catholic hospital!"  Funny how that revelation transformed my whole thinking as I started seeing the crucifix as a comforting reminder that God has promised that death will not be our final answer.


I remember my friend's mom trying to be brave that day, trying to converse with people, trying to act like everything was normal, as if we were there for tea. I have a vague memory of her talking about how proud she was of her daughter (my friend), and an even vaguer memory (which may not have happened) of her trying to charm a doctor on her daughter's behalf, as if she was a matchmaker. I remember that my friend was trying to get information about how much longer she might last in her declined state, even as she was trying to act like we were all there for a social event.

I remember marveling at how my friend's mother was trying to be charming, even as the cancer was surely eating away her brain.

I remember thinking about how the roles had changed, the daughter becoming caretaker.  My heart broke into bitty pieces for my friend, who had to learn how to be a caretaker, how to navigate the medical-industrial complex--all sorts of new languages for her to learn.

Life will transfigure us in all sorts of way, especially as we face disease and old age.  I understand Peter's response to the Transfiguration on the mountain top, that wanting to build a shelter and stay put and pretend that we can escape the ravages of living.
 
We can't escape of course.  Not even God, who became human and lived with us, could escape.  But fortunately, these experiences can become transfigured into a glowing experience of the love of the Divine.