'Tis the Season to be Tender

It's the most wondrous time of the year.  That's true enough. But our songs all insist we must all put on a jolly face, have a wonderful time and, for goodness sake, we'd better not cry! 

Goodness knows, we don't want to be sad this time of year.  We are supposed to be happy, right?  "I'm sorry," my friend apologizes through reddened eyes, "I don't know why I'm weepy."

And yet, it's the season of the year when we celebrate the most vulnerable time of all--the birth of a baby.  Death in childbirth for mother and/or child was an all-too-common occurrence then (and still is in too much of the world), multiplied several times over by placing the newborn in an animal trough!

Angels and shepherds and circumcision and magi and Herod... we bunch together a couple years of gospel events into one big season of constant celebration.  And maybe that's the point: we call it all a "celebration" when the story itself calls for a commemoration.  There are solemn, even somber, parts to that story.  Those parts didn't have to be part of the scriptural record.  It could have been all angels singing, innkeepers repenting, shepherd dancing in gay apparel, no sheep dung on their sandals. But isn't that just like the Bible to show life as the mixed bag it really is, warts and all? David, the "man after God's own heart," adding adultery and murder to his résumé . Peter, both passionate and foolish.  The ancient Israelites, set apart as God's "chosen people," yet berated by their own prophets for their greed, injustice and xenophobia.  If there's one thing that strengthens my faith in the veracity of Scripture, it's the unvarnished and almost universally unadorned portrait of its characters.

Yet over the centuries our culture has adorned Christmas and varnished it 'til its glossy sheen nearly blinds us to the underlying material. It has become something different, a magical season of fantasy.  Janet and I watched the original "Miracle of 34th Street" last night and were swept up in the story as much as the next guy.  It's fun to delight once again, like we did as children, in a myriad of memories and traditions and twinkling lights like those that mesmerize my young grandson.

But not only can this feeling not be sustained for the entire “Christmas season” (which is a shopping term of ever-increasing length), but neither should it be.  The Church's term throughout history, "Advent", invites and even beckons a different and more complex set of emotions.  It's a time of preparation, of remembrance of the full story, of feeling the complete range of human emotion at the full-orbed story of the entry of the Christ-child into our full-orbed world. 

"Peaceful Christmas" music wafts behind me, courtesy of Pandora.  It invites a peaceful acceptance of emotion, as violins now render "Silent night, holy night."  The phrase, repeated in every verse of this most-beloved song, is "holy night," not "happy night."  "Holy" can be joy-filled, thoughtful, tearful, awestruck, watchful.  None of those emotions need an apology during a season of preparation for a holy night. 

In my office hangs a framed photo I was given when I left Promise Keepers, after serving as their California state manager during the boom years.  The Orange County Register published the photograph during the largest stadium event PK ever held, at the LA Coliseum in 1995.  The photo portrayed what was best about that uneven men's movement: as worship music was pulsing from the stage, the men on the front row are shown alternately lifting hands, kneeling, weeping openly, singing passionately.  Their diversity of response to what was "holy" is as riveting as their diversity of race and socio-economic status.  It is beautiful to behold.

Let that be our invitation then, to not only feel but to accept and even welcome the full range of human emotion in this season, without apologies that "I'm such a downer" or "I know I shouldn't be sad at this time of year."  Those of us who struggle to feel the complete range of emotion should be jealous.  We lack the taste buds to enjoy the full-bodied communion wine of all the complex flavors of Advent. 

If you can taste them fully, but are tempted to apologize for that, perhaps it will help to remember that this is first and foremost Advent season, the time of preparation for Christmas, which lasts for a day.

In my view, an Advent season without tears is the saddest Christmas indeed.  'Tis the season to be tender.

Cory

Advent 2012

Joy Deep As Sorrow

The slaughter of 20 innocent first-grade children in Newtown, Connecticut last week sickens and disheartens us all. There is some pathos that the tragedy occurred the day after I sent out my meditation "I'm dreaming of a safe Christmas" dedicated to vulnerable children. That it happened during Advent season, when we are re-reading wondrous Christmas stories that always crash headlong into Herod’s terrible slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem, makes both incidents all the more poignant.

At times like these, people often look to spiritual leaders for answers. I'm sure some of these “spokespersons for God” are feeling great pressure to find meaning in the senseless violence, feeling a need to defend God's reputation.

I was talking with a friend today who told me she’d just seen one of the popular television preachers on a major network morning show. The primary question that the host had was, "After a terrible tragedy like this, how would you reassure our viewers that God exists and that God cares?"

My friend felt the clergyman had done a fairly good job of empathetically providing the explanations most of us, if we've been people of faith for some length of time, have heard repeatedly in one form or another:  reminders about man's free will and assurances of God’s compassion for the victims.  Without question, this is a tough circumstance in which to be an apologist.

But as she was talking, I put myself in the place of this "man of God,"  and I realized that I no longer feel it's my responsibility to "apologize" for God, to defend God in times like this. God is perfectly capable to defend God.

That sounds odd, doesn't it?  Somehow we've all been indoctrinated that this is our job.  We’ve had our gospel sales training and we walk around feeling great pressure to help get God off the hook. 

If there's good news in that gospel, I don't see it.

I even think we can do a disservice to God in trying to use reasoning that we humans can understand.  It implies that I can understand God and you could, too. In truth, If we could understand the mind of God, God would not be God.

As we discussed it further, I was reminded of an article that was written over 20 years ago to World Vision staff. It was written by a staff psychologist before PTSD was a household term. He was offering empathy and an explanation of our colleagues who work in relief camps or other difficult settings surrounded by misery and pain, who then come back and would worship with us at World Vision's weekly chapel service. The counselor counseled the rest of us not to be concerned that these wounded warriors were not being demonstrative in chapel or singing praise songs with great gusto. Don't think they've lost their faith in God, he advised us. Rather, they continue to believe in a loving God despite the evidence to the contrary.

I've remembered that article for over two decades and I especially appreciated that he inserted the word "the" in the phrase “despite the evidence.” It acknowledges what we all know is true yet are usually afraid to admit—that there is evidence, compelling at an emotional level at the very least, that argues against belief in a loving and all-powerful God.  So, to hold our own subterranean fear of unbelief at bay, we do all we can to defend that God, “our God”.

As I'm writing this, my wife just sent a text with the disturbing news that a former church member and acquaintance died yesterday of complications from a terrible motorcycle accident. Frank has been a well-known radio host at a Christian station here. What will his family go through?  What words of comfort will quickly morph into fervent explanations and apologia?

Let’s face it. Life is painfully cruel; as life is unbelievably beautiful. 

My new friend bob Bennett sent me the very first CD of his new album. He burned it himself for my dying friend Mark Archibald, who passed away the next day, before Bob could mail it, so it came to me instead. The title song asks plaintively, "Is there joy deep as sorrow?" 

Despite the evidence to the contrary, the fact that the answer to Bob' question is a resounding yes may be all the defense I personally need for God.  Oh yes, there is joy deep as sorrow. 

And for those who can open their hearts to it, this season offers deep reminders of both.  Our usual response to someone’s loss or heartache at Christmastime is, “Oh, and how terrible that it happened at this time of year, too.”  Perhaps the ultimate victory of the Christ-mission despite the river of blood from Herod’s infamous Slaughter of the Innocents requires a different reading, a different response when tragedy strikes at this very time of year.  Perhaps at no other season is there such clear evidence that joy is always comingled with sorrow, and vice versa; such a clear sign of ultimate hope, that sorrow can be redeemed. 

Redeeming last week’s sorrow is the task before us now, as well… a task we can undertake in strength and comfort, reaching out for the hand of One who also endured great sorrow while beckoning us to a Peaceable Kingdom of unending joy.

Peace on earth; goodwill to all,

Cory

December 2012

I’m Dreaming of a Safe Christmas

This year I've found new courage to open myself to the tragic problems we lump together under the term "children in crisis". This refers especially to children living alone on the streets of the world, children in abusive labor, and trafficked children.

Frankly, it takes a good deal of courage to engage these issues. They are so disturbing, so evil, so repulsive. It's a great deal easier to focus on providing clean water or micro loans, seeing smiling faces and proud countenances of those being helped, not the slumped and somber frames of the fortunate few children who are rescued, their identities hidden from the camera.

I encourage would-be contributors to these "Child Protection" issues to first pray about whether or not they feel called to it, because I believe it takes a special calling to stay in this battle against insidious evil in some of the places where it is most firmly entrenched. 

Yet the silent cries of these children is a drumbeat on my own soul lately. I'm hearing that same divine calling myself, and now Janet and I allocate much of our own giving to this issue.

A colleague and good friend just sent out the note below to our co-laborers  around the country.  I appreciate Steve's deep passion and heart on this issue—refueled by a riveting trip to Bangladesh and India this year where he experienced vignettes like these first hand—and feel his note is worth sharing, without comment.  It's a message for Christmastime that may be worthy of reflection again during the holiday, as we seek to make it truly a Holy-Day.

Advent blessings,

Cory

           Christmas letter to my fellow reps about Child Protection

In about two weeks, we will all largely cease our busy activities regarding the ministry of World Vision. It will then be a time for families, exchanging gifts, wearing something new, and of course those delightful Christmas cookies that seem to be consumed by the half-dozen!

We will also gather to worship in a variety of settings, whether a simple chapel service or an ornate candlelight communion somewhere which allows us to reflect on the significance of Jesus's entrance into a troubled, and less than ornate, world.

I was asked by the Child Protection team to remind us of some of the themes of this sector. How could I do so without immediately noticing the obvious contrast between those we serve and this affluent Christmas culture we call home?

Consider their Christmas morning…

- A child of ten forced into working 12 hour days in a factory with conditions that don't exactly tout coffee breaks nor a leisurely lunch hour, meanwhile netting maybe 50 cents a day.

- A girl of 12 whose value on the street, due to her youth and lack of prior sexual experience, can give her family the most expensive "Christmas gift" they have ever received; their only problem being that there is no address for them to send her a thank you note.

- A young child's only experience of "Silent night!" will be hearing the threatening exhortation from his mother, a sex worker in a brothel, to keep quiet while she goes about earning her living.

- A teenage girl already rescued from the darkness of exploitation, yet still yearning to find joy in singing "Joy to the World"… perhaps next year she can get through the first line without weeping.

I believe that Jesus is the HOPE of the world, that indeed He brings Joy, salvation, comfort and healing. Will you join us in praying for children like these, and for our global Child Protection team as we seek to bring light and hope to these precious children?

God bless us, EVERY ONE!