You are broken. You are beautiful. You are my face.

From D.W.: Thanksgiving is over now. Christmas season, for those that observe it in a particular way, has begun. Admittedly, as someone raised in a non-liturgical faith tradition, I've never really understood what Advent was all about. For Rachel, though, this slow transition between the two holidays was meaningful and magical in ways that were about more than a calendar. More than tradition or dogma. Like many things, the repetition, the da capo, the ostinato, held the substance, but the syncopation, the caesura, the arpeggiation, deepened it.

Here's a few thought from Rachel about Thanksgiving, Advent, and ties that bind us.

Grow Christians. December 7th. 2016

A (Texas) Advent Story

I’d like to tell you that we used Advent calendars and mediation guides faithfully when I was growing up, but I feel like telling a lie around Christmas time is an especially bad personal choice. So, I’ll tell you the truth. When I was growing up, we did observe Advent, after a fashion, or rather we did the same things in pretty much the same order every year from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve.

Advent, for my family, went something like this. The weekend after Thanksgiving usually involved my mother and grandmother decorating their Christmas trees—when we moved in with my grandparents when I was 17, this part of the process was streamlined quite a bit.  Because I have a cedar allergy, in addition to several other tree-pollen allergies, we always had artificial trees—because the only thing more fun that celebrating the season of miraculous expectation with your family is being able to breathe while you do it.

The whole next week would be filled with them twisting and turning the tree itself, adding strings of lights (we really deeply, firmly, and borderline fanatically believe in a well-lit Christmas tree in our family), making sure there were no patches that weren’t properly covered by ornaments or bracketed by tinsel trim. Please believe me when I tell you that it took them a whole week to do this, because it did. And those gals decorated some truly spectacular trees in their time and still do.

They would tell us stories about particular ornaments, or Christmas shenanigans from before we were born. They would put out Nativity scene after Nativity scene, and I remember many conversations with my own mother about the Holy Family as we found each of the scenes special places to abide.

The following weekend was almost always a cookie and candy making bonanza. Flour, sugar, butter (honest to goodness real butter, too), and eggs were augmented with chocolate morsels, various jams and jellies, butterscotch, walnuts, pecans, almonds, and coconut to make the cookies and sweets Mom and Grammy would make every year. They made cowboy cookies, angel bars, orange balls, haystacks, almond bark fudge, divinity, date loaf, jam squares, sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, and at least three other kinds I’m forgetting. The heavenly host would have been well fed from that kitchen.

Some of the cookies and sweets would be gifted to family friends or teachers, some of them were taken to Coffee Hour at church, and the bulk of these sweet treats hung around our house in tins and baggies and Tupperware containers (oh, my!) until they were picked (and occasionally, licked) clean. Also included in this were at least seventeen gallon bags full of homemade Chex mix, made according to a recipe my grandmother and I worked out when I was ten or eleven years old. The sweet smell clung to their clothes, and they smelled like cookies for at least two days afterward whenever I hugged them. Sharing the hard work of their hands and their joy in making these treats was all part of the fun for me, even if my constantly too-hot hands always exempted me from rolling out the sugar cookies because they would melt in my hands.

My least favorite weekend was usually the one right before school let out for Christmas. We’d pile into the car and drive 80 miles to the nearest “good mall” so my parents and grandparents could finish their shopping, and so my brother and I could scour the Walgreens for emery boards and styptic pencils for the grown-ups’ stockings. While in The Big City, we might have Chinese food or (if we had been really good and not fought and argued the whole way to town), we would eat at Red Lobster. This was a Big Treat.

Wandering around the mall and having to try and not pay attention to who was going into which store and what size bags they were loading into the trunk so as not to spoil a surprise was where holiday fun went to die. Also, given that this was during the 80’s and 90’s, I was prevailed upon to try on many, many items in the style of Laura Ashley—lots of bows and lace and big floral prints. This was not fun for me and may have been one of the first times I really grasped the discipline of penitence in a real and visceral way.

The weekend before Christmas was my most favorite. There was no going, no doing, no more secrets to hatch or keep. My godmother and her two boys would come over to my grandmother’s house, and the four of us kids would be given the run of the backyard and fed very well for the entire day. Fortunately, in Texas this meant we were playing in our shorts and long-sleeved T-shirts for the bulk of the day.

Mom, Grammy, and Auntie barricaded themselves in my mother’s old bedroom, and power-wrapped all the presents they had purchased. While our Christmases were never extravagant, those ladies believed that a well-wrapped gift was a feast for the eyes before it was any kind of nourishment to the soul. And they wrapped like champs. Periodically one of them would come out to the backyard to check on us and bring us freshly emptied paper-roll tubes. We had the most epic and amazing sword battles in the backyard, dying thousands of times in gory and creative ways. It was the one time we were never bored playing in the back yard, the one time all four of us got along, and let’s be honest—this is probably because we were also having a parent-sanctioned fight in the backyard.  At some point, one of our dads or my grandfather would go get burgers or steak fingers, and we’d all have dinner together.

On Christmas Eve, the house was always full of people, deli trays, crackers, soft drinks, coffee, and hot chocolate or tea. At around 9:45 pm or so, people would start heading home or off to church. We would all pile into the car and drive to our little country church for Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. Mom and Auntie were usually in the choir, and the four of us kids were usually in the altar party as acolytes, and one of our dads was usually a lector or lay-reader, or ushering with my grandfather. Grammy would hold down the family pew with whichever kid was too sick or crabby or not on the schedule to acolyte. And we would welcome the Baby Jesus into our hearts and the world over and over, pretty much the same way, for many many years.

All four of us kids have grown up, and none of us live at home anymore. Auntie and Uncle are the only ones who still live in our little town and we don’t all see each other as much as we would like. But I think about the way our extended family observed Advent—preparing our homes and hearts for the gift of Jesus, and I’m reminded once again at how much my parents got right, how deeply they entrenched the story of Jesus and his love into my very soul, and my heart is once again prepared to give him room.

Grow Christians. November 29th. 2018

Telling the Story of God’s Promise through the O Antiphons

I learned this song, the O Antiphon song we call “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” when I was 18. I’d heard it my whole church life, I just hadn’t paid much attention to the words until I was older. That Advent and Christmas season in 1996 taught me so much. I still marvel at the sparkle and shine of those weeks and days, pondering over them the way Mary ponders over the face of her beloved Babe. It was the last year my whole family was together, just a few months before my father died and my last Christmas before leaving for college. My high school choir was singing this song for our winter recital, and the director asked me to sing the opening solo. My heart leap every time we practiced, and I loved singing this song, but I had a hard time relaxing and hitting this one particular note. I fussed and fretted and had a nightmare or two about it and finally told my choir director that I just couldn’t sing this song. I didn’t trust my voice, didn’t trust myself not to cry, and wasn’t even sure I’d be able to be at the concert because my dad was so sick. I made a hard choice, but it was the right one. Even now, all these years later, any time I have the chance to sing this song, I sing it double-loud. God has kept every promise to me—to come and ransom me, to give me wisdom, to help me remember my place in the world, to open doors that seem sealed shut.

This song tells us a very important story, like most songs do. It comes from the heart of God’s people, from across thousands of years, and still means something holy and hopeful every single time we sing it. With titles and word pictures taken from the prophet Isaiah’s conversations about the Messiah, we see all the ways Jesus has come to reconcile the world to himself. Each verse reminds us of a different promise God has bought into being, has made come true, in the person of Jesus. It’s a super churchy song that might not sound like a lot of the songs you and your family hear on the radio or sing in the car, but once you start singing it…you just can’t stop. As you sing it, you might be reminded of the promises God has kept in your own life and in the life of your family. You might find yourself sharing memories with your littles or calling old friends or close relatives to remember something funny or hard or sweet with them.

Long Valley Lane. November 20th. 2007

for these and all God's blessings...

Though our mouths were full of song as the sea,
and our tongues of exultation as the multitude of its waves,
and our lips of praise as the wide-extended firmament;
though our eyes shone with light like the sun and the moon,
and our hands were spread forth like the eagles of heaven,
and our feet were swift as hinds,
we should still be unable to thank thee and bless thy name,
O Lord our God, and God of our fathers,
for one thousandth or one ten thousandth part of the bounties
which thou has bestowed upon our fathers and upon us.

-Hebrew Prayer Book

i love thanksgiving. aside from my birthday, it may be my favorite holiday. i like that when i was a little girl, thanksgiving was always the same--utterly predictable, and utterly wonderful. i also like it that as a grown up, thanksgiving has always been the same--a moveable feast, different every year. i was bothered by that for the longest time, and then i realized the obvious--thanksgiving isn't about the place, or the food, or the silverware, or the house, or the time you eat, or whether you see a movie or go shopping or get a nap. it's about the attitude you bring to the table, even if you never actually sit down at a table, or if it's the grown-up table or the little kid table, or the takeout counter at jason's deli.

i have so much for which to be thankful this year. the whole list is enormous. the short list reads something like this:

family--all of them, the crazies, the normals, the in-laws, and the out-laws, but especially my momma. family is sometimes a hard thing to be. we don't always understand each other, we don't always know the ways to love best, or say true things, or absolve hurts. but we are family, and that is something special. that's something that doesn't just fall off the cart every day. family is work, play, rest, and welcome. family is babies and old people, baptisms and funerals. it is change and it is changeless. family is where you go to say real things, to make up, to fight, to get married, to heal broken hearts, to let your mother brush your hair dry, to ask your grandparents to tell you that story one more time, to hear your aunt laugh in the phone, to talk to your brother about things you did when you were small, to learn about your sister-in-law's dreams, to put your nephew to sleep, to smell babies, to love and be loved. you are my family. you are me. i am you. we are in this together, for better or worse. i am so grateful that i was born into this family, into these stories, into this gumbo of people who are so different, so similar, so beautiful, and so funny. i can't imagine belonging anywhere else, and even on days when i know you wonder about what i'm doing next, how i'm doing, and what in the world i am thinking, i am so glad i belong to you.

friends--you are the family i have made for myself. each and every one of you--the ones i talk to every day, the ones i talk to once in a blue moon. you are irreplaceable to me. you have taught me more than i can imagine. you are my sanity in an insane world. you are the rudder and the wind in my sails. you are dinner and drinks, baseball and dancing. you are movies and sunrises, tents and star showers. you are couches and futons and guest bedrooms. you are take-out, homemade, four-star, diner fare, starbucks, french-pressed, deep fried funnel cakes. you are my face aching from laughter, and my eyes tear-swollen, my overage on the cell-phone bill, you are text messages at 4 am. you are concert tickets, bob dylan, 70's soft-rock, angry girl music, beethoven, yo la tengo, bluegrass, funk, soul, hip-hop, and reggae. you are chocolate and peanut butter, salty and sweet. you are the ocean and the mountains, the shenandoah valley and big bend national park. you are all the capitals, all the ghost towns. you are black and white, you are technicolor. you are the secret language that only we understand. you are the secrets and the truths. you are broken. you are beautiful. you are my face.

health.

work.

free time--for new paint in my powder room, for kittens with razor-sharp claws, for the giggles (which i seem to be getting with terrifying frequency, a la my 13 year old self), for good books on my reading list, for naps, for trips to see friends and family, for frequent flyer miles, for staying up too late, for over-analyzing things with my nearest and dearest.

memories--for learning how to remember without feeling sad, for being nostalgic instead of tragic, for knowing lessons and still being willing to learn, for the art of forgiving, for the ability to walk away without being angry.

for my whole life--all the intersections, all the contradictions, the ups and downs, the scary things and the exciting things, for chicago and dc and birmingham and brady and new braunfels and tyler and austin and houston and all the places i have been fed and slept and laughed and cried. for the home that lives in my heart, and the people who live there.

yes, for these and God's blessings, i am truly thankful. and while thank-you seems like such a small thing to say, it's all i have. and so this year, i will try to live my "thank-you" loudly, and try to be a blessing, as much as i have been blessed.

love, a many splendored thing, has spread itself so richly over my life.

mil besos--rmg

I think over again my small adventures,
my fears,
These small ones that seemed so big.
For all the vital things I had to get and to reach.
And yet there is only one great thing,
The only thing.
To live to see the great day that dawns
And the light that fills the world.

-inuit song