Author: winncollier

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First Week of Advent: Surprised

{a meditation from the Gospel reading for the first week of Advent, Matthew 24:36-44}

Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

Advent’s opening gospel reading gives our drowsy ears a jolt. Rather than visions of a rosy-cheeked Christ child, we hear of Noah’s flood that arrived with a shock, sweeping the world clear and an odd parable about workers sweating side by side – only, when the tale’s done, one has disappeared while the other stands alone, bewildered. There’s a final odd twist where Jesus likens God’s appearing to a midnight cat burglar who slips in through a window to pick a house clean while the family snoozes, a sentence that flies out of left field and should make every flatfooted preacher and every dry storyteller take very careful notes.

In each of these unlikely stories, the common theme is how God’s action interrupts and catches us off guard. The point is not to wag fingers so we’ll shape up and curtail the surprise, a kind of white-knuckle vigil. Rather, the narratives deliver a plain fact: God will surprise us. Whatever we figure God must do or whatever time table we insist God must follow, God seems to always manage something different. Like the lover who springs a proposal or the friend who shows up for the party when they’re supposed to be two continents away, God has panache.

Whether or not we receive God as a welcome surprise depends, I suppose, on whether or not we’re willing to be undone by love, whether or not we’ve got the moxie to say what the heck and exist at the mercy of God’s evocative – but always unruly – imagination. Our invitation is to live wide-eyed, aware that every single moment bears the possibility of God’s agile movement.

Advent, of course, is merely an occasion to remember what has always been true. God is never far. God is always near. And the only truly surprising thing would be if God were never to show up at all.

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This Advent, my friend John Blase and I are reflecting on the same text each week, on Mondays, from Sunday’s Lectionary readings. We aren’t talking about the texts ahead of time, simply reading and seeing where they take us. To enjoy the full conversation, hop over to John’s ruminations.

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Powerful Thanks

Gratitude must be one of the most subversive powers on this crusty, old planet of ours. Not a feigned indebtedness or a back-handed form of social or relational manipulation. Just a plain, simple: Hey, I want you to know that I saw what you did – or I see who you are. I see that you’re trying your best. I’m thankful.

What would happen if President Obama strolled over to the GOP on the Hill and (removed from the cameras and without any follow-up request) said, Fellas, this is a fat, hairy mess we’ve got ourselves into, and tomorrow I’m sure I’m going to do something else you hate, God knows you make me want to put my fist through the wall most every morning. But for today, I want to tell you that I know you’re grinding yourself into the ground here. I know you love our country. Thanks. Or what if McConnell sneaked over to the Oval Office (maybe with a bottle of his local Kentucky Bourbon wrapped in a red bow and tucked under his arm) and said, Pres, you know that most days I think you’re a loon, but that’s not the whole story. I see you’re going grey and burning the candle at both ends while the whole world watches. I know you’re doing what you believe in. I know you love America. Thanks.

Yes, yes, I’m dreaming. But wouldn’t it be something?

Several days ago, I told Miska that if our boys ever figured out what they could get out of me if they consistently approached me with gentleness and gratitude rather than demands or arguments, we’d be ruined. They’d take us right to the poorhouse. I’m a softie, and simple gratitude – a hey, dad, thanks for working so hard and loving us so much – would make me putty in their hands.

We have a week now to simply give thanks. Tell people they mean something to you, that you see them. Offer God a simple thank you. Look your lover in the eye and say, If another gift never comes, you are enough.

I don’t know exactly what this gratitude will yield, but it will do something. I know it will.

 

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Embarrassed

The salty old folks used to say, “God doesn’t suffer fools.” But of course he does, all the time. God suffers me. And I’m thankful for that. God takes joy in the misfits and the bumblers.

Still, there is truth in these words. It’s one thing to do your darndest but still muff it often, as we are all prone to do. It is another thing altogether to give ourselves over to absurdity because we’re too full of ego or too afraid of complexity or don’t want the certain troubles that arrive with a fiery imagination. It’s a travesty how we trivialize deep mysteries, flatten textured beauties and silence the slow and careful voices — all because we want to control our vision of the world, want it to fit into our delicately packed boxes.

I’m no fan of stupidity, but I have a lot of patience with a bad idea. Heck, I have a couple of them every day. But I’ve little patience with one who steamrolls another person or manipulates the truth or puffs their proverbial chest to build their following at another’s expense. This life is grand. Human beings are amazing. There is wonder everywhere. What are we doing to one another, to our own beautiful soul, with our thoughtless, fatuous obsessions?

Abraham Heschel said, “The cure of the soul begins with a sense of embarrassment, embarrassment at our pettiness, prejudices envy and conceit, embarrassment at the profanation of life. A world that is full of grandeur has been converted into a carnival.”

Heschel’s right. We could use to be a little more embarrassed in our world. Embarrassed at what we’re doing to ourselves.

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Greedy

We were in Waco with my folks last week, and trips to the homeland mean lots of TexMex, lots of love and two grandparents spoiling two grandsons. My parents have always been exuberantly generous, but when you throw kids in the mix, things go absolutely bonkers. When my dad picked us up from the Dallas airport, his first order of business was to take his grandsons to the Lego store. Dad walked them into the shop and told them a dollar amount to spend, a figure that to a 10 and 11 year old provided the same rush the old prospectors must have felt when they hit the mother lode. Twenty minutes later, Seth came up to me with several items, plenty to work with but far less than his Pa told him he could spend. When I asked Seth whether he wanted anything else, he said, “This is enough. I don’t want to be greedy.” I tussled his hair. I was beaming.

A couple days later, Seth had a craving for a full-tilt breakfast at one of the local greasy spoons, just the sort of thing his Pa loves. “Go ask Pa if he’ll take you,” I said, “he’d love that.” Seth glanced down, uncertain. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I don’t want to be greedy.”

I’m not sure how this little streak of maturity has hit Seth all of a sudden, but he’s learning something of immense value in this glitzy, grabby world of ours. Seth is learning that there is enough, that he has enough. Seth is learning that we don’t have to stuff our fists and our mouths. Like most of us, he’ll surely continue to struggle with this, but Seth is on the right track. I’m shiny proud of him.

In the years to come, though, there will be another truth for Seth to learn, one that may come just as hard. It’s not time just yet, but soon enough, soon enough. This truth requires nuance, as well as courage. Someday, Seth will need to learn that there are things he’s right to be greedy for, some things he should long after and want more of, some shades of goodness that rightly leave us always hungry for another taste. While selfishly hoarding is one kind of evil, surrendering our good desires and our good hopes is an evil every bit as vile and ruinous. We are right to crave after (be greedy for, if you want to put it boldly) true friendship and deep love and work that matters. We want more goodness, more truth, more depth.

I’ve seen many men and women who, in their late years, know a meager, hollow existence. I want a streak of passion to sizzle up their spine. I want something to begin a slow burn in their gut, in their mind, in their body. I want them to be at least a tad greedy. Greedy for life.

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The Bumbling Faithful

Wise spiritual voices invite us to welcome the humiliation of the ego. It’s a steady drumbeat: real freedom comes when we release the commitment to power, to being right, to holding our life and our possibilities in our strong hands. Writer Jim Harrison knows this well: “I can maintain my sense of the sacredness of existence only by understanding my own limitations and losing my self-importance.”

However, we do not want to embrace our limitations. Our anxiety piques in those moments when we have no answers, no options, no clear path forward. Some of us exert vast energies resisting the reality that we really are destitute or spent or absolutely clueless. Others of us have yet to arrive at our helpless place, but there’s plenty of time. Sooner or later, life has a way of ridding us of our illusions.

There is no reason to bemoan all this. Our inevitable bewilderment provides a gift. Once we surrender the silly notion that we have God or marriage or parenting wrapped around our pinky…Once we get over ourselves…Once we laugh off the ridiculous idea that we’ve got the world by the tail – then we can get on with our true life, our true selves. We need no longer lug the weight of perfection. We can enjoy the carefree life that only the bumbling faithful are able to enjoy.

Wendell Berry said it right. “It may be when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.”

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Cycles of Mercy

the fabulous photographer michael costa
the fabulous photographer michael costa

Every morning, the sun rises without our help. Each evening, it returns to its bed of rest. We do not contribute to the sun’s labor, and our expertise or cleverness do absolutely nothing to keep this cycle in motion. What we do, our unique role in this grand life, is to prepare space to receive the sun’s heat and energy. We bless the light when it comes to us, and we bless the light as it departs. In the same way, we receive the gift of night, the rest and the leisure and the warmth of hearth and the warmth of family around the table. We welcome these moments, sometimes we contend with them, but we do not rule over them. We are at their mercy.

The Scriptures speak of the farmer who works the soil and then simply waits on the sun and the rain and the earth to do their work (or to not do their work as is sometimes the case). Few of us know this agrarian reality first-hand. But we do know what it is to have done our very best, to have prayed our hardest or exerted our last ounce of energy, only to be left with the bare fact that the only thing left to us is to wait. We wait for a child to come home. We wait for pain to release. We wait for just the smallest glimmer of light to break through.

Miska has created something of a homeopathic apothecary. On the window sill, in front of where I write, sits jars of hibiscus, calendula and chamomile, vanilla jojoba oil, comfrey and calendula. Miska has poured her oils and herbs into the Mason jars. Miska has done her work, and now they sit and soak up the sun which arrives over the Blue Ridge each morning. They sit here and keep me quiet company. Miska does nothing for them in these days. I certainly do nothing. It is no longer up to Miska what they become. This line of jars tells me the truth about my life. Everything is a grace. All is mercy.

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The Courage of Patience

There are seasons of our life when all we can do is put one heavy foot in front of the other. It’s tempting in these dreary places to think that something is wrong, that we must muster our energy or our faith and maneuver out of the long sludge. Around a breakfast table recently, someone asked me how I was. I sighed deep. “I’m tired, but I’m surviving.” Another pastor at the table chided me. “Surviving? You better be doing better than that.” Well, I wasn’t. And truth told, I was rather proud of my survival. It’s certainly better than the alternative.

The Scriptures tell us to be patient and to wait on the Lord. We often envision this patience as something born amid spiritual fervor, a kind of contented restfulness as our prayers settle on our still hearts – and we wait. Often, however, our patience, if we’re to call it that, comes when we’re at the end of ourselves, after we’ve exhausted all other alternatives. Over years, contentment and patience can become a pattern, a way of living with trust, with open hands. In the mean time, it’s find to just strap in tight, grip a hand near you and ask God for mercy. God’s fine with that; God has more patience than any of us.

St. Teresa of Avila offers a blessing for these moments, reminding us that all things pass, that the dark hole which threatens to consume is smaller than it appears. St. Theresa reminds us of the one essential: We can live in the very place where we are, this very place, because God is with us. And God is always enough.

Let nothing upset you, let nothing startle you.
All things pass; God does not change.
Patience wins all it seeks.
Whoever has God lacks nothing:
God alone is enough.

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Gridiron Weight

Each year, I take the boys for an overnight trip for their birthday. Last year, Wyatt picked a train trek to DC. Two years in a row now, Seth has picked a weekend of Clemson football. Clemson (where the boys were born) and Baylor (where I grew up) are our two teams, but a visit to Grams, Pa and the Bears in Waco require a bit more time and financial commitment.

One of the great Clemson traditions is that after the game, fans flood the field as the team stays around for half an hour to sign autographs and pose for pictures. My hunch is that after many futile efforts to hold back the tidal wave cresting over the stadium walls, the athletic department threw up their hands and decided instead to create a massive marketing coup – they welcomed the chaos. Saturday night, watching thousands of young kids with wide eyes walking the turf amid larger-than-life Tigers, it was obvious they were solidifying the fan base for decades to come. The throngs pressed around the national play-makers: quarterback (and Heisman contender) Tajh Boyd, Roderick “Hot Rod” McDowell, Vic “The Beast” Beasley and Sammy Watkins, the streak of lightning who causes a collective short-breath in the stadium every time he touches the pigskin.

However, I watched several players (an offensive guard, maybe a defensive reserve or two) slowly make their way down the sideline, toward the tunnel to the locker room. No one shoved a mic in their face. If anyone asked them for an autograph, it was only the hyper kid running frantically player to player never even pausing to look the player in the eye or the disappointed kid who couldn’t break through the surging pack to the stars. I don’t imagine there were many people in the stadium wearing jerseys sporting their numbers. None of the left-alone players looked bothered or annoyed that they received none of the glamor. They’d done their work, and it was time for a shower. I wasn’t interested in autographs, but I did find myself thinking, Hey, man, you’re a fellow who digs into the trenches. We should sit down over coffee (or, I don’t know, a 4lb roast maybe). I’d like to hear your story.

When the athletic staff attempted to lead Tajh through the massive throng so the poor fellow could call it a day, Tajh kept stopping as hats and footballs were shoved in his chest. He looked exhausted. Tajh was doing his best to be the people’s man, but that was a whole lot of people. I wondered if he’d like to play the part of the second-string O-lineman, quietly strolling to the exit.

I don’t know what to make of all this, of our hero culture. I’ve no interest in making swipes. We’re desperate for women and men to respect, to believe in – and if sports participate in that, I won’t knock it. I do know we get carried away. One of our fellow Clemson fans, a middle-aged woman sitting near us, yelled at the offense in the third quarter, just before Tajh called out the snap: “Come on, part the Red Sea and let Moses through.”

It’s obviously gameday hyperbole, but I do wonder what it does to a soul to have this kind of weight placed on them. On the drive home Saturday night, we stopped for dinner. Seth, obviously overcome by the heat and exertion of the day, said, “Dad, you could totally have played professional football.” I chuckled, and I corrected him. Lack of talent aside, I could never have born that pressure. I hope we do not crush the good that is in the heroes we say we love.

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Generous to Demons

Jesus is so kind, he’ll even say yes to demons if he’s able.

In a scene that could have been cut from The Walking Dead, two demon-possessed men roamed the graveyard, frothing at the mouth and ravaging any poor soul that attempted to visit the tombs. Jesus approached, and the demons went to talking, nervously. The demons apparently knew their gig was up, and they didn’t let Jesus get a word in edgewise. Apparently, they knew that the minute Jesus spoke, it was lights out. So the demons belted out a request. If you’re going to drop the hammer, would you send us into the herd of pigs scavenging the hillside?

Now I could think of a hundred better options than escape via swine, but perhaps when you’re flustered and time’s ticking, you just say the first thing that pops into your mind. I wonder if later, when they regrouped and were licking their wounds, if one demon slapped the other on the head and said, “Seriously? Pigs?”

At any rate, Jesus didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Go.” Into the pigs they went, as they’d asked. My hunch is that his doesn’t happen often, but on this occasion, Jesus answered the prayer of a demon. I wonder if there was a moment, after the herd of pigs went raving mad and hurled themselves off the cliff, that Jesus lamented the sad affair. “I only wish you’d asked for more. I only wish you’d asked for love.”

God’s impulse is yes. Like a doting Father who hates to say no, God will do a yes at every possible opportunity.

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Stop Talking

Reading through James, I’m struck by how persistently he warns us of the abuse of words. “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak…” I wonder what would happen if we took this as our motto for one solid day? Would our facebook and twitter feeds come to a grinding halt?

The theology of the first section of James 3 (with its descriptor of the tongue as a fire connected with the flames of hell and the tongue as a restless evil full of deadly poison) might be summarized something like this: if you want to sin less, stop talking.

James provides treacherous ground for those of us who spend our lives wrangling with words, but perhaps James only says something every writer or preacher knows, even if we fail to practice it. Listening must come before speaking. Watching must come before writing. We must receive the gift of another before we have any gift to give. If we are full of only our own words and our own self-absorbed visions, our words will prove to be scraggly and brittle. There will be no life in them. When we are more consumed with pronouncing to another than actually receiving the other, we have lost our way. Our listening should be quick, and our speech should be slow.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, grief-stricken over the capitulation of the German Church to the Nazi program wrote, “Sometimes I think Christianity will only live after this time in a few people who have nothing to say.” When I hear our angry rhetoric and our speed to announce final words…When I watch how we dash past the actual stories that surround us… I wonder the same thing.

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