Author: winncollier

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Enough

“From Jesus’ fulness,” says St. John, “we have all received, grace upon grace.” The truth of our world is abundance and plenty. Lies produce scarcity, miserliness and greed.

On December 26th, we set out on our Northern trek to visit my sister and her family in Michigan. As we backed out the driveway, flurries hit the windshield, and it occurred to me (with Miska’s help) that I had failed to check the weather. It turns out we were driving directly into an East Coast blizzard – meteorologists had christened the storm with a name for crying out loud. 7 hours yielded 113 miles, and we gave up in Pittsburgh with plans to regroup for a second go the next morning.

Somewhere during these travels (or was it during our 2 hour dead stop on I-70 while 4 tractor trailers were hauled off the guardrail and out of the ditch), our two boys entered a protracted dispute carrying financial implications. Miska halted the melee, insisted on their attention and said, “Guys, the only question you need to ask is this: right now, this moment, do I have enough?”

Do I have enough? Enough love for the hour? Enough dollars for the day? Enough hope for the next stretch?

When we believe we are okay, that our life is in God’s hands and that truly, in the end, all will be well – then we are able to unclinch our fists and live God’s generosity toward others.

This past year, my hope has been to grow more profuse with my energy and money and time, more large-hearted. I’ve been given multiple opportunities to stretch into this way of living. On several occasions, I’ve blown it magnanimously; but I’ve also shined in a few places too. Even these reviews of glories and blunders teach us, for generosity always includes being generous with yourself.

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Party’s On

I used to think the 12 Days of Christmas were the twelve days leading up to the 25th. Things turned topsy turvy when I discovered years ago that Christmas stretches almost two weeks and the twelve days merely commence on the 25th. What magnificence is this?

We’ve surrendered this practice too easily. We’ve forgotten the art of long, lingering feasts. You may think Christmas is over, back to the grind. Not hardly. It’s barely begun.

We’re moving ever deeper into the true, into the implications of Christmas, the implications of Incarnation.

God came to us because he wanted to join us on the road, to listen to our story, and to help us realize that we are not walking in circles but moving towards the house of peace and joy…Christmas is the renewed invitation not to be afraid and let him–whose love is greater than our own hearts and minds can comprehend–be our companion. {Henri Nouwen}

God is here. Party’s on.

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Upon the Eve {advent week four}

virgin-mary-and-jesusGod has filled the hungry with good things. {Mary}

Over Advent, our church has attempted to memorize Mary’s Magnificat. Each time I utter Mary’s prophetic word directed toward herself, I chuckle: ‘From now on, all generations will call me blessed.’ I love Mary’s undaunted boldness – you have no idea how big a deal this is; you’re going to be singing about me. Forever. This is a sassy, confident young woman.

I also chuckle because this is precisely a point where low-church Protestants often get nervous, developing a twitch when the Virgin is constantly referred to as Blessed Mary.

But Mary was blessed, not only because she carried the Savior of the Cosmos in her womb but also because she had eyes to see what this Savior would bring to the world – and a keen heart to know how desperate we all are for these gifts.

We’re all hungry. We’re all scratching our way through this world. Some of us are familiar with the hunger pangs, while some of us are masters at avoiding the longings of our soul. No matter, hunger catches up to all of us eventually. And Jesus, God’s shocking and paradoxical revelation, has already arrived with the remedy. God is ready to fill us, whenever we are ready to be filled.

Advent’s been hard for many. I pray Christmas fills you to the brim. I hope Christmas arrives with bells and songs and lots of gifts and revelry – and maybe even a train ride or new pair of slippers or some childish joy.

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The Soul’s Worth

photo

To all who’ve been dismissed or tossed aside ~

To all who, bittered by the cracks in your story, now tremble or seethe at the mention of ‘love’ ~

To every weary-boned parent saddled with regret or loss or despair ~

To every child, grown yet still yearning for tenderness and acceptance ~

To every one of us who compulsively judge our reflection in the mirror or replay conversations over and over or carry every criticism to a dark, dark place ~

To each of us who are ashamed of our fears and our machinations and who hide the fact that in our own sophisticated ways we still have to leave the light on at night ~

I pray that you will know, these beautiful days, the profound worth of your soul, the sturdy weight of your being. There is an astounding splendor in you – and I know this because the God of all beauty and power has called you into existence. And God delights in the sheer presence that is you. In these days, I pray you sing this song loud – and I pray you’ll sing it to another.

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Advent Week Three {tears for newtown}

Do not fear, O Zion;
do not let your hands hang limp.
The Lord, your God, is with you,
a warrior who gives victory;
he will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
as on a day of festival.
I will remove disaster from you… {Zephaniah 3:16-18}

What a word to be reading on Sunday, when Friday brought us to our knees. We hear a promise of disaster expunged, but for now, we’re buried by calamity. A quieting love — one day perhaps. But for so many, grief’s cacophony splits the soul.

Last night, while looking through some old files on a hard drive, I found a ten minute montage I’d saved, a string of old voicemail messages from Wyatt and Seth when they were three and four. The boys would call me while I was at work or away on a trip. “Daddy, I love you,” a tinny young voice crackled. “When you get home, can we go for a bike ride?” Tears came as I remembered these beautiful days, and more tears came as I remembered that for too many Sandy Hook families, these mementos are all they have left.

I could only think of my two boys, of the sorrow these fathers and mothers know. And I could only think of another child, a mere babe, who was born into a world where a madman murdered innocent children by the thousands. I could only think of a poor, blessed mother who would see her son’s life snuffed out before her very eyes. This son, this mother, know grief. They know the savagery of injustice. They weep.

They, better than most I must believe, know the promise that disaster will be relieved. They also know how much pain and suffering we will endure between here and there.

This suffering God. This is the God who is with us.

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Mighty Fortress

Wartburg Castle_A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

I’m told this is Wartburg Castle, the inspiration for Martin Luther’s A Mighty Fortress is Our God. That song gives me chills every time, almost enough to make me wish I were Lutheran. In college, my friend Karsten would belt out each line a cappella, and I’d sit mesmerized by his powerful voice but even more by the intrepid story this song proclaims.

This shot appeared on the #adventpicaday advent series a few of us have concocted on Instagram. One might not think the photo belongs in an Advent exercise. Mighty Fortress isn’t often thought of as an Advent tune, but it should be. They tell the same story, a tale of fierce love and bold rebellion against evil and darkness.

The baby came, a bulwark never failing.

 

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Advent Week Two {fire & fury}

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me…The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight — indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap… {Malachi 3:1-2}

When I was a boy, if I left the house with a dirty face, my mom would seize me before I exited the car. She would lick her thumb and scrub my grubby cheeks until they shined. I don’t know which I hated worse – the wet finger or how my mom could (as any good mom can) scrub down to the bone. She met my protests with a smile and a renewed tenaciousness. “If you’d clean yourself” she’d say, “then I won’t have to.” She made her point. I now wash my face each morning.

My mom had one other standard trick (is there a book somewhere with a list of such things?): soap for washing the filthy or sassy mouth. Best I remember, I never received the oral suds, though it’s entirely possible I’ve blocked it from my consciousness. I do recall the threat, and I do have a vague recollection of my sister’s ordeal at the bathroom sink. Only last week, I channeled my mother and suggested to Miska that we whip out a bar of Dial. I’ve only got a little more convincing to do.

When we think of Christ’s coming – Christ’s adventing – we often consider only the warm manger glow, the angelic carols, the hope and goodwill to all, the merry Christmas everyone. We consider only the delights. This is all most appropriate, as the prophet Malachi reminds us that the messenger who comes is one who indeed is our delight. Still, the prophet’s next question stops us short: who can endure the day of his coming? who can stand when he appears?

The prophet Malachi sets the coming Messiah as one who, not unlike an obdurate mother, arrives to cleanse with kindness and fury.

When the King comes, the King burns with fire. The Holy One washes the world with a cleansing deluge. This is a gracious terror. The Christ child comes in tenderness, but true tenderness can not allow evil to wreck us. Love could never be so feeble. Love must do what Isaiah promised, what St. Luke echoed – love must make the crooked things straight.

Who can stand when the Son of God appears in all splendor and blazing glory? None of us. And yet – each of us, surrounded by the unrelenting love of God. For the end, says Luke, is that all flesh will see God’s salvation.

 

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Doors

duke_chapel_doors.juli_kalbaugh

When Miska and I roamed London’s streets, I was fascinated by the doors. It’s the same when I walk Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood or Locust Street here in my own fair city. I watch the doors and wonder their story. Who has walked over that threshold and into warmth and life? Who has stood at the stoop, trembling as they knock, hoping against hope that the door would swing wide?

My sister gave me a print of the “Doors of Tallinn, Estonia,” a mosaic showcasing twenty-five doors you’d find if you were to travel Tallinn’s alleys and boulevards. The print sits above my desk, close to my Berry’s “Sabbath 2007, no 9” – the two say something quite similar, though you’d have to pay attention to know. Whenever I happen upon a beautiful or quirky door, I pull out my camera. I’m not unique in this, as doors have always captured the photographer’s eye. This week, these Duke Chapel doors caught my friend Juli Kalbaugh’s eye, and I’m so glad they did.

It’s made me wonder why doors capture us so. I’m sure there are many reasons, but I think this is one: we all want to be welcomed. We all want to be brought in from the cold, from the aloneness, into a warm space filled with friendship. We want to belong. We’d love to have a person fling their door open, burst into smile, throw their arms around us and say, Get yourself in here.

I wish I had more courage at some of these doors I love. Rather than take a photo, I’d like walk up and knock. If someone answers and asks what I need, I could simply say, “Just an invitation.”

 

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Advent Week One {light heart}

Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life… Be alert at all times…{St. Luke}

chairToday’s reading, for the first week of Advent, gives us a neglected term. I’m trying to recall if I’ve ever used dissipation in a sentence. Dissipation is a hoary word referring to the ways we grasp and clinch rather than give, the ways we shovel life down our throat without stopping to savor. We dissipate our life, says Luke, by grabbing too much drink or by grabbing too much worry. Our society knows the ruin that comes from abusing alcohol. I don’t think we’ve even begun to grapple with the abuse of worry, anxiety and fear.

We can’t honestly tussle with this latter vice because in so many ways it is the fuel that turns the engines of our world. What would happen to the corporate apparatus if managers stopped worrying about promotions or being bettered by the younger class? How would our economy spiral if we stopped obsessively pouring over job data and consumer sentiment? What new terror might erupt if we didn’t live, second by second, on high alert? What tragedy will ravage our family if we don’t maintain acute vigilance?

The real danger to all this anxiety, this dissipation of any sort, is that it gives us a heavy heart. Our heart is meant to be light and free; and when we stuff our souls with anything other than love and freedom, goodness and joy, then our heart loses its vibrancy.

I’m given to anxiety. I can work a worry with the best of them. It’s an addiction, and I can surrender to cycles where I compulsively propose every possibility for relational, vocational or family ruin — just to be prepared, to ward off danger. The result, as you’d guess, is that life lived this way knows little joy, little laughter. What danger could I possibly avoid that would be worse than the danger I’m creating for myself by concocting such a confining, agitated life?

Advent is a time for watching, watching for God, staying alert to love, paying keen attention to those places where we’ve let our heart grow heavy. Disappointment, regret, shame, lethargy, willful selfishness – these things breed anxiety. They weigh us down. They shutter the eyes of our heart, and we walk in the dark, our soul heavy and blind.

Last week, I saw this discarded orange chair in front of a friend’s house. I imagined sinking into its broken-in cushions, resting on that corner and watching the neighborhood. Unhurried, unbothered. I would cradle a mammoth thermos of coffee with a few extra cups in case any passerby needed warmth. I’d have an 80’s boom box sitting on the ground playing Scottish bagpipe tunes or maybe Johnny Cash. I’d sit there, with open eyes and open heart, light and free. Advent.

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Advent Hope #adventpicaday

Jeromie Rand.FrozenIt’s been said, at least a time or two, that a picture’s worth a thousand words. I buy it. But, as any son longing for home or any mother listening for love will tell you – it’s also true that sometimes a word’s worth a thousand pictures.

Bottom line: Pictures matter. Words matter. Love matters. Hope matters. A kiss under the moonlight matters. Tucking your boys in at night matters. It all matters.

But we’ll soon be moving into Advent, and the quiet, watchful Advent days are days particularly keen on opening up tired eyes and adding a twinkle when you don’t see it coming. Last year, a few of us helped one another pay attention, to see the days before us, by snapping a picture that spoke of Advent mercies. I figured why not go for it again.

Here’s how it works. This year’s theme will be hope. We’re watching for signs of hope, for things that give us hope – and also for the places we pray hope will arrive. As many days of Advent as you’re able (and please, let this be easy, no pressure or discipline or any such thing – this is Advent, mercy-time, for crying out loud), snap a photo (like the one above – Jeromie Rand gave us this one last year) and post it on Instagram with #adventpicaday in the caption field. That way, we’ll all see what you see.

It is this joyful expectation of God’s coming that offers vitality to our lives. The expectation of the fulfillment of God’s promises to us is what allows us to pay full attention to the road on which we are walking. {Henri Nouwen}

Now that’s hope.

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