Finding Home

What else do you do on New Year's Eve but think about the past year? (Rhetorical question. I don't want to know just what you were up to until 2AM...)

A year ago, I was Skyping with friends on internship in various time zones. The eastern time zone struck news years and it was only 10PM for me. Again, I got through a second dropping of the new years ball with a friend in the central time zone. And finally, I made it to midnight Mountain time. By that point, I had already curled up in bed to read a book. I clicked on my phone around 11:58, waiting for it to tick to midnight. Then I smiled. And I shut off my light and went to sleep.

This year, I'm driving from one home to another, neither of which are in Montana or the mountain time zone! What a year it has been. I just took my car in for his 100,000 mile check up. The man taking care of me at the dealership looked at my book of past maintenance and commented on all the places I had been. Yes. Yes, I have been many places.

And yet, I find that this evening, I am content to be with myself. Perhaps dragging myself (and Henry) around the country has caused me to find contentment in many places, even within me.

So today I give thanks for the many homes I've known and the God who came to earth to make a home with us.

[photo = http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosendahl/5598930036/]

The Guitar Gift-Part 1

This Christmastime, I gave away the first guitar I ever tried to play as a donation to a church down the street. I had to clean and re-string the instrument first though. The strings were over 15 years old!

Cleaning a dusty instrument is an intimate process to me, especially if you own it. It’s like you’re discovering a whole new identity hidden under the dust and crap that has accumulated. I began by removing the strings and saw that it was clearly time for these strings to go. As I cleaned and polished the wood I remembered the first few times I picked it up to try tuning it or playing a little tune that I wanted to know. I remember my fingers making their way clumsily from fret to fret struggling to find a G or a C or even the melody to “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. This guitar deserved better treatment for the lack of talent that had painstakingly played it many years ago.

As I diligently tied each nylon string onto the guitar, I thought about the potential that this guitar may have for someone else. There could be joy, anger, sadness, love, and creativity that someone else might pour into the very strings that I am laying in. When I had finished placing all six strings I began tuning it correctly for the first time in years. New strings always have a process to adjust and get comfortable onto a guitar. They are not used to be stretched out so far and so they need some attention to help them ease into a new transition in their coiled existence. I gave them the attention they needed for three days. Tuning and playing songs that I knew from a classical rendition of “To Zanarkand” to a fun “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”.

After giving the guitar the attention it deserved from me, I knew it was time to pass it along. I had mixed feelings about leaving that instrument, my first one, in the hands of the kind pastor at St. James Lutheran Church, because I had taken the care to make it whole again and revive it. I knew that someday it would make someone very happy or at least give them a chance to have some fun.

I received many great gifts this season, but the best one by far was in the picture and the beginning of this post. This is the guitar that I cleaned in the hands of someone who was not able to afford a musical instrument. I watched as he played “Away in a Manger” for the first time and walked out with the guitar. I wanted to run after him and tell him all of the history and wonders that I discovered, but then I decided that making one’s own history and discovering the potency of the memories found in the guitar is more worthwhile for his musical experience.

There’s a lot more that I could say, but alas I have greatly exceeded my word limit already by quite a bit. Perhaps next week I will reflect on this subject some more.

Until Next Friday!

A Truly Happy Birthday

Four years ago today one of the most amazing people God ever created came into my life - it was the day my niece Phoebe was born.

Being an aunt is my greatest job, I'm sure only to be topped (hopefully) by one day being able to mother a child of my own. My niece and nephew are some of the clearest beacons of truth that I have seen in this world. There is no happiness as pure as the happiness of child. There is no quest for knowledge like that of an inquisitive child exploring the world for a first time. There are no hugs as heartwarming then snuggling up with a child as they fall asleep in your arms.

I'll never forget that night waiting at Lakewood Hospital in Ohio, sitting with my dad outside in the waiting room as my mother and brother-in-law stayed with my sister as she struggled through a challenging labor. I remember everything about how that night turned into day, and ultimately afternoon - from the book I read, to the letter I wrote a future-Phoebe, to the person who sold me one-too-many cups of coffee. But what I remember most of all was that first moment she was placed within my arms, her little curled fists poking out of her blanket, the squished post-delivery look on her face. It was at that moment that I fully understood what God's unconditional love for us was like, because I knew then that I would never stop loving this beautiful miracle that laid within my arms.

For many people Christmastime is about celebrating the joy that comes from recognizing that God loves our humanity so much as to live in human form. While I celebrate that joy, for me the added reason to celebrate the season is in thanksgiving that God continues to love us so much as to bless us with the joy of rediscovering our humanity through the lives of our children, and our children's children, and the children of our loved ones.

I am so grateful that my God has allowed me the blessing to have a loving relationship with my niece and nephew. Their presence in my life has been a gift greater then I ever could have imagined, and with every lit candle on the cake I rejoice that when I sing "Happy Birthday" to them, I am also celebrating that their birthdays are happy days for me, too.

(Happy Birthday, Phoebe. Much love - Aunt Tina)

Twilight fading, a new dawn approaches...

Ushering in a new beginning

Awakened

What beheld my gaze was the emptiness of the landscape

Swathed in naked cotton

The earth steady within my grasp

Soaring above my spirit, a lone bird, trailing eternal light blazed across

From out of the sands quiet steps were others, a thousand of my twins

Confusion, questioning with a sweep of the winds laid the paths before

Steady steps as the horizon beckoned

Voices lifted in rhythm, calling

And the breezes carry the response home

Purposely my pace matches another

A hand, gesture, sign of peace in whispers

“We had been lost, where the Creator leads we do not know.”

The smile that graces these feature only speaks the outcome-where our heart will sing.

Shadows of comfort stretch across the clouds in that distance we can not reach

In order to be, sitting under the Tree we must travel

Allowing the Mysteries of the Holy Spirit to guide us.

The velvet curtain slowly caresses the emptiness of the air as it flutters to earth; a year begins to bow before Creation as it fades into the recesses of our memories. Soon the faint strains of violins and the rhythm of percussion shall catch the attention of our souls bringing our gaze center stage as another year appears to delight, surprise, astound and confuse us. 

Although part of me misses the beauty of Winter, it is the steady beat of rain that has welcomed me to another dawn and the morning is reflective. People will start to compile New Year's Resolutions among their New Year Eve's celebrations; my own is rather simple. To continue to allow the Holy Spirit to work within me, to continue along this path that God has set before us-this vocational journey called Seminary. To remain prayerful and supportive to those who walk alongside and with me, from those within my Treehouse, those nestled in the valleys of my camp, those whom God has connected by blood and those whom God has connected as brothers and sisters in this faith journey, in Christ.

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year to you all,

God's Peace.

White? Christmas

I’ve never dreamed of a white Christmas. I grew up in southern California; my preferred Christmas weather is 75 and sunny. I sang the song, sure, but I sang it the way one sings “Puff the Magic Dragon.” I sang it because it was fun, not because I believed it was real. Some people are amazed at my disregard for the magic of snow on Christmas. They tell me I must just not understand, having never experienced it before. Last year in Syracuse, I did finally have my first white Christmas; I found the whole thing over-rated. Snow is cold and hard to shovel no matter what day it is. The first Christmas was likely not white either, Bethlehem averages in the 50s this time of year.

While songs about snow and sleigh rides never have made sense to me, I still love them. I love them because they remind me of the earthiness of this holiday. Christmas isn’t really about weather, but about the miracle of a God who became flesh and came down to muck through this world of snow and heat. So Merry Christmas to you, whether your holiday dreams include sledding or surfing. As for me, I’m going hiking.

Trees and Things

"Christmas Eve will find me where the love light gleams."


Most years I grow weary of close minded people griping about X-Mas, Happy Holidays, and so on. This year, however, there's been a strong response about Christ being in the midst of these.

My favorite, has been about Christmas trees. My atheist or agnostic friends are quick to point out to me that Christmas trees are not Christian. I enjoy the moment when they are shocked at my agreeing with them. Christmas trees were not present at the birth of Christ (nor were whales, octopi, or lobsters, but I love that scene in Love, Actually). And I'm okay with it. And I'd cry if there were no tree up in my mom's house this Christmas.

Why the tie? What's the point of putting up a tree, more capable it would seem of celebrating winter solstice than Christ?

For me, it has to do with that line in "I'll be home for Christmas" and a God who promises to shine in our darkness. Last year, all alone in Montana, I had a tiny little tree with one strand of lights. It didn't feel like home. The one time I felt like I was home was sitting in the church at night, with only the grand Christmas tree lit up. That glow, that "love-light" is Emmanuel, God with us. That glow is home. That glow is love.

Besides, Christ hung on a tree for us. That speaks some profound love that no darkness can conquer.

(Photo by Eric Renshaw. Taken at Opryland Hotel, where I go every year to see this tree and all the decor.)

Celebrating Christ, not Commercials

Christmastime can be hard to watch. I don’t mean only the panicked looks on people’s faces as they might worry if they’ve gotten everything on their lists, even after checking it twice, but one needs only to turn on the television to see that Christmas can be hard to watch. If you are not watching the news filled with stories of inter-party politics within the GOP and tales of a recently escaped 5 time sex offender you will still find commercials doing what they do best, commercializing.

Christmas has become a holiday of commerce stretching from Black Friday to the day the last Christmas gift gets returned. Commercials are filled with heart-warming and joyful reasons not to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace or the unlikely Son of God, but to shop at their stores and get marvelous discounts. Rather than giving and receiving out of joy for those around you, Christmastime looks more like an obligation. An exchange of material symbols of the material culture instead of the affection in our hearts.

Perhaps in light of the economic situation of many Americans (48% at or under the poverty line currently) it is best to remember the conditions of the event which we as Christians celebrate. We celebrate a child being born to an unwed teenage girl in a place where it smelled bad and was probably very unsanitary. We celebrate the coming of God into the world at an unlikely place at an unlikely time. We celebrate that God did not dwell with us out of obligation, but out of affection, even undeserved affection (gotta make sure there’s a little Lutheran in here!).

Christmastime has been tough for me to watch as people stress to make sure that everyone buys the things they need to make a perfect holiday when really the most important gifts of Christmas can be found beyond the idea of the perfect Christmas in a place where love of neighbor and God meet with joyous celebration of the perfection in the imperfection.

Have a very merry Christmas! And please pass it along to your loved ones.

Until Next Friday!