(I know this isn't new or deep, but it's made such a difference for me this year, so I thought I'd share. Plus, Dad reminded us some time ago that maybe we could use this blog also for exposing what's on our hearts. This is what's on my heart right now.)
A few years ago, I was driving on Christmas alone in the car. It was a little bit of a raw day, no snow, just cold. And it felt all the more Christmassy. This year, I've tried several times to turn on the Christmas carols, and it just isn't feeling right at all. Sunday night I was driving to mass, at St. Marty's of all places, tired and in the dreary rain, and again, it felt quite Adventy. And of course, like many of you, I have a nagging, only growing aversion to stores and catalogs and the glut of gifts and purchases this time of year.
Here's what it adds up to for me: Perhaps Christmas is a raw holiday. Comforting that our omnipotent, omniscient, all loving, eternal, limitless God took the form of a completely defenseless baby at the mercy of human beings? Yes.
But raw because, well, our omnipotent, omniscient, all loving, eternal, limitless God took the form of a completely defenseless baby at the mercy of human beings. He came to this cold, dreary, tired world. This is such a physical holiday. And maybe in the same way that Easter just isn't Easter unless you've observed Lent well, maybe Christmas isn't Christmas - a massive celebration of all things comforting and cozy and bountiful and loving - unless you've really meditated on the broken physicality of the world, and the sin that wrought this brokenness, in order to truly appreciate what our God did when He sent His SON, His Child, into our bloodied hands. And what that Light really means for our world.
Though I'm tempted not to, I will put the decorations up. But I don't think I'll be chasing any Christmas cheer, not until December 24th at midnight. I'll be soaking up a bit of the wretchedness first. And not because I feel Scroogy, quite the opposite.
Thoughts?
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3pm: Well, I've already had a change of heart, and really want my decorations. Maybe this is really about me, and formerly needing that perfect Christmas experience for it to be Christmas, and realizing that misses it entirely. Maybe I'm all grows up now. xo
3 comments:
I love you for sharing this,Annie.
There's diff emotions we feel many times of the day, this time of year. But tell you what, we've decorated early, put up the tree, and added more nativity sets. Makes me feel good.
Luke is absolutely obsessed w/ baby Jesus this year. I look around the house and love that all the lights and candles feel so cozy and christmassy, and peaceful.
I get what you're saying, and I feel that it's all in how you look at it. Decorate with the kids, play music and read the first christmas to them. If there were no kids here, presents wouldn't be either.
But that's a part of having children, and everything is in moderation,right?
You just do the best to make sure the holiday is blessed
Well this was new and deep to me. Tremendous post, Annie.
It occurs to me that your point about the physicality of Christianity and the Incarnation are central and important.
Eastern religions had no physical sense of the divine. This world was either an illusion (Buddhism) to be escaped, therefore not real, not physical, or this world is all a direct part of God (Hinduism) and therefore not physically separate, not earthly real.
What makes Christianity (beginning with our older brothers, the Jews, of course) so radical is that God is PHYSICALLY active in our world. He comes barging in to our world in the most physical of all acts, child birth, and dies the most physical of all deaths, torture.
I think Advent is less stark than Lent simply because we are preparing for a the celebration of Christ's coming and not his departure. But we should be preparing, nonetheless. To see the Incarnation without also seeing the Crucifixion is to view the most revolutionary act in history, God's coming to earth and walking among us, as just a neat story.
Advent and Christmas should be sacred, not sentimental.
Let's get the conversation started!!
From the Catechisim of the Catholic Church:
"The coming of God's Son to earth is an event of such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over centuries. He makes everything converge on Christ: all the rituals and sacrifices, figures and symbols of the First Covenant".
" To become a child in relation to God is the condition for entering the kingdom. For this, we must humble ourselves and become little...Only when Christ is formed in us will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us. Christmas is the mystery of this marvelous exchange".
"O marvelous exchange! Man's Creator has become man, born of the Virgin. We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share our humanity".
If that isn't physicality, I don't know what is.
I really liked your post, Annie. This truly is a season for reflection and contemplation. And I wonder, is it any wonder that Advent is celebrated in the wintertime? The cold and starkness of winter moves us indoors, having us seek warmth. Nature has put on her cloak. And we should do the same.
During Advent - the preparation of the coming of Christ into our world - we should prepare by looking, not only at our broken world, but at our broken selves. We must "move indoors" and see what God sees; we must work within. Does winter lend itself to this task? I think so. Absent the beauty of Nature in her fruitful glory, we are surrounded by Nature in her nakedness.
The Incarnation is our reason for Hope. And as Christ told us, we must "become like a child" in order to be with Him. That is our cloak.
Winter is cold and stark; a reminder of our rejection of Love. The warm glow of candles, a reminder that Love's presence is always with us.
So, yes, I believe that Advent is a "raw" and physical season, in that it reveals to us our sinful nakedness. And Christmas - Christ among us - brings back to us the Concrete Good, True and Beautiful.
The innocence of Luke's obsession with "baby Jesus" is what we should all be yearning for....and celebrating. Because innocence recognizes and knows Innocence like no other.
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