Silence and longing

You provide the fire
I'll provide the sacrifice
[Kim Walker Smith]

A sacrifice is always dead.

Let's be clear-- the simple fact of being dead doesn't make you a sacrifice. Jesus, our Lamb, became Jesus, our Fiery King, through the act of voluntarily sacrificing Himself for the sake of love. He tells us that if we follow His steps in self-sacrifice, we, too, will be raised up; if we pour ourselves out for the sake of love, if we waste our resources and time and energy not for our own good, the fire will burn but it will not decimate. Our heels will be bruised, but we will stand on the broken head of our enemy.

I don't know about you, but I want that more than anything. I want the powerful hope of resurrection; I want the power of Christ to fuel my days. I want to stop being afraid and angry, and be powerful and joyful instead. I want to look death in the eye and not flinch, because I know Whose and who I am.

A sacrifice is always dead.

Advent is a fast, and fasts are about dying. But the most important part of Advent is looking forward-- expecting, waiting, hoping, longing.

Longing is a fearful and powerful thing. In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, the dystopian society he's created is centered around weakening longing-- obliterating desire by constant self-indulgence, spreading out "love" to dodge the demands of committed self-sacrifice, diffusing the jet of human longing into a million tiny fountains that are harmless and powerless. It sounds an awful lot like what I do on a daily basis, honestly-- suffocate my hunger and pain and longing under a comfortable pillow and fleeting entertainment and a full belly.

There's nothing wrong with being full and comfortable and happy; there's only something wrong when I hear and feel and see the truth of my longing and instead dodge back into distraction so I don't have to come face to face with my pain, so I won't be disappointed if there isn't something powerful enough to satisfy and obliterate the longing.

A sacrifice is always dead, and part of Advent is making space-- dying to the old things to make room for the new.

The One Who names Himself Desire of Nations is not unfamiliar with the raw longings of the human heart; He isn't overwhelmed or irritated by our need, and He doesn't expect us to just get a grip and get over our fierce hope, our yearning for more. He wants us to feel our longing-- to honestly enter into the pain and frustration and discomfort of it, so that we can experience the intense satisfaction that comes only from His fiery love.

A sacrifice is always dead.

I don't know what it looks like for you to to hope and fast and long this Advent, but I think part of what it looks like for me is to make intentional silent space in my life-- to put aside, to die to, the noise and busyness and gratification that constant connectivity and entertainment offers me. What does it look like not to dull the pain and unmet hope, but instead point it at Jesus in a howl of honest longing?


Come, Desire of Nations, Come

To dust

We are gathered
dear people of God
but I am not gathered.
renew your repentance and faith

I do not still inside until my body moves, drops to my knees
to make a right beginning
and I feel the discomfort that seems like it shouldn't be quite so uncomfortable
and as a mark of our mortal nature
and I can no longer pretend that my insides and outside are not entwined.

And when we rise
You have created us
I follow down the aisle and I watch the dust smudge the skin of my mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, new and old and young and aged alike
a sign of our mortality and penitence
and I am always so startled to see even the babies marked and it makes me cry
that we may remember
and it comes to me
Katie, remember that you are dust

and I close my eyes and I feel the fingers and ash on my forehead

and to dust you shall return
and this is both the most and the least important I have ever been
Amen, I agree
and I open my eyes and carry the mark with me inside and out as I go

With our fathers and mothers, we cry out
have mercy on me, O God
and the words are raw and broken
we have sinned by our own fault in thought, word, and deed
but there is always comfort for the penitent, there is always salvation for the distressed
Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, desires not the death of sinners
and we kneel as one as we are reminded that even on this night of dust, we are treasures
He pardons and absolves all those who truly repent

This night, it seems too dark and too dusty and too sober for me to bear
remember
but without it how quickly I forget
that you are dust
and pretend I am strong and important all on my own
and to dust
and I fight the inevitable
you shall return

He gives us the gifts of dust
Remember
and ashes
you are dust
and grief
to dust
and repentance
you shall return
for that is the point
you shall return

Forty days
remember
and the seed that dies
that you are dust and to dust you shall return
becomes the tree that rises
that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy
and I discover this low place is where my true authority culminates
that at the last we may come to His eternal joy
and that willing death will always give way to new life.

Amen.

He Who sits in the heavens laughs

First they came for the Jews

and I did not speak out

because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists

and I did not speak out

because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics
and I did not speak out
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me

and there was no one left

to speak out for me.

[Martin Niemöller]

In forty years, when my children ask me so what happened in 2016?

I'll tell them this--

       we got what we asked for.

We asked, politicked, picketed, protested, for our government to solve all our problems-- so we got the most narcissistic crafty candidates possible.

We put our trust in the courts of men, so the idea of the possibility of a Supreme Court opening crippled the morals of hundreds of normally sane people.

We feared what wasn't us, and the devil's whispers in our ears told us kill it persecute it slander it snuff it out so we capitulated

because we believed even Jesus

wasn't stronger than a manmade wall.

(A wall. Do you even know how He handles walls?!?)

We forgot the lives and the blood of our forefathers and mothers, and we thought it was a good idea to elect a caesar who has determined that members of certain religions or races are inherently evil or worthless.

We looked at intelligent, thoughtful, soft-spoken, determined politicians, who said it is insane to build a wall, carpet-bomb families, patrol and oppress people a different flavor than "us"; and because they didn't make for exciting TV, we shrugged our shoulders, hugged our bowls of popcorn closer, changed the channels, and sold our votes for a few months of sick schadenfreude entertainment.

We decided that because Jesus was a long time coming with drawn sword, that the sword was more important than the bearer and we wanted and needed it now. No matter the cost. No matter what valuables of our own selves we had to sell. We wanted judgment for wrongs.

So now we will have it, just what we asked for-- hail and blood, fire and brimstone, the sword and the spear, division, hatred, suspicion, slander, anger, war, fear-mongering. Armageddon of our own design-- and we deserve it. We asked for judgment-- and here it is. We asked for bread and circuses, because our gods are our bellies and boredom is unthinkable-- and now we have it.

But here's a fair warning, and one I hope is not prophetic-- what happens when you bullishly seek a king of your own design, who will lead you into battle and secure your borders?

Saul comes. Insane, slavering, murderous, pagan, wishy-washy, terrified, proud, beautiful Saul. And he takes your things if he wants them, and he puts you in prison if you offend him, and he refuses to learn from or be humbled by his mistakes, and he washes his hands of consequences, and he rages against God Himself.

So be warned-- the nation ruled by a raging king will be shattered by the Christ's rod of iron. And you will call out Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the LORD, and just is his rage! or you will be beaten into dust.

Put your hope in a king, and you will perish with him.

And know this-- a candidate who is willing to take away some religions' rights and throw out some people . . .

has no real respect for any religion or any person.

And when you get in his way

he'll come for you.

And because you didn't speak up when they came for the Jews, the Communists, the trade unionists, the Catholics, the mentally-ill, the old, the sick, the imperfect, the Black, the Muslim, the poor, the helpless, the women, the oppressed--

there will be

no one

left

to cry out

for

you.

And will God have mercy for you when you demanded His harshest judgment for your neighbor?

Because know this--

our leadership does less speaking for us

and more speaking about us--

our fears and suspicions and secret murder.

And this year

we have made our choice

and we will bear

just what we asked for.

We rattled this town

My favorite part of any photograph
        is the bit just outside the frame
   the part you don't know is there
unless you were there.

You can't see, for instance, that I'm grinning
             not just because of the insanely attractive boy beside me
and his arm hard around my shoulder
      (touching me gingerly not because he was shy, but because, that's your dad taking this photo)
but because the man behind the camera
       is just a few months fresh from the longest-three-weeks-of-my-life hospital stay--
when no one could make the coughing-blood stop
        when I watched him turn pale and flimsy as the sheets and gowns they tucked him into
when the news that came back was not good
               when I wailed my grief and terror into the shoulder of a boy who was a fairly-new friend
    and in his arms and voice found a man I wanted to know in a more way--
this man
     this sick pale man
this man is alive
      and he is standing
  and he is laughing
and he is watching me begin the first day of the rest of my life
         (though neither of us knows it now)
  and in a very real way I have seen
           this one was dead and now he is alive again
and I am so purely happy for this exact moment.

You can't see, for instance, that this day
    (though I am more attractive than I've been maybe ever before)
             is maybe literally one of the worst of my life
because I am at a wedding
            a brilliant beautiful wedding
    and I just can't be quite happy
because I am surrounded by my childhood, its friends and mementos and feelings,
            and I am seeing just how far I've come
   I am missing someone I've known less than a year
and I hear Holy Spirit agreeing with my heart that
                  this is the one
     and I finally identify--
for one of the first times ever--
           that this discomfort is okay
   even though it is terrible,
it's okay
     I'm just feeling the too-real pains of growth.

You can't see, for instance, that even though I wasn't there
         this selfie kills me every time
    because it looks like something I would do
somehow both of them at once, though they're doing totally different things
        the helpless laughter
  the steady determination to try again--
it makes me smile and realize all at once
        how much I'm like them
    and think about the ways I'm unlike them, too,
 and tear up because
            though they are faithfully distinct and wonderful
     they always gave me the space to be who I am
not who they are.

You can't see, for instance,
         who we're looking at
  just outside the frame
                 and I can't even remember now
   but it drives me nuts, still,
because aren't you supposed to have eyes only for your bride, your groom
        on your wedding day?
   But today I think it's okay
because it's just a thing
         a part of this story
   and yeah, it probably has deeper connotations than just
you never looked at the camera at the same time
             but I'm not really worried
    because Jesus seems to have a handle on this
and we're both pretty decent at listening to Him
         so I think this'll all pan out.

        You can't see, for instance, that I'm laughing just that hard because just behind the photographer
    is a man I didn't know (when I met him) would quite fill out the title of Father
couldn't realize the ways that Jesus would use his wisdom, his humor, his challenges, his kindness,
              to heal things I didn't even know needed healing
  and I just glimpsed the sparking mischief in his eyes say
                       this will be the best photobomb ever!
and the next frame was.

You can't see, for instance, that I am making a great funny face
            but I feel like literal shit
    because possibly my entire uterus is dissolving and I really think I've never been this bloated
and someone just got in my husband's face and told him
        she's probably pregnant and just hasn't told you
even though he and I have just agreed to wait a little longer
   but I am feeling so ugly and so chubby and so gross and so damn angry because even though I know it's right,
     I'm done with waiting
             but then the littlest baby started crying
and his mama and daddy needed a minute to just play
       so I scoop him out of his seat
   hold him close
and for just a minute
           when this loveliest friend comes sidling up to me
     I can tip the baby's face to her, then cuddle him close,
and pretend
      just for a minute, please God, I swear it will just be a minute
that he's mine
         and you can't see that he broke my heart every day I held or saw or heard him for the next six months
   until I was so angry
               and so done
that I couldn't even talk to Jesus for months.


(Spoiler alert, you can be that angry and survive but it'd probably be easier if you just admitted it and cried or yelled for awhile instead of staying busy and making nice.)


   You can't see, for instance,
that I survived
     that I was feeling so beautiful and hopeful and wonderful
         and just full
standing next to my handsome love
     and it was spring even though there were grits of snow scudding across the lawn
and my new! almost! brother! was behind the camera so I knew it would be a great photo
               but I also felt distinctly the kind of ache that comes from knowing fear, pain, despair
    and surviving
and I knew that now, this moment,
          would be one I needed to remember
   to pull out when the days got dark again
and say
  Look, self, you were happy and he was holding you and everything was okay and spring really does come after the long cold dark winter and it will be okay again
          and God, I was right,
      I've needed that over and over and over,
but in that moment
     I was strong enough to hope that I wouldn't
that maybe, this time,
          hope wouldn't disappoint me.

My favorite part of any photograph
        is the bit just outside the frame
   the part you don't know is there
unless you were there
         the hopes
     the fears
  the backstory
              the little whispers of who we were
     who we will be
 the promises
            the broken and fulfilled and yet-to-be

and I hope

     someday

  that I remember not only the where and when and who of the photos

but the why

    the how

        the part that says til now

   the Lord has helped us

and the hope that is held in the eyes that says

         and tomorrow

     His mercies will be new.