An Examined Life

It’s the day before the day before. The time has past, and is come. Uncertainty and anticipation, anxiety and hope, fear and comfort, all rest together like the lion and the lamb.

Christmas is a reminder of all we have, and all we are missing. It reveals both our abundance, and our scarcity. It’s winter, we are now dependent on our earlier harvest.

The solstice has passed, we are on the other side now. Much like how it feels when we recover or resolve, the change to light is slow coming, almost imperceptible, but inevitable if we give it time.

That is what this Christmas is for me this year, a patient waiting for hope. The Advent story is a beginning, a foreshadow. We mine the story for signs, but it’s not really yet, it is to come.

I am so grateful for the warmth and joy of the season that is a harbinger welcomed in and entertained. Christmas is the rumour, the idea of what can be.

May we all know this anticipation, this beginning, this inevitability of hope.

Happy Christmas

For God’s sake, Matthew, get the door!

All right, all right, stop the racket, I’m coming

Look, I’m sorry but we’re full, nothing. Not sure you’ll find anything at this late hour.

How far along are you?

You shouldn’t be traveling. Sir, you should be taking better care of your young wife.

I wish there was something I can do, but I can’t.

Matthew, who is it? No more exceptions now, we’ve got them sleeping on the floor in here!

It’s a young couple, she looks ready to burst with a child.

My God look at them.

How ‘bout for tonight we just give you somewhere to get out of the weather.

Round back we have a small shed.

It’s for the animals but we sometimes have our boy sleep there.

I’ll have my wife bring some blankets back. You need water?

Sara, i’m not sure how I feel about this.

She may have that baby at any moment.

They seem weary, but not sad.

Walking to the shed behind the Inn, they only think of sleep.

This is not how Joseph ever envisioned their first days together.

Matthew waited for his wife.

How’re they doing?

They’ll get by. It’ll be fine.

Matthew and Sara climbed the stairs to their room, their old bones slowing them down.

I loved those days, when anything seemed possible, Sara said as her head lay on the pillow.

Those young kids will figure it out. Goodnight Matthew.  Goodnight Sara. Dream well.

We got our first Christmas Card in the mail last week. Well, not exactly a ‘Christmas’ card, rather a ‘Seasonal’ card. “Season’s Greetings” it said, and a bunch of signatures of names of people I didn’t even know hurriedly scrawled across the inside. It was from our bank, or insurance company or plumber or something.

I know that the generic greeting at this time of year is to avoid any offence from those that play for another team, but I am thinking it’s not such a bad idea.

I love the seasons, all four of them. My favorite time though is right about now, at the change from one to another. Those first mornings when snow appears on the mountains. The way the passage of time seems to slow to accommodate being inside more, out of the weather. Winter jackets, scarves and toques all become regulars on the coat hooks.

In theory, yah, I’d love to live in a place free of windshield ice scrapers, road salt, and winter tires. In California our friends mark the change in season by deciding not to barbeque for a few months. It’s still as warm as most of our summer days, but that is the winter tradition down there. They have to do something, since most everything else just stays pretty much the same.

I love change. Three months is a good amount of time. Just when you think you’re done –it moves on to the next.

So, I am ok with the Bank’s sentiment – maybe Jill, Carl, Phyllis, and Mi Yeung feel the same way I do. The morning of that first real frost, stepping outside and the nose hairs stick together on a breath in. That’s the moment you know, it’s happened, the dial has clicked one over. Season’s Greetings everyone.

She’s really more a daughter than a cousin. Yet here we are in the same predictament – pregnant by surprise. She too young, and me too old.

Of course I want children, or more to the point – wanted children. Both my husband Zacharias and I are over it though, and had moved on with different plans, or so we thought.

Mary arrived when I was already six months along. She shared her news excitedly, practically singing as she talked in very spiritual terms about what had happened to her. Frankly I would have tossed the explanation out of hand, had it not been for the fact there here I, barren for all these years, was now with child myself. Anything seemed possible.

What about Joseph?, I asked.

…

Mary told me when I was out in the workshop. I stood in silence. She said an angel visited her, and that’s how it happened. She said she’s never slept with anyone, ever. How am I possibly supposed to believe that. I am not sure what makes me more angry – the fact that she had sex with another guy, or that she tried to lie with some stupid story about God being responsible for the situation.

I have everyone telling me to just walk away, find someone else, someone willing to be faithful. But here’s the deal. Yes, I am furious, and hurt more than I thought possible, but I also still love her, and that love really seems stronger than the hurt.

She left soon after for her cousin’s. Just as well I said. I need time.

…

I’m glad to have Mary around. Once past the shock of it all we are now just two expectant mums waiting. Our kids will be six months apart. My sense is they are boys. Imagine the pals they’ll be.

Ok, I gotta get something off my chest here. The Magi - aka: three kings aka:wise men. Who the heck are these guys? Kings? Really? What about those gifts – come on, give me a break! Here baby Jesus, have a little Myrhh – what the…?

It took these guys a year to find the blessed babe in the manger – clearly they got lost trying to follow a star that has a habit of moving about in the old night sky (and how did they navigate by day anyway?).

Oh, and don’t get me started on their conversation with Herod. “hey Herod, listen we had this premonition that the King of the Jews has been born, you have any idea where he might be?” You don’t think that might have triggered the jealousy of the Roman? Slaughter of the Innocents…hello?! These guys really seemed a couple camels short of a herd.

There’s lots of talk among people that talk about such things that maybe the kings never really existed. Through the years of the story being passed down those wise guys were added to give more weight to the importance of Jesus - I guess listeners in the beginning were going ‘yah, but God as a baby, come on, really?” and so, at some point someone went “no wait, so like these really important Kings showed up see, and they brought super expensive gifts, see – THAT’s how important Jesus was!”

I get that. We so want others to believe what we believe we add stuff to make it so. But here’s the thing. The truth doesn’t need us to make it true. It just is. It doesn’t need more words, it doesn’t need to be fancier, louder, quieter, or more beautiful.

Somehow this Advent we’ll have to work through all the stuff people want to hang on the truth to make it seem more so. There’s definitely truth there, it just may not be that obvious.

I think Santa is the best thing that has happened to Christmas. We may be a divided people about our religions and beliefs, but when it comes to St. Nick we are in total agreement. It is imperative that, collectively, we dupe every kid under the age of six.

It really is astounding that even with the majority of us knowing better, the secret remains intact. Even children faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, still find some way to justify his existence.

And why not?

There is really no downside to believing. If you do you get toys, you get a distraction in the mall while shopping for boring stuff with mum, and you get some pretty cool stories and imagery. There is even no shame once you’ve figured it out – it’s not like you were an idiot for thinking he existed, you have now simply grown up.

Santa Claus embodies all that is good. I am not sure why when we are six we stop believing, but it may be that that is when we figure out it’s damn hard to be kind and generous even some of the time so there’s little likelihood someone could be that all the time.

But, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to give up on the Jolly Red Elf. What if we kept believing there was such a thing as universal generousity? What if there was some reward for being good? How cool would it be to have a person for us adults to visit, in the mall, with whom we could talk to about our hopes and dreams, and then get our picture taken?

Really, give me one good reason why that is not a great idea? Because it isn’t true? Ha, I dare you to ask any five year old, I am sure they will beg to differ.

You have no idea how many times I’ve hear that joke. Yes, I am a shepherd. No, I don’t get lonely. It’s a job – I just make sure I come back with the same number of sheep  I leave with and I get paid. A good shift is when nothing happens.

To this day I have no idea why we got ‘the visit’ – which is how we’ve come to describe it. At first the distraction was welcome, I had heard Isaac’s story of how he met his girlfriend one too many times.

“Don’t be Afraid, I bring you tidings of Great Joy” – I mean, what the fuck ( pardon my French), but the whole place was lit up and there’s this guy, thing, light, whatever hovering. I didn’t take his advice, frankly, I thought I might shit my pants (pardon again).

So, this, this, being, goes on to tell us about how God’s been born down in Bethlehem. Then there’s like this music, huge, huge, choir – then dark again.

Isaac was the first to speak “so, where was I, oh yah, so I saw her coming…”

“Isaac shut the fuck up, what the HELL just happened?”

We hadn’t even been drinking or anything. We compared notes and realized we’d all seen and heard the same thing. Jonas had a little more education than the rest of us and he talked about how there was this idea of a Savior coming and there may be some reference to him being born a baby.

The rest of us just shook our heads , as if, school had clearly been wasted on Jonas.

But, just in case, we all agreed that after our shift we’d head into town and check it out. Worst case, we’d find nothing, then hit the bar – with the whole Census thing there was bound to be new talent around…..

I am thinking this morning about the whole birth of Jesus scenario and how it was such an unusual way for God to present himself to humanity, but unusual for who?

I have no way of identifying with it but possibly God wasn’t playing to the minority.

Here you have unwed Mary, almost nine months pregnant, traveling on a donkey, to her home town, at the insistence and threat of an occupying dictator, arriving with nowhere to stay, and finally giving birth, on her own, amongst a bunch of animals. I am not sure you could write a carol with those lyrics and have it play in the local mall.

Yet, for two thirds of humans, that’s not just the Christmas story, it’s their story. Abject poverty, threats of violence, and homelessness are what most human beings wake up to each morning.

God was born into the circumstances of the majority. The first Christmas was really a mess, much like the world he entered. Our idea of Christmas has become too tidy, too holy, too “all is calm, all is bright”.

From his first breath Jesus was among the poor and dispossessed. How odd that we have translated all that to our candle lit services, over abundant gift giving, and the conjuring of the ‘Christmas Spirit’.

“holy infant so tender and mild”, indeed.

It feels like its dark about 20 hours a day now. Even when the sun chooses to shine for those few short hours, outside the predominant palette of colours has been reduced to grey and brown. In the garden death is everywhere.

I’ve wondered, as probably most northerners have, what it would be like to live in a sunny, warm place all year around. Imagine, skipping the whole dark season- bathing suits and sunscreen everyday! No more Seasonal Affective Disorder! Trade in my eggnog for margaritas!

However, in my rare lucid moments, I have thought that maybe I enjoy the time on the beach precisely because I know its opposite.

A couple of nights ago I listened as my close friend described his recent experience of being with his step father when he died, holding his hand as he took his final breath. It was profoundly sad, yet it was also clear that my friend had gained a much greater understanding and appreciation for life because of that direct experience with death.

So we manage the declining daylight hours by singing carols, putting up bright lights, roasting chestnuts on an open fire (ok, maybe heating them up in the oven), and bringing what green there is outside in to the house. But might it not be possible that we are just cheating the season?

I like a good mince meat tart and a few chorus’ of Jingle Bells as much as the next guy, but maybe some time of quiet at the bedside of winter, holding its hand, isn’t such a bad idea. It may just have some lessons for us before it breathes its last.

“Don’t be afraid” the angel says on a visit to Mary, and then again up in the hills with the shepherds. I am sure these words, coming from some vision (Glowing White Guy with big wings) that appears out of nowhere, gave little comfort to the listeners.

Fear for me is usually associated with the unknown. If I haven’t got it figured out, if I don’t know what’s going to happen next, then chances are there is some fear attached to the experience and that fear holds me in place.

The problem is, much of life is unknown. In fact all but the very present moment is unknown, really. Knowledge and judgment are good managers of fear, but I think the one that keeps me moving forward, mostly unconsciously, is trust.

I cross the street in front of cars that are moving quickly toward me, trusting they will see me and stop to let me by. I let my kids leave on their own adventures trusting that they will make good choices and use their judgment well. I invest myself in friendships trusting in their loyalty.

This whole idea of a virgin birth and God being man is, on paper, ludicrous.. As the years have gone by, I have become less and less inclined to believe it for fear that if I really step into its traffic, I am going to get run over.

This morning though, with those first words of the Glowing White Guy with big wings on my mind, I am approaching this Advent differently, cautiously still, and uncertain – but walking forward.