Light in the dark

A few Sundays ago we sang Christina Rossetti’s classic carol:

In the bleak mid-winter

Frosty wind made moan;

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak mid-winter

Long ago.

This year those words fell more solidly than usual.  Even though we live in Texas where snow doesn’t fall on snow, water isn’t like stone, and the earth isn’t as hard as iron, I know what that kind of winter is like.  Rossetti’s words capture the bitterness of it.  

Of course, even as we sang the niggle of Real History nipped at me.

“You do realize Jesus probably wasn’t born in the midst of winter,” said Real History.  “And even if he was, the weather of a Judean countryside isn’t exactly like England in December where Rossetti penned these words.”

This year, though, Real History didn’t hang around long.  The words and the images of the song were too strong, especially as I looked toward the front of the sanctuary where the Advent candles flickered, beating back the dark of 2020.  

After all, there’s a reason why early believers decided to place Christ’s birth at the darkest point of the year.  There are times when metaphor is necessary to convey truth.

This year Kraig, the kids, and I created our own advent wreath.  It’s nothing fancy, and we didn’t go by a traditional color scheme.  We lit each of the candles at the right points in the Advent season, but we didn’t do traditional readings.  Instead, we simply lit them with the word reminders for each week:  Hope.  Peace.  Joy.  Love.  Christ.

It turned out those words were what I needed this year.  I could focus on those single words without the paraphernalia and busyness of the Christmas season.  I’ve returned to them as more and more of the world seems to unravel in this dark year of 2020.  They have been lights in the dark.

I keep hearing talk about how 2020 is almost over.  It’s as if something magical is expected to happen on the stroke of midnight January 1, 2021.  As a result, I’ve found I’m mentally preparing for what I know to be true:  There won’t be a big change.  We’ll still be dealing with the fallout of 2020 and working to move forward.  I’m not trying to be cynical, just realistic.  

The problem is, despite my realistic take I have to fight my tendency to live in anticipation of the next thing to come crashing down, because bad things keep happening.  On the Sunday before Christmas another unexpected piece broke when our church leadership announced that a beloved pastor in the church had resigned due to moral failing.  In the midst of the shock and grief, the quiet disillusioned voice whispered, “Of course.  You didn’t expect everything to keep going well in your church, did you?”

But it’s already not been “well.”  The thing is, I thought the “not well” was only the upheaval of 2020 with diverse responses to Covid.  That has been upsetting enough.  It’s hard to come week after week and not know if acquaintances have disappeared because they’re attending online, or if they’ve pulled up and moved somewhere else.  When I know someone is gone I wonder why, and I wonder how I will talk to them when I see them, or if I should ask them about their decision.  I thought that was the extent of the navigating.  

With this latest blow, I’ve realized we’ll be entering 2021 with even more to work through.  There will be much deeper wounds that need care and more healing needed than dealing with losing friends.  Kraig and I have been through turbulence before in other churches, and we aren’t going anywhere now.  Our default response to upheaval is to latch on as tightly as we can and navigate through it.  We’re praying that we can do that alongside our church and our pastor who’s resigned and his family.  

So yeah, no magic solution to the darkness of 2020 will occur as we slip into 2021.  Rather, the way seems to get murkier and crazier.  The earth is as hard as iron, the frosty wind moans.  The snow is pretty at first, but as it piles, and the skies turn to lead, and the paths grow crusted and icy, it’s hard to keep trekking.  

This is the point when I look at the candle flame:

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” ~John 1:5 ESV

Christ is the light.  He has come.  He is here.  He will come again.  

The darkness will not overcome him.  

Peacemaking and Another Post

 Happy Thanksgiving!

I know this is a crazy year, but I can't help but say there is reason for thanks even when my camellias bloom a vibrant pink just as everything else is turning brown, red, and gold.  I wrote a post contemplating this and other thoughts that my friend Alicia posted today on her blog, Stories of Yearning, as part of another collaborative project she put together.  

Good thing she creates these projects or apparently I'd never post!  Back in August she published an excerpt from a book I've written.  That story was a part of her Summer of Faerie project, and I managed to get two posts done for that 😁.  Here's the link to that story: The Decision. 

May you be encouraged!

Precarious or Secure?

Back in February, before the world turned upside down, my daughter Clare painted a picture for our local art museum’s student exhibition. Using watercolors, she painted a pair of hands holding the world. The globe is almost like a soap bubble—slightly transparent, and Clare worked hard to make the hands realistic.

When she first showed it to me she had titled the piece “Earth’s precarious state.” Knowing Clare, and knowing the family culture that surrounds her, I pushed back on her title. 

“Do you mean this seriously or facetiously?” I asked.

“Facetiously, of course!” she said.

In her mind, the earth is not precarious. In her mind, the world is firmly held in a pair of strong hands—God’s hands. The world is secure. 

Clare has been washed with this concept from birth. Both Kraig and I come from Christian families. We believe the Bible is true, that God is Sovereign, that our sins and failures are forgiven because of Christ’s death and resurrection, and we try to live our lives in grateful response to this truth. We also come from missionary families for whom the world has always been a place of wonder, and people from other cultures can teach us a great deal about who we are and how God works in various parts of the world. In addition to these influences, Kraig is a civil engineer who lives and breathes structures and soils, yet he looks at these from a biblical worldview. 

Kraig often sets up this analogy: 

Many people see the world as something balanced on the tip of a finger. It’s spinning away like a basketball, but the slightest shake, shift, or touch will knock it off balance and it will—most likely—fall. This is a predominantly evolutionary view. If everything has been created by chance, one misstep will mean failure rather than success. In this scenario, the environment is a tragedy waiting to happen, and humans are the primary cause of its destruction. 

But there is another paradigm (When Kraig describes this he cups his hands like the ones holding the globe in Clare’s painting). God created the world; he is the first engineer and he knows what he’s doing. He created a system that works together, and though we have horrendous ramifications because of the Fall, the world is still secure in his hands. After all, God knows how to design things so they don’t fall apart. The world wobbles and shifts and changes, but it is held secure in the bowl of God’s hands. It’s not going to fall out. 

Lake Erie, 2018

That’s not to say we just sit back and watch this world turn (and wobble). Our God-given job is to be responsible stewards, both in our care for the environment and our care for each other. I remember my mom talking about Lake Erie in the seventies when it was heavily polluted due to industrial waste. It seemed irrecoverable—it was evidence of humanity’s horrific treatment of the earth. Yet humans took measure, stepped in and made changes, and the lake was restored. I’ve camped by it and have swum in it. Irresponsibility was replaced by good stewardship, and something people thought destroyed was restored. 

The past few months have thrown the world into chaos. The Covid-19 pandemic isn’t an environmental fiasco; if anything it’s a perfect example of natural tragedy that occurs in our fallen world. We have human responses to it, for good or ill. It’s not as clear a fix as Lake Erie, at least from this perspective. Lord willing an effective, safe vaccine will be discovered. But that won’t be the answer to everything. Hundreds of thousands will still have died, our economies will struggle, mayhem will thrive, and life as we have known it will shift. In the past couple weeks, we’ve seen more upheaval as our nation grapples with how we can be just and loving to each other no matter our ethnic roots. The world seems pretty precarious. These days I constantly wonder if I’m doing or saying the right thing. Should I wear a mask? Am I unknowingly spreading contagion? Is it right or wrong to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself? 

I didn’t think I was very stressed, but I realized the other week that my shoulders had knotted and my neck tightened causing a splitting headache. It was a wake-up call that stress was busy working beneath my skin. I have had to step back and mark it for what it is and figure out how to work with it and give it up to God. I have my small sphere of influence, but I am not in control.

Because the world is cupped in God’s hands. We are secure.

"Secure" by Clare Warnemuende