I am a city-dweller. Sometimes I forget this. There is a place deep inside me that still thinks of myself as a small-town, rural gal. But I have lived among concrete and high rises for longer than I walked streets without sidewalks, for longer than I drove on unsaved roads that kicked up dust in my wake. Mostly, I have a comfort level in the city though I know that it is the experience of the gifts of wider, wilder spaces that feeds my soul. It is to these places that I am drawn when my heart hurts, when my spirit lags, when I need grounding in the wisdom of what is truly important. Everyone is different in this spiritual longing but this is my truth.

This past week while driving across Montana in late afternoon, I had the unique experience of being suspended between the setting sun and the almost full moon. The moon’s brilliant whiteness was pulling us forward toward home while through the rearview mirror I could see the sun slowly painting its final light on the horizon behind me. A rich red and russet orange swirled around the purple mountains silhouetted in the western sky. Frankly, it was almost too much to take in. I felt like my focus was in a tug-o-war with the very Universe. Where to look? How to breath it all in? How to honor the beauty and the gift of it?

I thought of the psalmists and their ability to give words to such feeling, such experiences. Rather than sitting with their mouths hanging open, they gave speech to the awe:

Praise God!
Praise the God from the heavens;
praise God in the heights!
Praise God, all angels!
Praise God, sun and moon;
praise God, all you shining stars!
Praise God, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of God,
for the Holy One commanded and they were created.
They were established forever and ever;
And were fixed in their bounds, which cannot be passed.

Of course, I wanted to say something eloquent like this but I couldn’t. The words just didn’t come. I just kept scanning the horizon, behind and before me, trying to move my head in owl-like fashion. Spin, look. Spin, look. Knowing that I was in the presence of something extraordinary that happens every day, I was filled with a sense of comfort in being a part of it all. The sun would set and rise again. The moon would rise and set again. And this human’s only role was to be present, observe and be dumbfounded.

The truth is that we are suspended every day between these risings and settings. As city-dwellers we seldom are aware. But in the big skies of the west that balancing act is an every day occurrence. My prayer is that those who live there and view it daily never take it for granted. Perhaps they are better psalmists than I. Perhaps they are shouting their praises with wild abandon. At the red sunsets and billowing clouds. At the saucer moon and brilliant stars. All visible. All the time.

We are surrounded by signs that tell us what to do, what to avoid, how to behave. Many come in the form of commands. Stop. Yield. Slow. Turn this way. Don’t turn that way. Others are meant to protect the vulnerable. Children playing. Beware of animals. The animals vary depending on the part of country. Horse. Deer. Bear. These are the signs we see mostly while driving or riding along highways.

Of course there are other signs for our indoor awareness, those to guide our indoor behavior. In the library, we are reminded to shhhhh…..keep quiet. This is a reminder that seems to be ignored more and more. Many buildings display signs to remind us to keep an eye on our belongings….purses, computers, children. There are also the indoor signs that point us in specific directions. Things like ’emergency exit’ come to mind or ‘no entry’.

This past week I was walking on one of my treasured landscapes on Whidbey Island near Seattle. This place, Greenbank Farms, is one of those truly beautiful, magical places that has drawn me back over and over again. It is a plot of land smack in the middle of the island hosting an organic farm and a small cafe that bakes amazing pie. The beauty of the place is that you can stand out in the field above the gardens and be able to see the water that surrounds the island on both sides. When we are visiting the Seattle sons we always try make our way there. This week was no exception.

As we started our walk past the gardens that, at this time of year, only held cabbages and the green, leafy trees of kale, we marveled that these things were growing. The frigid landscape of Minnesota was still ringing in our bones. But there they were…..hardy vegetables that stick to the ribs and offer up their healthy, green nutrients.

Just past the cabbages, we noticed a sign on a sandwich board standing at the beginning of a trail that leads through the field. It was not a sign that urged us to stop or beware. Instead, it was a ‘Gentleness Alert’. The laminated paper was probably placed there for a New Year’s celebration of some kind but its encouraging words seemed to transcend that particular holiday. They seemed words we all might be able to begin each day with. This sign encouraged a reflection on the ways we all need be gentle with ourselves and others. It went on to remind the reader that everyone….everyone…is simply doing the best they can and that this being human means being fallible. This is true for all of us not just some. So, the sign encouraged……be forgiving and be gentle.

Standing on this beautiful spot of land I was aware of how the land itself modeled this gentle behavior for we fallible humans. It stood muddy and without much to offer in the way of a productive life with the exception of the kale and cabbages. Signs of past harvests lay like brown clumps looking more like garbage that the fullness of what they had been or might be in just a few short weeks. The grasses underfoot, also brown and flattened by the nearly always present rain, looked out at the water with the same expectation of ‘something more’just as we humans do. And yet the land itself welcomed us without apology, opened its arms wide enough to draw us in and urge us to rest in the rhythm of the water that lapped at the shores on our right and our left.

The sign placed there by humans to alert walkers to the wisdom of a gentle walk into the new year continued to sound its message. Walking, I was reminded of the people I may have been less than gentle with in the year past. I felt a tug of guilt and sadness at my grace-less behavior. In the next steps, I thought also of the times I am probably too hard on myself for one thing or another. Being a fallible human being can be a nasty business at times. That is why it is good to remember we are all of us doing the best we can. Day after blessed day. Cabbages and kale are wonderful,leafy green vegetables but do not a steady diet make. The land that makes a home between two bodies of water will soon yield goodness beyond imagining as will we all.

Gentleness be upon us.

Precious….Of high cost or worth; valuable…..Highly esteemed; cherished….Dear; beloved.

Precious. Last week someone sent me a text message asking for prayers for a mutual friend who was having some tricky medical tests. In the message she remarked that, most likely, things were going to be fine but ‘life is precious’ and so we just never know. Life is precious. For some reason her words, no doubt zapped off in a hurry, caused my eyes to fill with tears. Life is precious. Her words, read on my impersonal smart phone, carried the weight of our deep humanity.

Since then I have been surrounded by many of life’s precious moments. Perhaps it was her words that has heightened my sensitivity to each of these experiences. I don’t know. All I do know is that I have been confronted over and over again with how precious, how full of beauty and fragility,this life is. More than once the tears have again sprung up to mark the moment. Its sacred nature. Its fleeting character.

Yesterday I sat in a coffee shop I do not know well. I found myself at the end of a work day with some time before an evening meeting and nipped into the warmth of this place,my novel in hand, ready to unplug for a while. Sitting next to me were two fathers and their middle school aged sons. Coffee and computers were spread out in front of them as they carried on a conversation. One young man played a video game and periodically interjected something into the adult conversation. Another boy intensely studied some homework on a sheet of paper. At one point one young lad approached the other and asked to be quizzed on the content of the pages.

The two boys moved from their fathers and stood right in the middle of the tables and chairs. Gently, with kindness, one boy asked questions and the other answered. Sometimes his answers were incomplete or lacking and the other boy, without condescension, helped lead him to the fuller picture. The material they were studying was completely foreign to me but I was so struck with the way in which they worked together, honoring both question and answer. My heart was warmed by them.

At another table an older couple sat, laughing, talking and seeming to discuss a book they had opened before them. I did not mean to eavesdrop on their conversation but their clear love for one another was difficult to ignore. As I tried to focus my attention on my book, I heard the gentleman say, ” Oh, wait!There’s the sunset. Let’s go look!” They abandoned book, coats and purse and simply walked out the door to watch as the sun painted its now predictable winter show of oranges and hot pinks.

These two experiences and many others have nudged me to remember the precious nature of this life. My friend’s medical tests did indeed turn out just fine. But there are others I know for whom this is not the case. I would venture a guess that you also know of folks who are vulnerable and frightened, those who may be teetering at the edge,unable to find steady ground. Perhaps you are one of them.

Life is precious. Too precious but to do anything but be gentle and kind, to stand with a friend and hear them into whatever answers they are trying to find a voice for. Too precious to not drop whatever we are doing and notice a magnificent sunset. Too precious to not hold onto the blessings of each day, each moment, each breath. Too precious to not be present in the gift that is this day. This very day which will not ever be ours again.

May we walk the earth gently today murmuring, repeating, shouting:”Life is precious!”

All over the country temperatures are colder than normal. It has been particularly frigid in Minnesota with schools being closed and people who are blessed to have shelter staying in and hunkering down. Temperatures have plummeted and the wind chills have been staggering. Mostly, we like to wear this weather like a shield of honor. It seems to be a birthright or at least an adoption-right of those of us who call ourselves Minnesotans. I saw this written on the faces of those who showed up at church on Sunday. Proud, red, ruddy faces.

There is something wonderful about this cold weather if we are privileged to see it so. Take for instance the way the deep cold changes the sky at sunrise and sunset. Have you noticed? I have no idea why it is so but I am sure the science-minded among us could give the reasons. All I know is that the painting of the beginning and ending of day seems more brilliant, the colors more vivid. The sky has been striped with bright red, hot pink and a deep purple that seems nearly impossible. How does it happen?

Even the out put of factories and buildings working overtime to create warmth for their inhabitants is more colorful than usual. In my drive across the High Bridge in St. Paul, I can see the enormous puffs of smoke and steam, normally a billowing white over the Mississippi River, now creating a pale blue or a gentle pink, like smoke signals from a proud new parent announcing a child’s birth. What an amazing thing the cold air can do!

For those of us blessed to have enough layers on to keep us safe, there is much to notice. Ice crystals float in the air, almost imperceptible, not snow, just there, floating like tiny fairies. The sun, more brilliant and welcomed than usual, glints off the icicles that hang from gutters and wires, amazing lights that rival their Christmas decoration impostors. Even the bare branches of the trees offer a kind of blessing as their darkness creates lacy patterns against the icy, blue sky. Have you noticed?

The fact that these noticings are a privilege is not lost on me. These are observations of someone who has a warm home, a car that works well and is well maintained. They are made by someone who has enough warm clothes to keep skin from freezing and enough food to fuel the body. I pass plenty of folks along the way who are not in the same situation, those for whom observation would not only be a luxury but perhaps dangerous. May they be blessed with warm places of shelter this day and night and may a warm meal offer a respite from the difficulty of life I can only imagine.

On Monday, when schools and many businesses were closed, I was snug in my house taking the opportunity to catch up on paperwork, read and just stay put. It was a day that shattered temperature records and there was not much action up and down our street. Few cars ventured forth. But at one point of the afternoon, a car pulled up in front of our house. I watched as a man got out of his car and started, I thought, walking toward our door. But, instead, he turned and made his way to our Little Free Library. I saw he had two books in his hand. He opened the door of the library and gazed into it. He then placed the books inside and closed the door. I smiled and felt a warmth move through me.

As the man returned to his car, I thought of all the beauty birthed from this cold. The brilliant, colorful skies. The light hitting snow and ice, just so. Warm bowls of soup and fleecy blankets. Fires jumping in fireplaces and cats curled up in front of them. Children nestled on sofas with books and games and cups of hot chocolate. And people, strangers, who offer stories to keep us through the worst of the weather.
Even the cold has gifts, to give and receive, if we we have the eyes to see.

These cold, cold days have provided ample time for curling up under a blanket and making my way through the stacks of books in the ‘to be read’ pile. These are the books that are not as urgent as those that are cycling through the monthly book club sessions. They are also not the ones that must be read for the information needed for a meeting, sermon or class I have some responsibility for. Instead, these are the books whose presence seems to grow at certain times of the year, those that have a scrap of paper stuck in a particular page that houses something I want to ‘get to later’. A thought. A quote. Something to enlighten, to argue with. Something to remember or to inspire.

Over the last year I have read a daily devotional that I believe I have mentioned in these pages. It was given to me by a friend for my birthday and I have so enjoyed its daily thoughts and the way it keeps me honest in daily scripture reading. But I had never spent much time looking at the book’s introduction which outlines the devotional’s contents and intention. The enforced hibernation of these days has allowed me to get to this kind of reading.

The devotional book was put together by the Northumbrian Community, a faith community that finds its home in the northeastern most part of England and along the Scottish Borders. They find their inspiration and grounding in the stark terrain of this landscape and the frigid waters of the North Sea. It finds its theological heart in Celtic Christianity and the wisdom of St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert. Not a community in the traditional sense of folks who live near one another, it is a dispersed community of people who are held together by following a rule of life that is present in monastic communities across the globe. I have heard of a small gathering of faithful people following this rule who live in and around the Twin Cities.

In my under-the-blanket reading, I learned that the central precept that guides the community, its Rule, is one of availability and vulnerability as their way of living. This really captured my imagination! What might it mean to follow a daily practice of availability and vulnerability? Can you imagine it? To awake every day and to walk into the world wearing an openness to being available to others, to oneself, to the needs, the joys, the sorrows, the hopes that come our way. What might that mean for embracing the world, for seeing the Holy in the midst of every encounter?

Of course, it seems to me that this rule of availability would be impossible without its other half, vulnerability. Mostly, we have been trained from an early age against vulnerability. We equate it with weakness. But they are not the same. At least to me, to be vulnerable implies a heart that welcomes, without judging, whomever and whatever crosses my path, to see myself as the small, yet significant, part of Creation which I am. Vulnerability and humility are dance partners and we might all do well to join in the music.

If a life lived with availability and vulnerability weren’t enough, these faithful folks are also called to a life of “embracing the heretical imperative”. Big church-speak alert! Basically what this means is they are called to live a life that challenges assumed truth. For some people, we have just stepped into some dangerous territory. But for these folks who are working every day to make sense of their 21st century lives and the ancient wisdom that has guided the communities that birthed them, they are available and vulnerable enough to challenge doctrines and rules that provided structure and form in the past but may no longer do so. In walking the path with a God who is ever-creating, ever-imagining, they are willing to be available and vulnerable to a God who encourages letting go, change and a new way of being in and seeing the world. They are willing to see the doctrines created by their faithful ancestors for the wisdom they were for their time but not be bound by them for living a life that is still being shaped by the Holy.

These are all thoughts that are warming my spirit and giving me hope in this new year. I am praying for a faith, for a community, for a church that has the courage to live by a rule of availability and vulnerability and that challenges. For those of us in the Christian household, it seems we have a pretty good model for this rule of living.

“There is within each of us a potential for goodness beyond our imagining, for giving which seeks no reward; for listening without judgment; for loving unconditionally.”
~ Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

And so another year begins. I have never been much for the practice of New Year’s resolutions. I probably have a enough of a track record to know the things I will follow through on and those that, while completely well-intentioned, will fall by the wayside pretty quickly. There are the classics, of course. Lose weight. Exercise more. Eat more vegetables. Drink more water. Consume less sugar. All these are doable and attainable but the real goal is greater health, isn’t it? And so to that I say …..May we all know what that threshold of health is and may we live with grace, and gentleness, towards ourselves and others. May we come to love ourselves more and honor this earth-home-body that carries us around.

So, while I was not thinking about resolutions today, I was performing some of the traditional acts that always come on the first day of January. One of those is to go from room to room and take down last year’s calendars and replace them with the new ones that have been waiting in the wings until it is their time. For some reason this act always makes me happy. I like looking back through last year’s calendars which often have events penciled in, birthdays noted. It is like a little mini-travelogue through the 365 days that have just happened. Vacations are remembered and their scenes dance in my head. Visits by relatives and friends over the last year float up from pages dotted with warmer scenes and holidays than the most recent ones celebrated. And of course, there is the promise held in the new calendar shining with its blank spaces, the as-yet empty days.

As I took down the calendar whose daily reflections I have shared in these pages from time to time, I looked back at some of the beautiful artwork and the lovely words that graced each page, each little box of a day. And then my eyes fell on the final words tucked at the bottom of the page holding the days of December, meant to not only reflect this season of Christmas and the soon to be celebrated Epiphany, but words to send the reader into the new year and all of its possibilities. “There is within each of us a potential for goodness beyond our imagining, for giving which seeks no reward; for listening without judgment; for loving unconditionally.”

I believe it is so, do you? This goodness that is planted deep within each of us often surprises us and equally eludes us. And yet it is there, planted at our birth by the Source of all goodness. This is the goodness that shines in the darkness of our days and lifts us above all that would try to tell us otherwise. It is a goodness we glimpse in the shadows that threaten and pray for in our bleakest hours. It is the goodness we see in the eyes of loved ones and that shows up in the smile of a stranger. It is the goodness that allows us to give without expectation and opens our hearts to the inviting spirit that accepts without judging. It is the goodness that gives us the courage to throw our arms open wide offering love without condition. It is a goodness that requires our deepest imagination to be brought to birth in the world.

As we enter this newest of years which offers itself to us like the enormous gift that it is, perhaps one resolution worth considering is to give ourselves to this imagining. Of goodness. Mine. Yours. Ours. And the goodness of all humanity, indeed, all Creation. Think of the difference it might make if we all resolve in 2014 to nurture goodness and to see and honor it in all we meet.

How might the year and the world be blessed by such a resolution? Only time will tell.

After a long and beautiful day of Christmas Eve services, I woke this morning far too early. Yesterday, surrounded by beautiful music, lovely words, the amazing sight of faces lit with candlelight, carried me through the night and left me wide awake in the early hours before the light had arrived on the newly, fallen snow. Having been up till the wee hours of the morning seemed to make little difference. I was like a child on Christmas morning! As I walked down the stairs, I could see our young neighbors, elementary aged boys, already awake, sitting in their pajamas near the Christmas tree. I remember those days well. A house filled with the excitement of children clambering to see what Santa had brought.

But this morning my heart is filled with another kind of joy. It is the full hearted gratitude of a mother who loves spending time with the young adults who now sleep in a little later on Christmas morning but whose conversations amaze and provide such happiness. Their dreams are bigger than the toy that might be under the tree. I am grateful to be in their presence, in their lives. Such gifts these seasons can bring. Time spent with dear friends whose faces may have a few more lines than last year but are more beautiful to me than I can express. I think it was the sheer blessing of my life which awakened me. Not a bad thing at all.

Christmas Eve services can provide that rush and glow we all long for at some deep level. Those of us whose work is in the church spend hours, days, weeks, months planning and working to create the moments when meaning is made or rediscovered. We all need those touchstones to remind us of the faith we share, the stories that hold our feet to the ground and, sometimes, to the fire. Christmas Eve services can do that. I feel blessed to be a part of it all. To remind people that this God, which is mostly Mystery, showed up in a place long ago and far away and the telling of this holds us, gives shape to our lives and our living.

But each year, as we tell this Christmas story, I am always reminded of the words of the 13th century German mystic, Meister Eckhart. Once I discovered his words and his wisdom, the worshipful acts of Christmas, have never been the same:

What good is it to me
if Mary is full of grace
and if I am not also full of grace?
What good is it to me
for the Creator to give birth to his/her Son
if I do not also give birth to him
in my time
and my culture?
This, then,
is the fullness of time:
When the Son of God
is begotten
in us.

And so, on this Christmas Day, when I awoke far too early and will certainly need a nap, I feel blessed by this challenge as well as the candlelight and the friendship and the glow of a night now passed. I carry the story of 2000 years in my bones but my work is the living of this Christmas story in my time. It is the gift of the season to us all. It is a gift that may just possibly keep us awake at times.

And so with that gift still opening in all of us, may this day bring a blessed Christmas.

A holiday tradition at our home is to watch the classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I never tire of it and seem to see something new in it every Christmas season. This story, that to some may seem too saccharin sweet and even predictable is, for me, a great reminder of what it means to travel this earth as a human connected in ways that are visible and invisible to us. George Bailey, the tragic hero who is forever having his dreams dashed, is in so many ways, each of us. George makes plans, dreams big, and then is caught in the net of life that has him sacrificing, giving, and letting go over and over again. In his deep despair over his perceived failures, he tries to take his own life but is rescued by a wayward angel who is assigned to George. The angel’s job? To prove to George the many ways he has indeed had a ‘wonderful life’, one that has impacted countless people in ways that he never knew about.

The climax of the movie has George being surrounded by all those whose lives he has touched. Each person pours money on the table in front of him, recounting how he has been important in ordinary and extraordinary acts of kindness and generosity. The scene never fails to bring tears to my eyes, not only for George, but for all of us who walk through the world never knowing the true impact we make. A kind word here. A generous act there. A smile offered at just the right time. A word of affirmation not withheld but given in its fullness.

Last week our home had what I am coming to see as an ‘it’s a wonderful life experience.’ In true Advent fashion, it came to us as surprise. We received a phone call from a young man we hosted ten years ago as an exchange student from France. It was a short exchange of only two weeks but when language is a challenge and the order of your family life is interrupted, I admit it seemed much longer than that. This young man was doing a road trip across the US and wanted to come for a visit. Our first thought was that this was not a convenient time. My work is very busy at this time of year and both Seattle sons would be arriving for the holidays. It didn’t feel like we could upend our lives to host someone who we remembered as being a less than easy guest.

But something in us said ‘yes’ and we agreed to pick him up at the bus station. In the two days that preceded his arrival, we questioned whether or not we had taken leave of our senses but decided to hold it all gently. Somehow I think, at some deep level, we knew that this was a gift we were meant to receive. At the station, I recognized him right away and he greeted us with such openness as if no time had passed at all.

It was clear time had passed,however, because our guest’s English had improved quite a bit while our French had not moved one word in ten years! His reminiscences began almost immediately as we crossed over the Mississippi. ” Here’s where you showed me the….the…eagles!” These pronouncements continued as he moved from room to room in our house. “Here’s where there were many breakfast foods and the comics in the newspaper.” “Here is where we celebrated my birthday.” This happened over and over until we came to realize that, what we had seen as not one of our finer moments as hosts, had been for this young man a very significant time. After four days, as I delivered him to his bus and the next leg of his cross country tour, he left me with these words: ” You know, it was really because of you all that I wanted to come back and do this trip. It was such a good time.”

I tell this story not because I really believe we were such fine hosts. I tell it because it was a lesson for me that we never know, really know, the impact of our words, an act of kindness or the ways we truly affect another human being. George Bailey was just living his life, doing the best he could with those he met every day. We were just fulfilling one of those parental obligations that happened to come our way. But it was clear to this young man, it had been much more than that.

Perhaps as Christmases go, this will be the one when we remember the year our long, lost French student came to visit and reminded us to be aware, very aware, of our words, our actions, both ordinary and extraordinary. Because we just never know. We just never know. Perhaps this will be the year when we remember once again that it is truly, ‘ a wonderful life’!

“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides.”
~ Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

These are the days we in the Christian household say are filled with hope. We hope for the celebration that is the coming of the Christ Child, that new birth meant to budge us all off center in the ways of living our normal lives. We hope for peace….in our workplaces, in our families, in our friendships, on the whole of earth. We hope for it, we sing about it, we long for it in some place deeper than deep within us. Some of us hope for stillness, silence, quiet to collect the fragments of our living that seems flying about,just outside our reach. Others hope for excitement or at least a turn from the mundane, dullness of struggle and loneliness of the predicaments that never seem to get fixed.

Hope. It is big and if we forget that it is a powerful force in our lives we can slip down the slope of despair pretty quickly. The knowledge of this has been popping up for me all over the place in the last days. It seems people’s lives, those I know and those I only read or hear about in the wider world, are carrying heavy burdens. Illness. Death. Grief. Loss. Homelessness. Hunger. Poverty. Unemployment or under-employment. The needs seem, at least to me, greater than usual. Have you felt this, too?

Two Sundays ago at church someone said to me:”People are certainly carrying bowls full of tears.” Bowls full of tears. What an image! What a metaphor! As the days and weeks have unfolded, I have seen it more and more. I have wondered if this year is different. Or is it my age that has me seeing and experiencing this in a more profound way? Perhaps. Or are there simply more tears flowing at this particular moment in time?

Yesterday I sat allowing my cold, dry and cracked hands to warm as they hugged a coffee cup. I stared out into the middle distance thinking about the image of people walking down streets, through buildings, in and out of doors, their hands outstretched holding their bowls. Full. It was a prayer of sorts. And then it hit me that in many ways this being awake and aware of these hands, these tears, is actually another gift of Advent. If we truly practice ‘staying awake’ as the scriptures urge us to do, our experience is not just of the ‘Wow!’ moments. Like the amazing, full and brilliant Snow Moon of last night. Or the ways in which people are humming gently under their breath as they move from place to place creating live Muzak all around. Or the smiles that are offered in more demonstrative ways as doors are held open or cookies are passed.

No, being awake, truly awake to the fullness of this wide Creation, to the vast array of humanity, also means seeing the vulnerabilities and the deep hurts we all carry. All the time. Every day. Each season. Sometimes, particularly these days that lead toward a time designed, or at least sold to us to be warm and magical, are meant to be full of more hope than any time any life can produce.

The gift of living, the gift of Advent is to be awake to it all, tinsel and tears, hope and hopelessness, in all its fullness. The Christ Child was born into the harshest of places and continues to be born again and again. In sanctuaries and on street corners. At tables laden with food and those with the staples acquired at the food shelf. In hospital rooms and humble homes.

Perhaps our real work is living inside the hope, holding our own bowl of tears and reaching out to all the others who walk beside us as we wait patiently and urgently for this birth to come again.

There is great gift in the observance of the seasons of the church year. I was reminded of this over the weekend when I read an article in the Star Tribune about what they called the ‘Sunday blues’. This was a new concept for me. The writer outlined research and used interviews to explain the phenomenon that many people have of feeling blue, depressed, as Sunday arrives and draws their weekend to an end. The article spoke of the dread of Sunday and how some people even feel physically as well as emotionally ill on this first day of the week.

I read this article with a great sense of surprise and some sadness. As one who looks forward to Sundays, to seeing many loved ones I have not seen all week as they arrive at church, this concept was completely out of my range of understanding. I tried mightily to get inside the psyche of the stories of those in the article. And while it might be easy to go to the ‘well, they just ought to be in church’ place, that’s not where my heart went. Of course,I and many I know would miss the church gifts of singing,stories, prayer,I know that is not what others necessarily long for.

Instead what I read into the subtext of the article was some innate desire for a rhythm, a pattern, that gives form and meaning to the living of our days. When our days are defined only by our work, preparing to go there, being there, coming home from there, no matter how important the work, something seems to be missing. It becomes easy to forget that we are a part of something so much larger than tasks and duties. No matter how noble. No matter how vital.

For me, the ebb and flow of the seasons provides this. Being present to spring, summer, winter, fall, sets the stage for reflecting on the meaning of the work I do in the larger context of new birth, growth, living, dying and back to rebirth. I can make meaning out of that sacred circle and it keeps me humble.

The same is true in the rhythm of the church year. The Sundays in Advent feel much different than those in Lent. The season of Pentecost has its own spirit and Epiphany has such a sense of fulfilling light. Christmas…..well, what can you say? Joy! And then there is the long, winding, unfolding season of Ordinary Time which always seems anything but ordinary. Each of these seasons accompanied by a particular color…Advent blue, purple Lent, Epiphany white, Pentecost red and Ordinary green….give form to my days. I would miss this if I didn’t have it and might search for something to make sense of the give and take of my days.

Of course I don’t know the circumstances of those interviewed, those who feel blue on Sundays. All I know is that reading the article caused me to be filled with gratitude for the ways I have been blessed to observe these seasons and to use them to make meaning in my life. It seems a gift of some ancient time, some deeper wisdom.

As the Advent days continue, we will light the candles, one by one, until Christmas(joy!) arrives. In the blue of the candles and the darkness of the days, I will once again hold the tension of light and dark and the gifts of both. I will place myself in the larger story of the unfolding Universe and remember that the tasks I accomplish in a day are important but not necessarily earth-shattering. It will be a good reminder to hold it all gently.

And being gentle in Advent, with both ourselves and others, is a very good thing.