Thoughts on Christmas

Since last Friday, when I first read the news at work, I have been flabbergasted. I have so wanted to write, to find a way to process my thoughts, but finding something to say and an intellectual way to say it have alluded me completely.

I keep watching, in shock, at the posts on facebook.

I keep watching, in shock, staring at the news reports.

What do you do when it seems like the world just keeps getting more topsy-turvy? What do you do when watching, seeing, envisioning other people's trauma pulls you right back to that moment of shock in a concrete parking lot watching your entire life disappear in a cloud of fire and smoke?

What I have done is to just be quiet. I chose the quiet until now because the noise of the media, the noise of the gun control lobbyists and the anti-gun control lobbyists, the noise of sadness and grief, the despicable reporting, the absurd judgment of people who deal with horrific mental health issues....it all made me exhausted.

In a space and time when we are waiting on God to return, in a space and time when we are anticipating the celebration of the birth of Christ, the Savior...in this space and time the world feels so at odds. I feel the groaning of Advent this year unlike ever before. The longing, the hoping, the praying for change - for any small light of hope to dot the horizon and remind us that this isn't it, that this is not all there is, that there is hope on this planet that seems so crazy so much of the time.

I could say a lot of things about the theology people seem to hold about God - about how people respond to tragedy in ways that are horrific - about how assault weapons don't seem like a good idea at all....I could rampage about my frustration for a long time actually. What good would it do, though? How would it help?

Children are dead in Connecticut. Children are dying all over the world today because they are sick, because they are hungry, because they have been used as slaves, because they have been sold into human trafficking and finally succumbed.

Children die every day. There are things we can do to stop it, and we should. There are things we should know that we refuse to confront. We often forget that this world is big and the problems of this world seem bigger. We need to rise up and respond. We need to care. We need to educate ourselves. We need to fight for these young lives. Maybe this Advent should be a time of reminding us that sometimes we are the hope - we are the hands and feet of God - and it is our job to mobilize and snap out of our small worlds and into God's big world. I think it is time, friends, time to rise up.

The light is coming. God has always been here, and God will always be here. I am reminded, by an amazing woman of God, Rachel Held Evans that God Can't Be Kept Out. If you have not read that link, you should.

I feel completely undone by this holiday season. Half the time I want to cry and the other half of the time I have lots of joy. I try to remember the joys in this last year, but I am often reminded, especially right now, of the traumatic events. Christmas is going to be difficult this year. Opening gifts that I used to own, that used to be loved on my bookshelf, will be hard. Remembering is hard. Confronting is difficult. The reality is that trauma doesn't end. I don't think I will ever be okay with what happened to us, I think it is a process of learning to accept what is and keep walking. I don't think you get over something like this, I just think you keep trudging through.

But I am reminded, once again, that God can't be kept out. That the original Christmas was really ridiculous if you actually read the story. A barn. Dirty animals. Disgusting hay. A probable clueless husband. A wife in pain who had just ridden on a donkey, for pete's sake. Lowly shepherds seeing an angel. None of it makes sense. That stable wasn't pretty and the birth of the Savior could not have happened in a stranger place.

That's why it is beautiful - because it is broken, and crazy, and probably smelly. God comes in the ugly and the messy, God comes in a small way, in a small stable, to a young couple alone with a bunch of animals.

The story is ridiculous and miraculous. The story changes the world. The story is messy and it reminds me that God is in this mess. God is not far away. God is here with us, Emmanuel, and there is hope.

May your Christmas season bring you joy and hope.