Epiphany--You Can't See Much in the Dark

Credit Peter Haden/flickr

Epiphany. What does it mean? It harks back to the story of the Wise Men that followed the star until they came to the manger. The old strange word means: manifestation. Something not known or unseen suddenly became real. So standing there in the starlight, in the drafty barn, those three well heeled Ones from another place were caught off-guard by the child in the manger. This, this was the Promised One? This infant—with smudges on his face—looking very much like his mother even then—this was what they had been traveling so far to see.

The old poet had it right:

“They all were looking for a king 

  To slay their foes and lift them high—

Their cams’t, a tiny, baby thing

  That made a woman cry.”

It means that the light really does shine in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out. Light—just a tiny light so that we will not stumble or fall or break something. Just enough light to find the way.

Skeptics want us to show them. Proof. They want to see for themselves. Don’t we all! Another poet prayed:

“God, if you’re really God

 fling us a dipper full of stars.”  

 I’ve never seen that kind of dazzling light. It would be good if we all could.

John Bunyan, in Pilgrim’s Progress caught the Epiphany truth when the wandering Pilgrim was trying to find the way. The journey was scary and fraught with dangers and  obstacles seemingly impossible to overcome. Pilgrim cried out loud, “I’ve got this burden on my back and I don’t think I can make it.” Evangelist told him, “’Do you see yonder Wicket-gate?’ The man said, ‘“No’” Then said the other. ‘Do you see yonder shining light?’ He said, ‘I think I do.’ Then said Evangelist, ‘Keep that light in thine eye, and go directly thereto, so shalt thou see the gate...’”  

And that’s Epiphany. Like Pilgrim if we squint enough  we may just see that tiny light. It’s all we need to get through the darkness of this time and the darkness of our lives. Don’t let anyone fool you—the light is here. We are not alone. No wonder the Church year after year, decade after decade has taken these cold days after Christmas to remind us of the warmth of the shining light.

Credit SummerTX/flickr

rogerlovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

After Christmas Blues

"Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree, Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes--Some have gotten broken--and carrying them up to the attic. The holly and mistletoe must be taken down and burnt, And the children got ready for school. There are enough left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week--Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot, stayed up so late, attempted--quite unsuccessfully--To love all our relatives, and in general grossly overestimated our powers.

             +                     +                +                +

"The streets are much narrower than  we remembered; we had forgotten the office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen the child, however dimly, however incredulously, The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all."
    --W.H. Auden, For the Time Being


We hear a lot of talk during this Christmas season about depression. With all the advertised joy many folk, going through a hard time, wonder what is wrong with them. There's nothing particularly wrong with them. Life has just been lousy and they don't feel much like celebrating.

We don't hear much talk about the After-Christmas blues.Tomorrow my kids leave for Philadelphia and Atlanta. The old house has shaken for days with laughter, movement, constant eating and catching up. Tomorrow the house will. be quiet. We will look around and see that the decorations are already beginning to sag. There will be some left-overs in the fridge--but we are just tired of Christmas food. In a day or two we will begin the hard task of taking all the Christmas decorations down and getting back to what we call normal.

And we'll miss the kids and even the dog. We will miss the stairs shaking as the teenagers came and went. We will miss the wonderful feeling of having everyone under the same roof. There is a comfort in that. It doesn't happen very often these days. We are too busy and too scattered.

One Christmas Eve I served Communion in the tiny church where I worked. It was a come and go affair. In the sanctuary only lit by candlelight and a tall Chrismon tree--people came to the altar one by one. "What shall we pray for?" I whispered. And after we prayed for family members, for health, for people they loved, for the war and many things, I held out the Bread and the Cup and said, "Remember." But in between their coming I sat on the front pew in the darkness. I don't do this very often. Just sat in the silence. And something good happened there without cell phone or text messages. I remembered faces of so many people I love. I thought of all those who had waded through a hard time and made it. Like a rosary, I thought of blessing after blessing that had come unreservedly to me this year. I hope that I can save those memories for the months to come.

I began this piece by those powerful words of W.H. Auden. Toward the end of that poem he wrote:

"Remembering the stabled where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an it."

So we take down the decorations and pack away all the vestiges of Christmas. Yet we can all hold on to some personal vision or promise. Days when the light came into a very troubled world and the darkness has never, ever been able to put it out. Even after all these years--even after all the terrible things that have come down the pike.

(I first published this piece when I began my blog in December, 2008. Of all the writings I have published since then--this is the favorite or many people.) 

Christmas--Where's the Star?

High up on our Christmas tree, near the top, if you look closely you may see it. If you don’t squint your eyes and look carefully you’ll probably miss it entirely. I’m talking about the star.

It may be the tiniest ornament on the tree. The little star is probably an inch and a half in diameter. The star was made in the church kitchen by a little girl and her Sunday school teacher over forty years ago in Southside Virginia.

Every year, without fail she breezes into the house with her own two daughters. After lugging in suitcases, pillows and presents she always moves toward the Christmas tree in the corner. She asks the same question year after year. “Where’s the star?” Christmas would not be Christmas without that star. I used to think it was a foolish request hanging on to that old homemade star. But I have changed my mind.

We all need some ties to back there. We need some stack pole of remembering that sends us back, back toward yesterday and the past and our roots. What’s your star? Probably not a paste ornament. What is it that calls you back to what used to be with a tug and a pull that is almost magic? I have a buddy who keeps high on a shelf an old threadbare teddy bear. Some of the stuffing is missing and one eye has been lost. His Daddy bought it for him at the fair one time. They stood there looking at the wonderful stuffed animals and he pointed and his Daddy shook his head. The little boy burst into tears and snubbed and snubbed. Finally the Father sighed took out his billfold and handed the clerk the money. His Daddy has been dead for more than thirty years, yet that teddy bare are one of his most precious possessions.

 I have another friend, long gone now, that kept an old pouch of chewing tobacco pinned to the bookcase behind his desk.  He told me he grew up in this little tiny cotton mill village and smoke breaks were few and far between. Almost everybody then chewed tobacco in the mill.  The man has written a score of books. He taught hundreds of students. And he always kept a pouch of chewing tobacco as a reminder of how far he had come and how grateful he was.

Several  years ago I stopped by to see the old black lady that we would now call a Nanny. She kept my brother and me for years and loved us fiercely. As I started to leave she told me she wanted to show me something. She opened a dresser drawer and pulled out something wrapped in tissue paper. She unfolded the yellowing paper and held up a slip. “Miz Ruth give me this slip. She always gave me the nicest presents.” She had never worn it but she kept it and remembered.

Christmas is a time for stirring memories. Silver Bells. Silent Night. Santa Claus is coming to town. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas. O Come All Ye Faithful. But this season is much, much more. The faces loom up before us. Names of those long dead get mixed up with fun-filled times from our crowded pasts. Christmas is a remembering time.

Some of us hang the symbols of our memories on a Christmas tree. Some pack them away in tissue paper. Some place these momentoes carefully in a jewelry box and open it up from time to time and just smile. Some just keep our treasures tucked away in our hearts.

“Where’s the star?” Good question. Unpack it gently. Hang it high in your own way. And remember. Remember. Remember. 

(Almost every Christmas for years I have told this story. It has appeared in The Birmingham News (AL) and The Greenville News (SC). I have published it several times in my Christmas blogs through the years. Read it and do your own remembering.)

                     --rogerlovette/ rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Christmas--A Baby! A Baby! A Baby-- 4th Sunday in Advent

"On that night of nights--God came down the

 stairs of heaven with a child in his arms."

           --Paul Scherer

As I read the Isaiah 7 text for the week Christmas began to knock on my door. "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." And the New Testament passage helps us remember. "She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

What do we say as we stand before the mystery of mysteries? Music helps. The gift of just being together again under one roof helps. Decorations might help. Cards that come from far-away may help. Taking a food basket or clothes to  a family in need could help--if we don't forget the family after Christmas. Advent services--particularly Christmas Eve helps.  Just sitting in the darkness pondering the mystery as we look at our Christmas tree or lighted candles--could take us back to the wonder of it all.  

But let's face it--there is no way to really express this inexpressible gift. But we try and sometimes we pull it off.  One of the best ways I have ever seen this glory of Christmas expressed came from a strange source. Our Christmas texts help me remember. It happened on the Bill Cosby Show years ago. Bill was trying to help a woman have a baby. He was stranded with this woman and her two children in a terrible rainstorm. All the lights and telephones had been knocked out. The very-pregnant woman told him she had her two other children by natural childbirth and there was not much for Bill to fear. He didn't believe her. He knew he had to do something to help this woman. What? He offered to get boiling water. He ran around frantically looking for towels. Nothing he did seemed to work. He tried to smile at the woman but it wasn't really reassuring. He finally ended up with this helpless look on his face just swinging his arms in the air. The baby came and the mother survived and Bill, was thrilled beyond words. He just walked out into the rain with a voice colored with many meaning, simply saying over and over, "A baby! A baby! A baby!

So amid our power failures and hard times and troubled world--we can stand open-mouthed and wondering before this great miracle called Christmas. What else can we say? "A baby! A baby! A baby!

It's Christmas And I Can See Their Faces

I sit here and see their faces—

One by one they march by—

Troubled, tear-stained, open-mouthed. Desperate.

What can I do to help?

Of course it’s a male thing—we have to help.

But no.

As they march by slow and weary—

I reach back in memory and remember other days—

When the sun was high in the sky and we laughed and ran

   and loved it all.

Nights when we drank or smoked or argued  and just enjoyed being as one.

What can I do to help?

No much.

We live too far away—

   Phone calls, books and notes are too fragile vessels to carry

   our love and care.

And so I pray.

Does it matter?

Who knows?

But I pray—believing—half-believing--somehow out there

   where they live and go through the motions of the day—

   a lightness will come to their heaviness

   and a glimmer of hope will find a way into their hearts.

                                            --Roger Lovette

                          

                     -- rogerlovette/rogerlovette.blogspot.com 

Third Sunday in Advent --Hard Times Come Again No More

"Let us pause in life's pleasures and count it's many tears
While we all sup sorrow with the poor
There's a song that will linger in our ears;
Oh, hard times come again no more.
(chorus)
'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary
Hard times, hard times come again no more
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door
Oh hard times come again no more."
   --Stephen Foster  



As we were moving from one place to another the saddest thing happened. My cousin, my good friend--took his life. He was in his fifties with a great deal of promise. He left me a note that said he wanted me to have his funeral in our church in Birmingham. He lived out of town but loved our Church and he loved its openness--he loved the fact that we took in all kinds of people.

As I struggled with what to say one of his nieces called me and wanted to use a particular song at the funeral. I was not sure--often people suggest music that is totally inappropriate for the occasion. But that was not the case--she wanted us to use Stephen Foster's plaintive, hopeful song: "Hard Times Come Again No More."And so at the end of that service we played this most appropriate song. The music could not have been more fitting.

I remembered that occasion as I turned to to this week's lectionary passage in Isaiah 35. I was struck by one word that is used over and over throughout the chapter like a mantra. Shall is repeated 24 times.

• The wilderness shall be glad...
• The desert shall rejoice...
• The glory...shall be given...
• The lame shall leap like a deer...
• Waters shall break forth in the wilderness
• A highway shall be there...
• And it shall be called the Way of Holiness...
• Sorrow and sighing shall flee away...

Isaiah wrote in a bitter time for God's people and gave them a word of hope.  So this wonderful word, shall is reiterated over and over. The door to their present and their future was not shut tight. Exile was not the last word. And today? Neither will suicide or a mean-spirited time or continual gun violence be the last word. We put this five letter word down beside the heartbreak on every street. We use the word at a time of terrorists threats--real or imagined. And certainly we could use the word out there for all the  grievers. In the  middle of whatever we deal with--or the world struggles with--embedded in it all is this hopeful word: Shall.

It is a word for people whose lives feel like a wilderness. The word speaks to the weak , the fearful, the blind, the deaf--all the broken people.

Is this shall just a mirage? We keep coming back to this word Advent after Advent. So we put it down beside our newspapers and the web and that family down the street and all  those widows whose husbands or wives will not be coming home from Afghanistan--ever.

Like Foster's song that emerged from that terrible time of slavery. Isaiah also proclaimed: hard times will come again no more   Our task, the text says in verses 3-4 is to help one another. "Strengthen the weak hands," he writes, "and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, 'Be strong, do not fear!'" This is not only a personal word for us but it is also a challenge fore us to respond to but all those out there without jobs or enough to eat or sleeping under the interstate bridge. We are given a mandate. Our task is to make the word shall become a reality for us all.

And so, like other hard times, we pilgrims light three candles. We whisper shall. For we believe, deep in our hearts, that this hard, hard time is not the last word. Say it over and over as did the Prophet. Shall...Shall...Shall.

Prayer for Peace at Christmas

"Protect me oh Lord for my boat is     so small

Protect me oh Lord for my boat is       so small

My boat is so small and your sea is      so wide

Protect me oh Lord."

  --Breton Fisherman's Prayer

Lord—your disciples told the story of that scary time when they were in the boat...and the water got choppy and the wind blew hard...and the waves got high...and they were afraid they would drown. And they wrote that Jesus came—walking on the water—whispering one word: Peace. And the winds died down and the water became calm and the boat made it safely to shore.

Lord—the water still gets choppy. And sometimes the waves just get too high...and, like those other disciples, we too get scared.

So here—where it’s quiet and all seems so peaceful—we know better. We confess that we don’t feel like we are safe and secure from all alarms. For some of us the water is wide and the waves are just too choppy. Some of us are afraid of what might happen to our little boats—or our child’s boat and all those we love. Some of us are fearful for the future. And so here in this safe place—we lift up our fears to you.

Could you do for us what you did long ago for those disciples? Could you bring us peace—here--where we are? Could you calm down our insides? Can you give us enough faith that we will know we are not alone.

Outside these walls—up and down these streets and out to Interstates to this whole country—and world—the waves get mighty high sometimes. Is it too much to ask you to do for us what you did for your disciples long ago? But not only for us—we ask for your peace for all those out there. In Afghanistan—not only our forces—but all those who live there and have known nothing their whole lives but fear and confusion and heartache. Could you do for them what you did for those disciples years ago?

As Christmas comes much too fast—so many today dread it’s coming. Some have lost someone precious. Some face enormous problems. Some worry about many things. The waves are just too high...and those boats feel like they won’t make it. Could you do for them what you did for those disciples years ago?

So Lord Jesus—walk across our choppy waters. Whisper peace to every troubled heart. And may that peace that really does pass all understanding—touch us and all those others out there. Leave no one out for we all have a common need.

We ask it all in the strong name of that Prince whose name we know as Peace. Amen.

(The artist who painted this picture is H Qi, a Chinese artist. He currently resides in the United States and He studied at Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing Art Institute and Hamburg (Germany) Art Institute. His work has been shown around the world at Universities at Cambridge and Oxford and Yale and Princeton and many other places. His unique style has been featured in many leading magazines and newspapers. He is committed to the artistic creation of modern Chinese Christian art. I first saw his work at Regent's Park College in Oxford and was struck by its power and  beauty.)

I wrote this prayer for an Advent service at the First Baptist Church, Clemson, South Carolina.

   --rogerlovette/ rogerlovette.blogspot.com