Christmas isn’t Over

photo by Joelle Brandt / flickr

I wrote this the day after Christmas. In England they tell me this is Boxing Day. The time, I guess when you gather up all the wrapping and Yuletide boxes and get the house in some kind of before-Christmas -order.  We’re packing our bags in Philadelphia and getting ready to leave in the morning for our plane ride back home. It’s hard hugging your loved ones or standing by the driveway as they slowly drive away.

 But in England and other countries Boxing  Day was the day the well-heeled let their servants off for the day to visit their families, taking with them a box from their employers loaded with a bonus, maybe a present or two and some left-over food from the Master’s table.  In this country Boxing Day is the time you cram back in yesterday’s boxes and rush back to the store to return the stuff you got that you do not want. Those that work in Department stores say this is the biggest nightmare of the year. “I really do appreciate what you got me...” (and then under your breath—God, why did they get me this.)

But it’s the day after Christmas and time, really to get back to abnormal once again. What if we remembered the words from the Christmas Eve service and those that followed. Christmas was really just beginning. Hopefully the Shepherds and the Wise Men returned “praising God for all they had seen or heard.” Mary and Joseph gathered up whatever they brought and bundled up the baby and left for  Egypt hoping their little one would be safe.

And he was safe. So the Christmas story was just beginning—a-to-be-continued saga which would change the world. And most of us know the rest of the story from Bethlehem to Jerusalem and all those dusty miles in-between.

But what about us. You and me and these very dusty roads we are traveling today. Government shut-downs except for his majesty’s staff and his majesty’s congressmen. They still get their checks. Or that poor destitute family that must take their little boy who died in America on Christmas Eve day and say goodbye for a last and final time. Or all their neighbors holed up in tents and lean-tos in Mexico while the rest of us are returning all the stuff we wish we had never got.

But I remember that just before Christmas a man in Greenville South Carolina walked into a Wal Mart store on Christmas Eve and paid off every lay-away for mostly poor people had owed for things they needed or. Christmas gifts. He gave $3,600 to pay the very bill. Also on TV I saw a man giving out hundred dollar bills to people in the streets of a large city to those need. Caring isn't dead. Think about all those who worked in soup kitchens or those others who worked hard across the country to make sure that little children with very little would not be disappointed at Christmastime.

Most of that stream of caring can be traced back to a barn and a manger and a bright, shining star. If Christmas is just beginning then it’s our job to make sure those warm and tender feelings of Christmas flow out into this troubled world.

We may not be able to do much about the cruelty and selfishness of our time (except at election time) but we can, like Mother Teresa said, “I do what I can with what I have where I am.” We aren’t responsible for it all—but each one of us can help in all sorts of ways. And if we let Christmas seep into our souls—who knows—it may not just help someone hanging on with their fingernails but us as well.

The old year is fading pretty fast. It’s time to get out those new calendars with all those fresh white pages stretching out and make sure Christmas isn’t over by a long-shot.


--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Christmas 2018 or AD 1?

photo courtesy of United Nations Photo / flickr

From a snippet in the New York Times. Maxine Marron wrote: "We cannot wait to hear about Gary's kindergarten play this year. Two years ago, his school put on "Snow White" with 27 "dwarfs," so that the children could be in the play. Last year, it presented "The Nativity." Joseph came to the inn and knocked on the door. The little boy playing the innkeeper decided to be inventive. When Joseph asked if there was room in the inn, he answered by saying: "You are so lucky. We have just had a cancellation."

As we Christians around the world gather to celebrate the birth of our Lord I wonder how many of us will ponder the words of Luke's story: "And she gave birth to her firstborn son and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn." I think of all those on the other side of the United States in Mexico and other places who this day scratch for food, try to keep warm and hold tight to their little ones. They came from poverty, from places without jobs, from countries where relatives were murdered and their daughters were raped. They came hundreds, maybe thousands of miles to find a place where they would be safe and their children would not only be far from danger. But also have a chance, in their little lives, to discover for themselves what their parents had not been able to do.

There are no mangers in Mexico or in Syria or all those other troubled places where people flee for their lives. When the history of our time is written I wonder if someone will 

ask the question: "No room? No room in the inn? Did not Christians, well-fed and prosperous care for those so desperately in need?" 

Like the little boy in kindergarten wouldn't it be something if we followers of Jesus Christ could open our hearts and lives and pocketbooks and churches and say to all those out there: "You are so lucky. We have just had a cancellation."

"To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come;
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome;
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all...are at home."
--G. K. Chesterton

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Christmas Wonder

I took this picture in Montreal about three years ago. Kneeling in that magnificent church this woman may not have taken off her shoes--but she knew she was on holy ground. Most folks I know are starved for wonder. TV won't do it. Breaking news won't do it. The thus-and-so-ness of life surely won't do it. Arthur Gordon years ago had a book that I cherish. It is called: A Touch of Wonder. We all need a touch of wonder, don't we?

One of my favorite poets is a man who lived in Nova Scotia. His name was Alden Nowlan. He wrote this a poem, which will not reproduce because it is pretty long. But he said that one day somebody asked him what were some of the great things that had happened in his life. I thought: good question, especially when you have mucho miles on the odometer and strange questions pop into your head at unexpected times.

But I degrees. As Nowlan thought about that question he said he answered as most of us would: Something like the moon landing or some other historic momentous moment as the greatest thing. But, he said when we answered like that we really would be lying. So he went back to1963.  He said there were only three of them living in a three-room flat on a street where nobody lived who could afford anywhere else. Ans then these words:

(The greatest thing) "That night, the three of us, Claudine, Johnnie and me,
 woke up at half-past four in the morning and ate cinnamon toast together.

"Is that all?" I hear somebody ask.

Oh, but we were silly with sleepiness
and, under our windows, the street-cleaners
were working their machines and conversing in    
    Italian, and
everything was strange without being threatening,
even the tea-kettle whistled differently
than in the daytime: it was like the feeling
you get sometimes in a country you've never visited
before, when the bread doesn't taste quite the same,
the butter is a small adventure, and they put
paprika on the table instead of pepper,
except that there was nobody in this country
except the three of us, half-tipsy with the wonder
of being alive, and wholly enveloped in love."

Wow is about all I can say. For in a world of lawyers and investigations and porn stars and deceit and heartbreak we need a time out. Big time. Some moment when we least expect it when open-mouthed like Moses the bush burns and we don't know what to do exactly except, maybe take off our shoes and brush the tears from of our eyes. The Book says this was a turning point in Moses' life. Maybe when the bush close by bursts into flames it will change our lives too. Who knows?

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Christmas Speaks to Fear

As the curtains part, the audience suddenly settles down. it is quiet--very quiet.  And in the dim light a young girl sits on center stage. And from someone in the back we hear a rustling. The girl looks up. And an angel, with wings expanded comes from stage left and stands next to the girl. The angel speaks so quietly the audience has to strain to hear. "Hail," she says, "O favored one!" And everyone can tell the girl is terrified. An angel--speaking to her? An angel? And then the angel says, "Do not be afraid."

And that's the opening of Luke's nativity story. Oh, there will be a whole crowded stage before this is over. Joseph not quite knowing to think. Probably her parents though the book doesn't mention them. There will be Zechariah, a priest and Anna a  Priestess. Then there will be Elizabeth as the two women compare notes. And an Innkeeper and Shepherds and a mad king and Wise Men--but you know the rest of the story. 

If Thomas Mann is right when he said, "It is it always is, however much we say it was," maybe what he was trying to say was that great literature is as much about today as yesterday. And as our curtain opens on yet another Advent--reckon this first word from the angel is for us too. "Fear not." Joseph will also her those same words. And then Shepherds and Wise Men, too. Maybe this is what the Wise Men told Herod that maybe he should not be afraid. Who knows? But that word runs like a silver thread through the whole story. "Do not be afraid." 

Is this story really not just a drama played out back there--but here, too. Here? Of all the things I see slouching around out there--and in here, too--I think fear comes close to being at the top of the list. Politicians bang the drum loudly. But so does everyone else. Why even we Evangelicals may be the most terrified of all. Of what I am not really sure. That the collection plates will come back almost empty. That looking out on a Sunday only here and there we will find a smattering of people. Maybe some of us believers are afraid that Jesus really will come back and, as the T-shirt said, "Is he pis..d." 

But the fear in that Advent story was closer to home. And it was to a particular young woman the good news came. And to all those others--no general fear. But a fear with their addresses and our address on the envelope. Yours and mine. 

You don't want to hear about my fears. We've all got them. Fear of disability. Alzheimer's, for God's sake. Wondering if we will have enough moo-lah to get to the end of the line. Worries about the kids. And the nation. And our friend down the street having round after round of chemo. Worry about if we really believe all this stuff about faith--even though the book keeps saying it over and over again. Maybe so we won't forget it. "Fear not."

Well--right now I have failed the test. I fear lots of things. But somehow I can't get this drama with the parted curtains and the little girl-women named Mary and the angel they called Gabriel out of my mind. And maybe this is why we keep reading the story over and over Christmas after Christmas.

Those words were read in those terrible years of starvation. Even when there were Roman crosses and plagues and injustice and injustice and injustice right down to this crazy social-media world. So maybe we should listen carefully to old Gabriel. There really will come a child so unexpected and with hands and feet like ours and lungs that could give it all it was worth. I believe...Lord thou my unbelief. So come Christmas I'll be there and I will try to listen to the story I've heard a thousand times. And maybe, even in old age it may just seep into the cracks of my old days. And, my friend, yours too.

(These two banners were made by my son and his friends when he was 16 years old. They have hung every Advent season in the First Baptist Church, Clemson (SC) He is now 49)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

My Dream for Christmas

In this chaotic world God knows we need a Christmas. The real Christmas which has nothing to do with the glitter and consumerism that we are all caught up in. W.H. Auden says it best for me.

"Remembering the stable

where

for once in our lives

everything 

became a You and nothing was an It."

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

For Those Who Find Christmas Hard

photo courtesy of Catholic Diocese of Saginaw /flickr

She came in and slumped down in her chair.“I hate Christmas,” she said.” I just hate Christmas. We don’t have enough money. My husband and I had another fight about if we’ll spend Christmas with his parents or mine.  The kids are grumpy andI I have zero heart for shopping. I just hate the season.”

As soon as she left the phone rang. .”I don’t think I will make it through the next few weeks. We’re separated and it’s awful. What will I tell the kids? If I had a magic wand—I’d just as soon make Christmas disappear. Comfort and joy—whatever happened to that?”

Good question: What did happen to comfort and joy? We forget the setting of the first Christmas. There were no sleigh bells in the snow and no chestnuts roasting by an open fire. Bethlehem did not look a Christmas catalogue from Pottery Barn.

photo by Jose Manuel Armengod / flickr

Christmas was set in a land where the citizens were scared as those refugees today who flee for their lives. Rome ruled their land and injustice was everywhere. Then word darkness isn a continual theme in every nativity story. It was a dark, dark world. And Christ came. He was born in a manger and not a palace. He was born to those of peasant stock and not those in the better part of town. There was no room in the inn, but we all know that story. His father was a carpenter and the mother was barely sixteen. Herod, the mad king was so jealous of someone who might be a contender to his throne that he had every boy baby killed that he could find. Jesus escaped by the skin of his teeth. So the world that Jesus came into was much like ours. A dark time. Confusion everywhere. There is little comfort and joy to be found in those stories.

We won’t find the real Christmas in the presents. And we won’t find the joy we seek in some mall. And we certainly won’t find what we desperately crave in the drop ins and cocktail parties. None of these open the door to Christmas.

Christmas will come upon us as it came to those in the old story. It was a gift. We cannot

photo courtesy of Jim Roberts Gallery / flickr

buy the season or program its wonder. We just open our eyes and stand back, breathlessly and wait.

Watch what? The little things. Remember Bethlehem and the manger. Ordinary shepherds on a cold hillside and parents so poor it was embarrassing. Remember the little things. 

Once sloshing through my own Christmas depression I talked to a counselor. He said, “We expect too much at Christmas. Something spectacular like the Macy’s parade.” He went on, “Build your Christmas around just one thing. Maybe even tiny. That’s what the gospel story was all about.”

So I tried his prescription. In fact I’ve tried it for several years. One year Christmas came when our neighbors across the street knocked on the door of the parsonage. The man could not work. The family had little money. And so anonymously we placed a Christmas box of apples and oranges and goodies and left them on their porch Christmas Eve night. Christmas morning they came across the street to share their treasures of apples and oranges with us. They gave us back what we had given them. And Christmas came.

photo by Tom Maloney / flickr

One year I was working in a large church. One of the men’s Sunday School classes decided to give every child on their needy list a hundred dollars. We had breakfast for the kids and then took them to the local Wal Mart to shop. The store had locked the doors so we were the only customers. Watching the kids run through the store was heartwarming. But one little girl case up to me and asked, “Could I take some of my money and buy my Daddy a coat?” I nodded yes. And Christmas came as the little girl ran toward the men’s section.

Sometimes Christmas is hard on Pastors. We are so busy that we hardly have time for our families until Christmas Eve is over.   But one Christmas Eve I sat in the church balcony waiting for our candlelight service to begin. And down the darkened aisle walked a little boy holding his candle singing softly, “This little light of mine…” And bone-tired, Christmas swept over me once more.

Maybe we all expect too much. Perhaps the media and advertisers have not helped us with

photo by Christina Saint Marche / flickr

this holy season. Maybe comfort and joy will come to us in one tiny event as it came to Mary,  Joseph and Wise Men and Shepherds.  No Hallelujah Chorus. Just some moment when we ponder the mystery and the light breaks through and the darkness can never extinguish its wonder. 

Life may not have worked out as you have wished. But God is here. “On that night of nights,” Dr. Scherer used to say, “God came down the stairs of heaven with a child in his arms.” And if we watch closely the Almighty may still appear in a song or nestled in a box of oranges. 

The old Advent message has not changed: “Watch. You never know when the Son of Man will come.” So we open our eyes. We look closely. And some moment when we least expect Christmas it may just slip through our side door and be front and center is our lives. Never what we expect. But always what we need. Comfort and joy! Comfort and joy!

photo by Nana B Agyer / flickr


--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

It's Advent Time!

photo by James Ogley / flickr

It’s that time of the year. Advent. The season when we are supposed to get ready. For mot of us it is a sad-happy time. I stopped two of my friends who had been in my Grief group when I saw them yesterday. “I know this is a hard time.” They both said: “You have no idea.” And I don’t really. And yet this I know. All around me are people that are having a tough time. Worrying about loved ones. Worrying about health. Worrying about the craziness of our time. Wishing, somehow we could just pull the plug and stop the madness that seems to be everywhere. I remember one of Annie Dillard’s lines. She said: “He asked: ‘O death where is thy sting?” And I thought,” she wrote,”Where? Just about everywhere.”

And yet—as I write these words I heard a noise outside my window. A large truck had pulled up. Two Hispanic workers are digging large holes in the grass across the street. And in the truck I saw three large trees. They were planting trees on this cold day. They were planting trees despite whatever death and whatever stings there are all around us. For them I suppose it was just a job and yet I wonder as they planted what fears they carried for their families and their children and their futures in this United States of America: 2018.

But despite it all they planted three trees. And up and down the street we strung light and set lights in our windows and hauled artificial trees out of the attic. Maybe we are all getting ready. The Hispanic workers, those two grievers dreading Christmas and the rest of us. 

Most of us have lost the wonder we had as children. When we just could not wait for Christmas and all its brings. And yet—we keep doing what we do every late November. We get ready as the old Advent calendar says.

Isaiah wrote: “The people that walked in darkness have seen as great light. They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them the light hath shined.” Isaiah wrote in a terrible time. Death took away more than it passed by. The people were terrified of foreign invaders. Poverty and hunger were rampant. And yet—Isaiah wrote of light in whatever darkness surrounded them all.

So maybe, just maybe we need to get ready too. We cannot hold the dark back—and yet in the middle of it all—there is this unexpected light. Just enough to keep us going. History helps me here. John Henry Newman lived in a hard time. He was far from home. He was beset with a terrible sickness. He almost died. Swirling around him were awful political and church battles. And in 1833 despite the darkness and the spiritual bewilderment he felt he wrote a prayer for the guidance of God which became a great hymn: 

                     “Lead kindly light, amid the encircling gloom,

 lead thou me on 

                The night is dark and I am far from home;

Lead thou me on!”

It’s my prayer for me and mine and maybe everybody. That somewhere in the busyness or heartbreak of these Advent days we will find just enough light to keep us going. I love that poem by Langston Hughes that expresses this hope so well. 

“Well, son I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light. 

So boy, don’t you turn back. 

Don’t you set down on the steps

‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey, 

I’se still climbing;’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” 

photo by Bart / flickr

—Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com