Advent Poems

LOVE
Advent is one of my favorite times of year. The days get shorter, colder, covered in a secretive darkness and some days, in snow. We learn to live with the Mystery of the moment and the Darkness of the day, hoping and expecting more Mystery and longing for Light to come (knowing that Light will come, has come).

This year, as we wait and hope for Christmas, I'll be posting some of my favorite poems of the season here. Hopefully the words will companion and help you as you wait.

Today's offering is by Judith Bingham. Advent blessings to you and yours! Enjoy!

Epiphany

Deep midwinter, the dark centre of the year,
Wake, O earth, awake
Out on the hills a star appears,
Here lies the way for pilgrim kings,
Three magi on an ancient path,
Black hours begin their journeyings.

Their star has risen in our hearts,
Empty thrones, abandoned fears,
Out on the hills their journey starts,
In dazzling darkness God appears.

Waiting for Word

LOVE
We all inherit something from our progenitors: insanely blue eyes like my husband's, a Romanesque nose (also like my husband's), a dashing smile, sanguine personality, hearty laugh, or broad shoulders. My brother, Rob, and I both inherited chocolate brown eyes, dark hair and prematurely degenerative lower backs.

This Advent, as I was waiting for Christmas, I was also waiting for Rob and his family to visit for the holidays. Despite a re-injury of his back - from putting his one-year-old into his crib - Rob made the long fight from LA to Chicago. On Christmas Eve he (who did not inherit the Drama Chromosome as I did) lay writhing in pain on the bed in my parent's room. The kids and I stopped the Natal Drama to go into the master, anoint Rob with olive oil and pray for a reprieve from pain that 'felt like a rusty nail stabbing his low back, hip and right leg.'

On Sunday I thought of my brother as I led worship from the piano and sang, Immanuel, Our God is with us. And if God is with us who can stand against us? Our God is with us, Immanuel. And as the congregation read the following adaptation of Eugene Peterson's translation of John 1, I thought about my friend Bev who is pregnant and four days past her due date. Both my brother and Bev: waiting for a word, waiting for deliverance from pain, waiting for a new life.

RESPONSIVE READING, DECEMBER 28th 2008

LEADER:
The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God in readiness for God from day one.

MEN:
Everything was created through him; nothing – not one thing! – came into being without him.

WOMEN:
What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.

ALL:
The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish. Immanuel, God with us!

LEADER:
John the Baptist was sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.

WOMEN:
The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light.

MEN:
He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn’t even notice he came to his own people, but they didn’t want him.

LEADER:
But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, he made to be their true selves.

ALL:
The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish. Immanuel, God with us!

With the coming of Christmas, my Advent waiting has ended. The Life-Light has come into the darkness. Yet, with Rob and Bev, I continue to wait as they walk through Personal Advents. Rob and his family cut their trip to Chicago short, flying back to LA on Christmas Day. As I write he is undergoing what could be a five hour surgery to alleviate two 'massively herniated' discs. Bev is still awaiting the birth of her baby boy. I remain with both of them in hope and expectancy and with this poem:

Waiting for Word
for Rob on the day of his back surgery
December 2008

On a day filled with
thoughts of you,
I feel pregnant with
expectancy, waiting for Word

by phone or Internet
or Spirit Whisper that
you’re OK and resting
in the safety of darkness

beginning to break
like waters bringing forth
new life once secreted by womb
that – by yielding, going with the pain –

fades from deepest obscurity
to a bright pink and screaming dawn

An Advent Podcast

This year my church, Blanchard Road Alliance in Wheaton, is offering a 5 minute Podcast for each day during the Advent Season. These Podcasts have given me Pause, Stillness, a few moments for Reflection during this often frenetic time of year. They've been a perfect Gift to me. I look forward to each new offering, enjoying recitations of scripture by four-year-olds, stories about forgiveness, hopeful expectation for Emmanuel - God with Us - to come.

Following is a transcript of my Podcast which is featured today at the following link: http://www.blanchardalliance.org/mediaServices/channel321.xml). If, by the way, you're interested in signing up for the free gift of the entire Podcast Compilation, you can do that at http://www.blanchardalliance.org/.

Everlasting Father
An Advent Offering about God as Playful

This morning as I got ready for the day I heard my dad’s voice calling out from our front room, “It’s time for your armpit sandwich, Ayden!” Next I heard the pitter-patter of a chase followed by a capture and shared laughter. Even from upstairs, I knew it wouldn’t be long until Grandpa and Ayden would be feverishly involved in a game of “Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button?”, Flashlight Tag with Ben and Emily, or Ayden’s favorite, “I’m Thinking of Something.”

My dad is one of the most playful, ebullient, joyous, extroverted people I know. He’s one of those twinkly-eyed guys who smiles at babies in line at the mall. He embraces life, always has a good story to tell, an easy laugh, and sees the bright side of everything. Even in his sixties, my dad espouses the huge, uninhibited heart of a child.

His playful spirit has informed my image of God, our Everlasting Father. When I find myself falling into the clichéd trap of seeing God as stoic, unavailable, uuber-serious; I remember my dad. And, I realize that playfulness can be part of God’s character without diminishing his authority, divinity or holiness.

Seeing God this way – through the lens of my hilarious, playful dad – helps vivify the image of our Everlasting Father. So when I read in Psalm 104 that God ‘stretches out the heavens like a tent’ I immediately think of camping with my dad. And, imagine a god who invites us into wild adventurous kinds of connections. The kind of fresh-aired fun families experience under star-lit nights . . . by open fire.

Also, when I read of God incarnate, Jesus, inviting the children to be with Him; I see my dad tickling my son like he did earlier today. And, I imagine Christ yelling “Let the little children come,” as He takes off for an impromptu game of hide-n-go-seek that morphs into a game of leap frog and then a contest to see who can dig up the most worms from a nearby Jerusalem garden.

During Advent – a time of reflective waiting – let us trust that our Everlasting Father will come at Christmas with Joy and Lightness, Playfulness and Love . . . delighting in us and inviting us to be with Him, enjoy Him, enter into blithe and cheer-filled moments of connection with Him.

And, let us likewise invite Him:

Jesus Christ, Immanuel, Everlasting and Playful Father, in our changing world, help us trust your eternal protection and provision and guide others to You.

Expecting Emmanuel

LOVE








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This Advent I’m expectant. Expectant for the birth of Christ; and expectant for the birth of a friend’s baby (a boy, due on Christmas Day). I’ve had the joy and honor of walking with this friend, a single-mom who goes to my church, through this: her first pregnancy.

As I’ve watched her middle become as round and beautiful as the earth, we’ve been talking a lot about Mary’s journey as a single-mom. We’ve debriefed what it must’ve been like for Mary to feel pregnant and alone. We’ve read her story in the gospels, imagined what it was like when her baby, Jesus, met leaping John the Baptist – through layers sin and flesh and uterus – for the first time.

We’ve talked about the surprising way Mary – an improbable teenage girl – wound up carrying God’s child . . . carrying God within herself . . . And how all of us carry divinity within us. CHRIST IN US THE HOPE OF GLORY.

The magic and mystery of God coming near in such an unlikely way has struck us organically as my friend (full and beautiful with child), nears her Christmas due date, prepares her nursery, and tries to survive these last few days where sharing a body with a big baby boy are becoming arduous and exhausting. As we wait and expect her looming day of deliverance, we’re awed at the ways Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God-with-us has come to be close to us.

A poem by Rowan Williams, titled Advent Calendar, helps us as we wait:

Advent Calendar

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-sowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

Some Children See Him

Christmas Eve morn I was putting dishes from breakfast in the dishwasher. My trinity of children, Ben, Ayden and Emily begged for some Christmas music to dance to. Bryan rallied them near the tree, snagged a small, flat, square present and had them give it to me: James Taylor's At Christmas. Wondrous!!!

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The kids boogied and bopped to Winter Wonderland, Go Tell It On The Mountain, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town and Jingle Bells. Bry even brought me close - cheek to cheek - twirling me 'round the kitchen for Baby, It's Cold Outside. By the time The Christmas Song rang from the speakers, my crew was off to the basement to play with Transformers and video games.

Alone in the kitchen, I mixed artichoke dip for the evening's fare and listened to James. A lengthy intro to a carol I didn't immediately recognize floated into the room, casting a spell on me. Usually I can name almost any traditional tune in just a few notes. This one simultaneously eluded and captivated me. What song is this? I wondered. Somehow the music started soliciting tears. I couldn't tell if it was the crescendo of strings or the piano stylings of my fav, Dave Grusin, that did it. But, there I was with a cup of Parmesan cheese in my hand and tears in the corners of my eyes.

The intro reached a swollen up-beat and Jame's folky tenor broke in, divulging the carol, Some children see Him lily white/The baby Jesus born this night. Some children see Him lily white/With tresses soft and fair . . . tears cascaded soft and copiously down my face. Though the words were as familiar as an old friend, the traditional melody equally comforting, I had no idea why the song was reaching into my chest and wrapping its pentatonic fingers around my heart.

Then, the third verse came:

Some children see Him almond-eyed,
This Savior whom we kneel beside.
Some children see him almond-eyed,
With skin of golden hue.

Without thinking, I walked (dare I say floated) to our dining room window, and gazing at a snow-covered park, started to weep. Gratitude for three-year-old, beautiful, almond eyed, little Emily who is my daughter warmed me like a woolen sweater. Prayers for all the orphans we met in China when we adopted her flooded my soul. And, the faces of Emily's twelve sister-cousins who traveled home to America on the same plane she did flashed across my mind.

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The classic carol has always painted a lovely, prismatic picture for me: children around the globe seeing the Christ child with skin the same hue as theirs, with eyes the same shape as their own, and hair of their texture. When I listened to the lyric as a child, I loved imagining multicultural creches around the planet in Mexico, Africa, Israel, China, Australia, Europe, etc. They were all vibrant in color. Some were complete with palm trees and sand, others with mountains and snow. As I grew up, I loved the way the lyric pointed out our abilities to see based on our life experience, our world view. And, I found it inspiring that God, in whose image we are all created, is seen/revealed in children of great diversity and beauty.

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Even though the carol had touched me, intrigued me; it had existed apart from me like a planet on a parallel orbit. This year - standing in our kitchen holding the cup of grated cheese, listening to James Taylor's hauntingly clear tenor - that all changed. The hymn came near, orbiting my very heart. Why? I wondered, and the answer came clear as the carol: because of the diversity in my own family, because of my gorgeous, tenacious, luminescent Chinese daughter, Emily. She has changed me. I am no longer simply a woman with deep deciduous Midwestern roots. I'm, now, a mom who, touched by the grace of adoption, has fallen in love with China and a little girl who is fruit of that wondrous place.

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As Emily and I have walked through Advent together, lighting candles, reading stories, singing carols, preparing meals and gifts, touching familiar icons I've been mindful to celebrate instead of indoctrinate. I don't want to wash away any of Emily's rich heritage by force-feeding her a distinctly American, materialistic, western Jesus. I want her to experience divinity as a daughter of China, an American adoptee, a child of God. I want her to know a savior who is big, unconfined by boxes and myopic religious practices (though He was willing to take on infant form). I want Emily to see the baby in the manger with her own distinctly beautiful eyes. The funny thing is that, during this Advent - the third Emily and I have shared - for the first time, I'm the one who is seeing baby Jesus with almond eyes.

love

Some Children See Him

Some children see Him lily white,

The baby Jesus born this night.

Some children see Him lily white,

With tresses soft and fair.

Some children see Him bronzed and brown,

The Lord of heav'n to earth come down.

Some children see Him bronzed and brown,

With dark and heavy hair.

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Some children see Him almond-eyed,

This Savior whom we kneel beside.

Some children see Him almond-eyed,

With skin of golden hue.

Some children see Him dark as they,

Sweet Mary's Son to whom we pray.

Some children see him dark as they,

And, ah! they love Him, too!

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The children in each different place

Will see the baby Jesus' face

Like theirs, but bright with heavenly grace,

And filled with holy light.

O lay aside each earthly thing

And with thy heart as offering,

Come worship now the infant King.

'Tis love that's born tonight!

love
In my moment of dip-making-carol-enjoying epiphany, I realized that I've become one of the children looking at a new and distinctly personal creche scene. Thanks to Em, my blond-haired, blue-eyed baby Jesus has changed. This Christmas he has lovely lacquer hair and smiling almond eyes. He has been baptised by an eastern perspective, a perspective of pain and the beauty of redemption. From this distinct vantage, Christ looks more mysterious, more powerful, more unexpected, more divine. My made-over manger reveals a Miracle holding surprising, unique, vast, uncontainable deity. He's the long awaited One who reveals God's wonder around the globe; and in organic, daily, unimaginable ways to unsuspecting moms through the eyes of their children.

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After I wrote this piece my mom shared an inspiring, sagacious article by Ron Grossman titled, Christian Art is Chinese History. The newspaper clip weds China, Christ, art, history, and antiquity. It really affirmed some of my thoughts and feelings. Check it out at:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-scroll_02jan02,1,1219921.story?ctrack=2&cset=true