Fourth Sunday of Advent

This is a copy of a reflection that I gave at my church--St. Anthony Catholic Church, Anchorage, Alaska, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent.  Didn’t have time to do any editing, and this is pretty much how it was delivered.  Enjoy!

Have you ever had the experience of giving a gift to someone, or offering to do something for another person?  Perhaps you planned an event for them you are certain they will enjoy?  Maybe you have worked for many days on a project or spent a lot of money on a gift that you hope will delight them.  When you present your offering, or your idea of a way to help or honor them, you are met with a less than enthusiastic response.  Perhaps they even refuse your offer and you are left confused and disappointed.  If not, I am certain the next several days might offer you the opportunity to engage in this unsettling experience.

This is sort of what happens to David in today’s first reading.  He’s relaxing in his palace, after his enemies have been defeated, and the nation is at peace.  He probably is feeling quite content with himself; and, hopefully grateful to God who has highly favored him.  In a reflective moment he realizes that while he lives in palatial splendor, the ark of God, which the Israelites believed to represent God’s presence among them, is housed in a tent.

Out of love and gratitude, no doubt, David decides to build a more fitting house for the Lord.  We may wonder about his motives to do so, but I don’t think we would doubt his sincerity. Judging by an archeological excavation in July of 2013, which claims to have discovered King David’s Palace, no doubt, David had impressive plans for God’s permanent dwelling among His people.  He shares something of his plan with Nathan, the prophet.

As David dreams of how best to honor the ark, God is having a talk with Nathan, and has some surprises for David that will pale in comparison to what David has in mind.

You can almost hear God chuckling a bit when Nathan relays His words to David: “Should you build ME a house to dwell in”  Really!”  No doubt God appreciates and respects David’s desire to construct a magnificent dwelling, but that isn’t at all what God has in mind.  It’s as if God is saying to David, “So, you want to build me a house.  Well that’s nice, but just listen to what I am going to do for YOU!”  What ensues is a reminder to David of how God has raised him from lowliness to power and how He will continue to be with His people, bringing justice to them, and establishing along David’s bloodline a kingdom, which will endure forever.  This is known as the “Davidic covenant” whose promise is fulfilled with the birth of Jesus.

The drama of that fulfillment is played out in today’s gospel.  We’ve heard this story so often that it loses something of its magnificence, its power to fill our hearts with unspeakable joy.  We often miss the significance of this fulfillment of God’s promise to David, because when we hear these words, when Luke’s gospel of annunciation is most often proclaimed, we are usually distracted with our own details of building a house for the Lord, in the form of a Christmas celebration to honor God and delight our loved ones.

We often find ourselves, (at least I do) on this fourth Sunday of Advent, wrapped up in the details of preparing for Christmas.  Many of us are scurrying around buying and wrapping gifts, decorating our homes, entertaining or attending parties, baking, cleaning, and cooking.  There are holiday concerts and other events to attend.  Some of us may even still send Christmas cards.  So much to do. Many of us, hopefully, are trying to find time to read our daily reflections in the Advent booklets Bonnie provided, perhaps seeking the sacrament of reconciliation.  Maybe we are performing acts of charity, and trying our darndest to be patient and cheerful; and, if even for a moment in our harried lives, to reflect on the birth of Jesus and what it means for us, and for our world.

Sometimes; however, we get so caught up in the details of trying to honor the great gift God has given us in the incarnation of His Son, we defeat the purpose of what we are doing.  It’s so easy to do, given the high expectations we have of ourselves and of each other.  Our culture doesn’t help either with the images of idyllic holidays with smiling and delighted children, grateful recipients of our thoughtful gifts, perfect holiday feasts laid out on cleverly decorated tables. 

As my children and husband will tell you, I have, at some point in Advent, or even earlier, cancelled every Christmas celebration I ultimately managed to pull off (no matter how shabbily.) I’ve taken those Facebook quizzes, which determined I am more a Grinch than an elf, more Ebenezer Scrooge than Mr. Fezziwig.  Maybe some of you are too.  And that’s okay.  Sometimes that grouchy exterior hides a heart that isn’t three sizes too small or made of coal.  Perhaps it hides a heart that is broken by loss, or disappointment.  Perhaps it hides a heart that is weary of the relentless challenge of living in a world that continually denies its need for a Savior.  Perhaps it is bursting with a love that is never acknowledged or returned.  What Christmas reveals to us, more than anything, is our own poverty, our damaged, but priceless, hearts.  The good news the angel Gabriel announces is that God, because He desires our damaged hearts and our all too imperfect lives, has become poor like us, helpless like us, stripped of power and dignity.  The manger beckons us, not just to gaze at the marvel of incarnation, but also to look at each other, and ourselves and see the face of God.

When we do so, like David, we will see that while our God dwells in the splendor of Christmas, He also dwells in a tent, much like the woman who died on Karluk Street and Third Avenue last week--with not much more than thin fabric walls to keep out the cold and bad weather.  Like David, perhaps embarrassed by the splendor in which he found himself, we will be moved to attain more fitting structures to not only house our human bodies, but our human souls as well.

As we light the fourth candle of Advent, traditionally the Candle of Peace, let us do so with the knowledge that God will always trump our preparations and good intentions with the covenant He makes with David and his people, the promise he fulfills in Gabriel’s announcement to Mary.  Unlike the recipients of our gifts who are sometimes less than grateful, God acknowledges every act made in His name, even those that have their root in obligation and reluctance.  He takes the joy that is the best part of our preparation and He multiplies it, times infinity and gives us The Gift, that cannot disappoint and can never be any less than our wildest expectations.  He give us Himself.

May you find peace in these last days of Advent and welcome the Christmas season with an open and loving heart.

Memories...and the Edmund Fitzgerald

Today marks the 39th anniversary of the disappearance of the Great Lakes iron ore freighter, the Edmund Fitzgerald.  If you are unfamiliar with this event in history, google it.  You may remember the song recorded by Gordon Lightfoot shortly after its sinking which was popular in 1976 and beyond, a classic among folk songs, I suppose.

This blog post is not really about that tragic moment in my personal history, or at least as personal as familiarity with Lake Superior, some of the folks who worked in mining or shipping in a part of the country that supplied tremendous amounts of hematite and taconite that fed the steel mills of the north.  All became part of the great “rust belt”, eventually.  Ore boats still ply those waters and on my occasional trips to the land I first called home, the sight of them always evoke memories of that day in November.

The memories also connect me to a high school friend, a woman with whom I lost touch over the years and found again on Facebook.  When I signed up for a Write-A-Thon several months ago, she was the first to donate to the fundraiser which helps out the writers’ group I had recently joined.  Just today she commented on an item I shared, a recording of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”  It confirmed a small part of her personal history she shared with me shortly after that fateful day.  I couldn’t exactly remember how she was so closely connected to that event, but it impressed me and has stayed with me since.

When faced with the prospect of writing for 2 1/2 hours I wrote mostly about the folks who pledged money for the event.  This is a small part of what I wrote that night:

SML was the first to donate and it was a delightful surprise when an email informed me of her generosity.  A high school friend we, of course, reconnected on Facebook.  I marvel at this modern vehicle for social interaction, smitten with its capacity to compress the last 40 years or so into snippets of photos, sample details of lives long remembered but rarely recalled.  Memory informs, awakens friendships that were perhaps not often deeply intertwined, but neither ignored or forgotten. 

I remember when the iron ore freighter, Edmund Fitzgerald, sank in a horrific storm on Lake Superior—and that memory includes SML.  Perhaps we talked of it, perhaps she knew a crewman or had a close family member who worked on the great ore boats that plied their cargo in the great lake’s tumultuous waters.  I don’t recall, but there was something in that tragic loss that gripped our hearts like November’s cold and drove like the hellish wind into our souls.  We wouldn’t forget, our shoes bore the soil’s stain of hematite, our faucets ran rust red, we bled in song and prayer and peals of bells.  When I think of that day, I think of SML.

...And here is the comment my friend Sandie wrote, in response to today’s sharing of that classic ballad:

Sandie Milakovich LaVoy I remember also, my dad was still out on the lakes and had just passed whitefish point a couple hours before the Fitzgerald!! Long night for families of any men on the boats!

Thanks for clearing that up Sandie, and for reminding me of how we all connect through the times and events of our lives.  We are all far closer to one another than we think and we share lives that are diverse and yet similar--amazingly similar.

Beginnings

WORD FOR THE DAY
Sunday, Sep. 14
And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.
Meister Eckhart

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the death of my sister-in-law, (surrogate mother, sister and best friend) Carol Alleva. There is something about reaching the first anniversary of any event that has significance, and perhaps there is celebration or ceremony which marks a milestone and the 365 day journey which precedes it.

Other than celebrating my husband’s birthday with a night out with good friends, I didn’t mark this anniversary in any special way.  Carol had, perhaps, enough forethought about her own death to die the day after Ron’s birthday, two days after I had left on a three week trip to Ireland.  While winding my way with a busload of tourists through the Irish countryside I learned of the “40 shades of green” for which the Emerald Isle is known.  I learned also of "40 shades of grief" in mourning one of the most significant people in my life.  I considered writing a tribute to her of the same name, but beyond a few cursory entries in a journal I originally bought to record my reflections of my journey in the land of my ancestors, I found myself too steeped in sadness to reflect on a life that entwined so deeply and tenaciously within my own, for nearly thirty years.  Letting go, disentangling from the nearly daily routine of coffee and conversation, rant and reflection with Carol consumed more time, more tears, more distress and depression than I ever imagined.

I gave myself a year to mourn (a customary time in so many cultures) and found myself not dreading the day of her death, but anticipating it as one awaits the end of a pregnancy, or prison term, believing that new light would dawn like the sunrise of New Year’s Day--and the dark night of despair would lift, taking with it the fog of confusion and loss.

This Sunday morning arrives like most Sunday mornings--a rush to ready myself for mass, skipping breakfast, speeding on near deserted streets, sliding into my customary spot, just moments before song and prayer and blessed familiarity.   Soon coffee and fellowship, a meeting of the Christmas bazaar committee, chatting with the woman who sold me a memorial plaque to grace the place where I sit week after week--a memorial to the woman whose ashes remain on a mantel, whose life was not celebrated or memorialized in ritual.  No funeral, no burial, no closure, just the sheer number of days and days to ease and erase the timeline of sorrow.

I cannot dwell in the barrenness of grief any longer, in the bleakness of alone anymore.  Time waits for the what next, the space of emptiness to be filled with more than just the comfort of task to take away the desperation of lack, of loss, of regretful longing.  It is nearing noon and I am supposed to greet the people who have come to view the quilts made by the members of the guild to which I have belonged for a few years now (though I have made only two very small quilts in that time.)  I feel alive among all this creativity and color, delighted and deferential to those who share this event and walk through the doors, awe and amazement dancing on their faces.  

Creativity.  It is my sustenance and my succor.  The balm of busyness will not longer suffice to keep the listlessness of longing at bay, the denial of my true calling buried in the check list of must do and must have.  How to disengage from the duties I have placed upon myself so that I would be loved, or respected, is far less clear than that I must do so, and do quickly.  I realize this as I walk among the material manifestations of those who do as I wish to do, have always wished to do.  I sew and I write, and while I do many, many other things, it is these two things I want to do well.  I once believed I had to choose between them, that to master one, I must give up the other.  Lacking either the will or the desire to do so, I did a lot of everything else, mostly.

But a year of letting go of someone, and something to do when I could not do as I wished, has come to a close.  With surprising clarity I know the next steps, though I do not know where they lead (as it should be, I suppose)  God give me the strength to disengage from what is no longer life-giving nor true to myself.  It is time for the dead to bury their dead.

To Whom Do You Listen? (Mothers’ Day Reflection)

To Whom Do You Listen:  Mothers’ Day reflection, St. Anthony Catholic Church, May 11, 2014

Good morning, and Happy Mothers’ Day—to all of us, who in one way or another are mothers to others.

Today’s Gospel is all about listening.  For those of us who like to talk, there is perhaps the perception from others that we don’t listen often enough or well.  Sometimes we don’t.

Listening requires hearing, and hearing, while we sometimes think of it metaphorically—and correctly so—is a miracle of biology, and of a universe of sound waves, a marvelous gift of our Creator God. 

As humans we share many experiences, but the most common, even more so than our births, is hearing for the first time, the sound of our mother’s heartbeat.  At 16 weeks gestation, the unborn child can hear—a full five months before birth.  Science has demonstrated this by recording fetal movement in response to a broad range of sounds transmitted through the mother’s abdomen.  But as mothers have always known, our unborn babies often dance when we sing to them.  They recognize music heard in utero when they hear it outside the womb.  In addition to our mother’s heart, we hear too the noise of her body and the whoosh of the placenta.  (A bit of trivia here, the “shhhh” we use to soothe our young children mimics the placenta’s song—it is ancient and universal.)  Even outside sounds, voices, music, patterns of pitch, stress and rhythm prime us for life in this world.  Indeed the patterns of speech, and the neural connections that make it possible, are laid down months before we enter the world.  We begin to learn our “mother tongue” long before we can speak it.

From the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health comes this wonderful statement: “A mother’s voice is particularly powerful because it is transmitted to the womb though her own body, reaching the fetus in a stronger form than outside sounds.”

How like a good mother is our Good Shepherd.  Listen to His words:  “I know my sheep, and mine know me.  Whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.  The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  The sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice.”

My question for all of us is—to whom do you listen?  How do we discern the voice of Jesus, our shepherd, especially amidst the background noise of our own lives, our needs, and our desires?  How does God’s voice reach us in a stronger form than outside sounds, outside voices?

Like any skill, listening for the Shepherd’s voice takes practice.  I have a plaque in my kitchen that reads, “the longer we follow the right path, the easier it becomes.”  The longer we listen to the Word of God, the more quickly and more correctly we discern it. 

One of the most wonderful gifts of parenting is listening to both the wisdom and the delightful folly of our young children.  Often the wisdom is in the folly and revealed in the most unlikely ways.  Years ago when my youngest son Aron was a little boy, his older brother got a lego set for Christmas.  Jacques was probably too old for such a gift and it sat, unopened, at least until he returned to school after winter break.  Bored one day at home, Aron asked me if he could build the lego set.  I reminded him it belonged to his brother. He was so adamant—and insistent—that Jacques didn’t care if he did so.   After listening to him plead with me, and not knowing exactly what to say, I suggested he have a little talk with Jesus about it.  He agreed, and went off to his room.  About a half hour passed, it was mysteriously quiet and Aron hadn’t returned, so I went to his room. I found him quietly and happily engaged in constructing the set.  So I asked him, “Did you talk to Jesus?”  “Yes,” he replied.  “And what did He tell you,” I asked.  “He told me to build it.”

What could I say?  I had told him to talk to Jesus, and now who was I to say, “No, he didn’t, I talked to Him too. Jesus wouldn’t tell you to build your brother’s lego set!” I kept my mouth shut.  I don’t remember what Jacques’ reaction was.

Another lesson occurred when my daughter Jasmine and I used the restroom here at St. Anthony when she was about three years of age.  When we were just about to leave, a woman in a stall, who had entered the bathroom unseen by my daughter, cleared her throat.  This was not just a little “ahem” or even a cough.  No, this was more like the kind of choking, gagging, sound one makes before—as my children would say—one “hocks a loogie”—only louder and longer. As my hand reached to open the door to the outside, Jasmine turns, looks up at me with her big blue eyes wide, and says, “Is that God?”  Perhaps it was.

We all know the stories of those who have claimed to hear the voice of God, from the embarrassing comical exhortations of a TV preacher several years ago who heard a 12 foot Jesus tell him when the world would end, to the tragic and unspeakable crimes committed because of voices in the head of a mentally disturbed person that were decidedly not divine.  

The sheep hear the Shepherd’s voice because they recognize it, much as a newborn recognizes the voice of his or her mother.  We are hardwired early on to turn and respond to the One who will feed us, who will care for us, who will ultimately lay down His life for us so that we “may have life and have it more abundantly.”   Sometimes we forget this, sometimes the things we hear become so familiar we stop listening, we think we know the words.  That thought came to me while reading Psalm 23.  Every Christian seems to know this psalm, we most often hear it at funerals.  Many of us could recite it, verbatim.  Do we truly hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, or is it just so many words?  Does it resonate over the background noise?

As many of you know, my husband is an auctioneer.  For more auctions than I can count I have worked as the auction clerk.  It isn’t a highly skilled job, I record the item sold, the amount and a buyer’s number on a sheet of paper.  My primary task is to listen.  Through a rapid-fire progression of numbers I must keep my ears tuned to the sound of his voice, and listen for the word “sold”.  If the bidding goes long, I sometimes daydream, but at the sound of that word I respond.  If a customer or even one of my children distract me when that critical data is relayed, I will have to ask for it to be repeated, which slows the pace and rhythm of the auction. That’s why I ask Ron at the beginning of the auction to remind the customers not to talk to me.

I have trained my ear to listen to my husband’s voice—well at least at auction time.

To whom do you listen? This is an especially appropriate question for our graduates who are celebrating their baccalaureate with us this morning. You have spent countless hours listening to your teachers, listening to your parents, and listening to your culture and the world.  As a mother to three of today’s graduates, Jordan, Jesse, and Aron, and for all of our graduates, I pray that the voice of God will be transmitted not just by your voices, but through your bodies, and through your lives, so it may reach the world in a stronger form than outside sounds.

A couple of weeks ago I joined the youth in the parish to listen to short tracks of contemporary popular songs deemed the “Dirty Dozen” or “Clean Fifteen” based on whether or not they reflected Christian values.  Before we played the music the kids listed popular songs they thought might make either list.  They filled up the “Dirty Dozen” category rather quickly—and I admit, I really like a few of those songs.   Our youth demonstrated how well they are able to discern what is good and what is not so good in popular culture.  It gave me hope and revealed the great value of community in helping us to discern the good things of this world—in teaching us to listen for the voice of the Good Shepherd.

By ourselves we sometimes can become quite confused, we can struggle to choose among seemingly good options.  We are often misled by competing voices in our hearts and in our heads.  Discerning God’s voice in the world, in Scripture, in the lives of our children and those in our communities, and in the lessons of living is what life in the sheepfold is all about.  It is not about mindlessly following anything or anyone.  It is about being so attuned to the voice of the Shepherd that we can hear it in others as well, we can hear it reflected in everything around us.  This must be so, for Jesus Himself tells us that he will leave the flock in search of those struggling souls, those lost sheep who have forgotten the sound of the heart of Christ Jesus in their ears.

We must listen and care for one another in our Christian communities as Jesus engages in the task of seeking the lost, of saving them from thieves and robbers.  We must join Him in this task as well.

I think we best do this by listening well, by tuning our inner ear to the sounds of each other’s hearts, as well as our words.   Despite the distractions all around us, despite our tendency to daydream, we each have the ability to discern the voice of the Shepherd, even in the sound of one clearing her voice, and in the desire of a child to engage his passion.  Indeed that voice is not unlike that of our own hearts, when God truly dwells within them.  For if our hearts are deeply rooted in Christ we know that with the help and guidance of others and our faith communities and our Church we can truly follow them.

To whom do you listen?

No Regrets

I often say, if asked, that I have few regrets in life, but I do have them.  I regret not taking art classes in high school, not learning to play a musical instrument.  I regret not finishing college when I had both a scholarship and a grant.  I chose instead, to marry the love of my life and move to Alaska.  No real regrets there.

But there are others, subtle ones.  The biggest among them is that I didn’t take much time to write about the mundane and momentous events of my life.  When I learned I was pregnant with my oldest son, I began to write to him in a journal.  My initial thought was to keep this up and give him a completed book at a milestone birthday, maybe 18 or 21.  The book still sits on a shelf among many others, most unread, only half filled with thoughts of his very earliest years.  He turned 30 last month.

I began similar books for each of my other four children--each filled with progressively less words.  My youngest child has one entry, a reflection on her birth, months after it occurred.  She completed her last day of high school today.  Yes, there are the photos, yes there are the mementos and the odd clay figures and faded art.  Certificates and trophies and their own precious collections.

Where are my words, I wonder.  Why, at the end of what sometimes seemed like endless days could I not find the energy to find them, to write them down.  Was sleeping or eating more compelling than reflecting on my life so, so quickly passing?  Certainly I spent considerable mental energy reflecting, analyzing, agonizing of the major and minor details of raising five children, navigating a marriage, maintaining friendships and community, and struggling to keep faith as well.

Maybe there just wasn’t that much to write, I wonder, as I ponder the monumental accomplishment of guiding my kids to adulthood--at least “legal” adulthood.  What words would adequately convey an almost overwhelming sense of sadness for the loss of our childhoods, the concession of our mortality.  Perhaps it is this, this confrontation with the pain that accompanies growth and change that keeps expression at bay.

Still there is an immense joy in sharing the lives of these children which were entrusted to me years ago and remain with me still, and always.  There is tremendous satisfaction in admiring the fruits of my labor, mental, physical, spiritual.  To say they are in some profound way, the physical reflection of a cooperation with and reliance upon the One who created us all, leaves me in awe, leaves me humbled and grateful before and within that One.

So, as a new chapter opens in the saga of my life, I believe it is time to set both memory and present moment dancing in the elusive lilt of language, the wrested wrangle of words, no matter how poignantly or poorly wrought.  It is time to set aside the fear of the power of those words as they come through my consciousness, to yield to whatever agony or delight is reflected as I read them back to myself.

It is time, from this day forward, to live and to write, with no regrets.

Seasons Come and Go

I stole the title of today’s post from a song by Steven Delopoulos, one of my favorite singers I discovered in the last several years--actually about 10 years ago, but that’s really not what this post is about, as inspiring and talented as the man--and Burlap to Cashmere (his band) are.

Today is the official end of the Christmas season.  Some may quibble that it isn’t even a “season” or that it perhaps begins at Thanksgiving and ends on Christmas Day, but I will go with the designation of the Catholic Church that the season ends with the Baptism of Jesus, which we celebrate today.  For me, it is important because tomorrow I will take down the Nativity scene at church and change the seasonal color of white back to green the signatory shade of “Ordinary Time.”  For most people all this is rather irrelevant or of some limited significance--certainly not on the radar of very many folks, except maybe priests, liturgists and church decorators--of which I am one of the latter.

Right now I am in my living room, with my brittle and dying Christmas tree lit for what is likely the last time.  I do not mourn the end of the season--God knows it is rife with a thousand reasons to stress out, get upset, get depressed, withdraw from the joy and the holiness in the face of the added demands, most of which we put upon ourselves.  Still, the days from December 25 to the second Sunday of January are perhaps my favorite days of the winter season.  The gifts that were sometimes  such a pain to  acquire, wrap. set under the tree, agonize over whether they would be well received, or satisfactory or enough are unwrapped, used, enjoyed hopefully--and by now, put away.  Right now all that remains under my tree is a bucket with a few ounces of water that was supposed to be a reminder to water this dying pagan symbol of a season all jumbled up with odd meaning and lasting significance.

I have just recently returned to my house after bringing my third son, Aron, to the airport.  He is returning to college in northern Michigan to tie some loose ends in his educational as well as personal life.  Living in Alaska, it seems, many of us are familiar with both the hellos and goodbyes that are integral features of our local airports.  Still, the heartstrings are tugged, tears brim at the edges of our eyes, an ache catches in our throats.  The hope of hello is always wrapped in good-bye.

Seasons come and go, children grow, we all change as does our world, our lives, our hopes and dreams.  Seasons teach us that even though we often cannot control very much in this rapidly shifting existence we call life, we can celebrate, we can return again and again to the familiar, the remembered, the comfort of what we have known, whom we have loved, how we have lived.  If we are blessed with long life we dance the circle of seasons many times, with both new and old steps.  If we are blessed (or simply recognize it) we don't get mired in nostalgia or rigid tradition, but embrace what is meaningful, what is valuable, and let go of what we cannot control, time and change themselves.

So we return, again, to a season the Church calls “Ordinary”,  not because it is routine or boring, but because like its signature color, green, it reminds us of new growth, of the common beauty and  perennial nature of grass and leaves and living things, and especially of hope, which as we know, does spring eternal.