Advent. Go

Or, don’t go. Sometimes stopping is the best thing one can do. It’s also often the smartest thing, even when it’s not likely to happen.

In the midst of the seasonal rush, stopping is hard to do. I’m feeling that just now. I’ve had a near-constant headache for about 40 hours. It’s no fun. I’ve dealt with chronic headaches my entire adult life, so I’m used to it. I would like it to stop, but it’s on its own schedule and that schedule apparently says “go” for at least a while longer.

Alas, I’m not on my own schedule and I can’t bow to the one that seems to be running my head just now, so stopping because my head hurts simply wasn’t a choice today.

Ironically, in the midst of running some fun shopping errands I learned something. (Just because I have a headache does not mean I can’t still enjoy life. One of the odd gifts of living with headaches for more than 40 years is learning pretty well to manage and compartmentalize my pain much of the time. Not always, to be sure, but often I can simply ignore it for hours at a time.) So, on to the learning: Cheryl told me about a story she saw the other day about green-light therapy.

Apparently, looking at green light for 20 minutes reduces pain. There’s research on this that I haven’t delved into deeply enough to know why it might work, though it seems related to the truth that being outdoors is good for you.

In any case, despite the fact that “green means go,” maybe it’s time for me to stop at a green light for a while.

Alas, just right now, all of that will have to wait until after Christmas because for church professionals, well, it’s go time.

Advent. Bless

Sometimes it is hard to feel anything like blessed, or like blessing anything. Suffering is all-too real, and it is the common human experience. But it not ever all there is. Good news, no matter how local and seemingly insignificant, is also real. A couple of years ago, in a season of hard news, I asked my Facebook community to share good news. They wrote this song.

Gospel Rising

I turned on the web today; the screen filled with bad news

Guns and wars and pestilence! That’s what the headlines scream

So I asked my social network to provide some other views

For the stories of our common lives give rise to common dreams.

Gracie got a small part in the middle-school play

An old friend in Kentucky got a brand new job today

The kids are getting married; there’s a wedding in late May

There’s good news all around us, no matter what the headlines say.

           

There’s poetry arising in the rhythm of each breath

Songs in the lines of every face

Stories are the threads weaving ordinary clothe

Gospel rising up on notes of grace

Rusty’s got an art show in the Old Town gallery.

Our front porch fiddle player sounds like a symphony.

Bread rising in the kitchen smells a lot like home to me.

There’s good news all around us, if we have the heart to see.

Some say that life is pain – princess, some of that is true

But most of what is broken can still be made anew

As surely as I sing this song, someday my song will end

But for this moment grace notes are rising on the wind

Bobbie’s cancer’s in remission, and so the fear’s at bay

A friend of Bill’s recovery is going day by day

So I’m off to buy two tickets to a middle school play

There’s good new all around us, no matter what the comments say.

Advent. Worship

Well, there's another day missed. The irony this time is that I was bogged down in creative bulletins for all of the worship services of Christmastide. 

The first question of the Westminster catechism, a set of questions and answers that for hundreds of years shaped churches in the Reformed tradition, asks about the chief end and purpose of human life. The answer is "to glorify God and enjoy Him [sic] forever." 

In other words: worship is why we're here, according to the Westminster divines. 

I tend to think that they posited God in their own image way more than they'd care to admit. It takes a pretty damned self-centered diety to create creatures merely to have a bunch of doting beings sitting around worshipping their creator. 

But I digress. Also, I have to get back to creating worship opportunities. That seems to be my chief end this week.