8

Reflecting...

It's been quite a year.  It's been a very eye-opening year.  I think December hits hard, too.  You know, I was listening to the first sermon we heard at Mars Hill (first day of advent), and thinking about that a lot.  There was a line in there about how December can be a particularly tough month... that orchestrating get-togethers, juggling vacation time, wrapping up your year... that all of that can so seriously detract from the beautiful and amazing miracle we get to experience every year.  And that maybe Jesus's response would be something like, "Oh good job.  That's just what I had in mind."  And it's completely true.  Sometimes the biggest thing we dare to hope for is to get through this week.

Example: yesterday.  Yes, a lot has happened.  Yes, there are many things that made this Christmas different from Christmases past (but aren't there always?).  Christmas, for my mom, is a time to decorate and pull out all the stops and splurge and buy buy buy and wrap and listen to Christmas music and watch "A Christmas Story" three thousand times and pull out the fancy glasses and little gadgets and put out all the little trinkets that, to her, embody Christmas.  And then everyone gets together at her house and sits down, at some point, to one meal comprised of foods that no one actually particularly wants to eat at any time of year, but seems to be "what people eat on holidays."  Then everyone migrates to the living room and open things that provide a distraction from having to full-on interact with one another, and there's some movie (probably "A Christmas Story") on in the background, despite that the radio may still be on, crying out songs about reindeer and santa claus.  And then after some amount of time deemed appropriate, but without any apparent indicators, everyone scatters and heads out.
So in we walk, with our idea of Christmas.  Christmas, for us, is a time of actively searching out the distractions that try to blur out the gift of Grace, and to remove them.  If anything, advent, for us, is a more minimalist time in which we try to actively anticipate beauty and truth.  And then, when Christmas arrives, we want to spend time with family, share a meal, and just share in each other's company.  We want to slow down and catch up and let togetherness and love just talk for themselves.  We want to sit together and talk together and play silly board games together and take advantage of the time that we have no work/school/meetings/etc obligations, and just be.

Tension.

And of course, everyone thinks that their idea is the right one.  Otherwise we would change, progress, even.

So I've been trying to really focus on the things we do, and more importantly, the reasons we do them.  And I've come to the conclusion that, past a certain point, it doesn't really matter what we do, so much as why we do these things.  We can be together and sing songs about the birth of Jesus and drop some coins in the little bucket next to the guy standing outside ringing a bell, and do all this because it makes us look like good people.  Or, we can do none of that, get takeout food, and play cards with the in-laws, because we think Jesus would want us to celebrate love.
Which is more compelling?  Why do we spend so much time thinking about what we should do, instead of about where our hearts need to be?  God doesn't want our best acts if our hearts aren't in it.  He doesn't need us to write a check for an offering, or to feed the poor, or to donate to charities; He can do all that in an instant by Himself.  You think God's short on cash?  Or on food?  Or on clothes?  If we do these things to show His love, then we're talking.  If we buy a meal for someone who could use it because, well, it's not that expensive, and they're right on our way home, and there's a sale on turkey, and it's really not a big deal, then what good are we doing?  What if, instead, we showed someone who has an abundance of earthly wealth, the love of God?  Which one means more?

Back to this week.

Yesterday went far better than I would've dared to hope for.  I'll even say that it was the best get-together we've ever had with my mom.  But it was because of the things that happened (or didn't happen).  It still doesn't feel right.

I've come to seriously yearn for the kind of fellowship that actually brings growth.  We have some friends who have (somewhat) recently moved to Seattle.  I think we will end up, at some point in the next handful of years, moving across the country to wherever they happen to be.  We have some friends that live a few hours north of us, that I'd love to live closer to as well.  And they're coming to visit on Thursday, which I'm so very excited about.  And Julie has some friends that I've not met, but whose blog I've read a couple times.  It may seem crazy, but I'd go move near them, too.  It's hard, with kids.  I know it's much more difficult to un-learn things, and I know there are things they'll seriously need to un-learn if we can't surround ourselves with the right sorts of people.  I know God is working on us right now, and preparing us for big changes.  It feels like the calm before the storm, but not in a negative way.  But there's a big part of me that's having a lot of difficulty waiting for the storm.

The kids are up.  That's it for now.