Christmas Eve (Midnight Mass)

And I'm not sure about you, what you're day has been like, but I am sure about me and what my day has been like.  Moments of calm serenity mixed with hear wrenching tears. And the truth is, no matter how perfect a person looks on the outside, no matter how straight the hair, or how air-brushed the make-up, life is hard and has really hard moments at times. And today was a massive pile of both wonder and desert.  Christmas is hard for me because I don't really have traditions.  For at least the past ten years no two Christmases have looked the same. No routine, no familiar home.  No annual Christmas jokes. It's different.  Always different. And for someone who likes routine, the lack of it makes me feel lost. Lost and trampled.

But this baby started a tradition for herself last year, for her family, for her family of one. Midnight mass.  Cause no matter where in the world I am, or what town, or what city, there will be a Catholic Church and they will have midnight mass. And I might march there alone, but it will always be there, my little tradition, my little feeling of belonging.  Because there is just something about driving the streets of a city in the middle of the night. There's just something about sneaking off to Church with whole crowd of others at an ungodly hour. And there is just something about singing carols, in a bright lit room that just welcomes the Christ child day in a way that makes sense to my soul.

You should try it.  Just once.  Just one Christmas, and see what it does for your soul, see what it does for you. Because Christ came and everything changed, so why wouldn't we drive down to Church in the middle of the night to welcome it. To welcome him.


I'll leave you with a little Christmas blessing from North Umbria:

The blessing of Christ 
comes to cave and to hillside.
His coming is mercy
and kindness and joy.
Hope is born 
in this, His birthing. 

Merry Christmas.
P.s. There's still time to hit up midnight mass!

And I've meant to come here a lot sooner than I'm getting here. I've got some stuff I want to write about, but it's not quite time. And in the mean time, I'm gonna just write a little prayer. A little Monday night one.

Christ,
The living one,
the risen one,
the human one,
 the holy one,

Break wide the caverns of my heart. Let them be flooded with your life giving light and gladness.
Let the weary ones rejoice, let the anxious ones find rest.

Giver of all good things, live in us tonight. Replenish our faith, encourage our loves, disperse your unrequited grace.  Gather our scattered parts, heal us whole.

We love you our other,
we love you our holy.

Amen.

Lost count of the Days

The crazy thing about words is how powerful they are.  I'm not really sure why I'm surprised, or stunned, yet again, because it's not like it's something new.  But this morning I though I'd share some old November poetry with you, and a song that I can't listen to without some tears falling.  Sometimes when I go back and read stuff from the past I'm surprised at the beauty.  Last year I wrote a prayer everyday, and when I've looked back, it's no wonder I had a little breakdown, this girl prayed some fierce things. I prayed myself right into this very spot.  Words are powerful people, and even more powerful when they're prayer words. Don't ask me how it works, I just know I feel their tremors.

So heres a little treat from November:

You're inviting me to wonder here,
And I didn't see it coming.

I trenched myself in,
and you opened the back-door.

I run and you find me.
I hide and you seek me out.

You're reckless, absurdly reckless.
Unchart and undo me, oh loveliest one.

How about a second one, I missed yesterday:

End to endless
Light to lightness
Irreverently Holy
Paradox city.

Uncharted you lead me
Unopened you reach me
helplessly hurting
hauntingly hungry.

Falling you find me
Fainting you reach me
Inward you invite me: to the caverns of my soul. 

Check out this link below, this song completely rocked me in the best way possible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkDqQtfs0w

Day 13 ish

And so that's not going to be happening again anytime soon!  That standing up in front of a whole, large, bunch of people and reading the contents of my soul. That brewing storm, that honest confession, that moment of vulnerability.  This baby is tired to the core, stretched to the limits, and ready for some rest, some hiding and some quiet. This baby is just gonna stick to writing for a while, and leave all that public speaking to some others.  

It's weird how you change as life goes on.  One moment something gives you life and the next minute it drains you right out!  Cause this girl used to love standing up there, pouring her soul out, speaking, reading and praying.  I used to get a high from it, a high that would leave me soaring for days.  And this is the first time I've managed to stand in front of more than a dozen people and share some thoughts since my little breakdown, and this time it drained me, and rather than soaring, I'll be hibernating to recovery.    

And it's weird to stand there and lead a prayer when it feels like a power outage of faith in my own soul.  Weird to invite people to advent, when I'm not really sure I believe in miracles anymore.  It's weird.  It's awkward.  And this baby doesn't want to fake it, but she doesn't want to lie it either. And I'm not so sure how to stand in the middle of those whirlpools.  How to navigate this tide shift. 

I'm not throwing it all out, I'm just not keeping it all either. I'm letting the sand of faith just settle in my soul, letting it find it's own resting place. And I'm just gonna keep opening my weary hands and my broken heart and just wait to see what happens. And maybe that in and of its self shows a little flicker of faith. I'm not really sure. And I'm not too concerned.  But I want peace in my soul, and rest for my heart. So if you think of it, just send up a little prayer for this one. Cause she could use all the prayers she can get! 

Day 11

I love mornings!  And not always in a chipper-I'm alive-and now everyone-wants to- shoot-me kind of way.  Sometimes, but not always.  Mostly I just love mornings, because they're quiet, new, it's like a blank page, anything is possible.

But I also love being awake before everyone else. I like dwelling in the unhurried black. When the whole earth is still quiet.  Life feels slower.  I'm waiting on yeast to rise this morning. It's my roomate's birthday and sometimes you just need to be woken up with coffee and fresh cinnanamon buns! So I'm waiting, waiting for something to happen that only takes time.

I recently have been reading a book interpreting the different parables by Thomas Keating.  I love that man, I wish I could study under him and his contemplative, Benedictine ways.  Anyway, he interpreted the parable of the yeast at least three different ways. The common theme, however, had to do with the yeast being viewed as a dirty or unclean. Essentially saying that the kingdom of God is going to break in where we least expect it, in the dark, in the dirty, in the unclean. Here's a couple of quotes:

"Look for it [the kingdom of God] in the most unexpected places.  According to the parables, the kingdom of God is free to appear anywhere, any time, and under any guise.  It does not fit into our presuppositions or expectations, and still less, our demands.  In fact, id deliberately removes, prop by prop, everything holding up our ideas of the nature of the kingdom and where it is to be found" (43).

"The kingdom consists of finding God in our disappointments, failures, problems, and even in our inability to rid ourselves of our vices"(55)

"It [the kingdom of God] becomes present to us and in us by our consent and by the dispositions that the Holy Spirit instills within us, the chief of which is faith that God is truly and secretly intervening to heal us despite any or all appearances to the contrary" (56).

Christ,
Rise in us this advent, like yeast in dough.
Let your kingdom come in the least expected, most marginalized areas of our lives.
We invite your coming kingdom, we invite your reigning kingdom.
Move in our hearts, move in our lives, move in us even when we've lost all faith, all hope.
We love you Lord, Jesus, live loud in our hearts!

Day 10 ish Slow

And I'm just slow.  Slow to do everything.  Slow to learn everything. Slow to know myself.  Slow with relationships. Just straight up slow. And this world just races, but my heart it paces because it can't keep up.  Can't keep up with the speed of everyone else. And honestly some days my rhythm, my routine just feels so out of sync with everything around me. But I just keep finding myself at these contemplative things, and well that just works for me.  It works for me because I'm slow, and they're slow.   And maybe that's not bad, maybe that's just different. Different and okay.

Sometimes I feel the time wolf chasing me, or the crocodile clock from Peter pan pounding at my door,  and the truth is I'm most happy, most content when I'm not so concerned about the clocks, and more in tune with my own beat, my own cadence, my own time signature. But society chimes, and church society cuckoo cuckoos, and I forget, forget that this rhythm I live is beautiful, in it's own uncharted way. And whoever said life was a race, well I guess Paul did, but that's Paul. And I'm just gonna stroll.  Notice the details, be aware of the changes, invest in the moments.

Advent is slow. Not something so rushed, so hectic, so scheduled.  And you might be wondering where this is all coming from.  Well last night I stumbled to the Mark Centre contemplative, silent walk through. (Side note: if you live in Abbotsford you should go, if you like quiet things, and reflective things.  I think it's on still tomorrow night from 7-9).

It felt like I was walking through the chambers of my own heart. And I'm still unpacking the mystery, the revelation, the new understanding.  Still reminding my heart of the things it left behind, of the things it learned, of the realities it faces. It was beautiful, painful, freeing and beautiful.  Like looking your soul in the mirror and have a good long study.  A good realization.

And this desert heart is waiting for a stream, even a trickle.
So in my advent, in my desert, I stretch out my cup, I look for Christ and his miracle well.
Embrace the thirst, I become aware of the dehydration.

Fill up my cup, Lord.
Even with a drop, one little drop.

Day 8: Waiting (plus a little rant about Church buildings) :)

So I spent about an hour and half driving around town today trying to find a Church sanctuary to sit in. As much as I love my church, sometimes it just drives me mental that we don't have a building.  How are we suppose to be a refuge and a light if we keep our doors locked, or worse, don't even have a building! I know Christ is not in a building, but sometimes, its nice to have a physical place. With candles, and stained glass.  Some place without technology, or laundry, or anything distracting. Some place quiet where no one bugs you, they just let you live in the silence. Where there is a physical space to breathe deep and silent cry, to be alone but not alone. To be away but to be found. A refuge.

So thank God for the Catholics, it was close, I thought i might end up at the Sikh temple, and maybe that wouldn't have been that bad cause I could have had dinner than too!  But let's not even go there...I'm gonna calm down now that I got that little rant out, and just leave some stuff implied. After all, isn't the gospel taking care of the orphan and the widow.....


Advent.

Waiting. Expecting. That awkward in-between time.

Waiting is hard. Straight up, gut wrenching hard. Especially in the west where we want everything right now!  Waiting is an endangered species out here.  We do all sorts of things to entertain ourselves or distract ourselves while we wait.  We get impatient and grumpy when a line doesn't move as fast as we want, and heaven forbid, if someone were to cut in line!

But in someways all of our life is one big advent.  One big waiting, until Christ comes again. So I'm thinking we should get used to it. Stop distracting ourselves and embrace it.  Learn how to be good waiters. Learn to live in the silence, the darkness, the unknown. Learn to invite the mystery and not fear it.

We don't like to wait, because it implies that we're not in control. And well, we like to be in control.  We like to have it all figured out, or at least walk around like we do. So how about we learn to be good waiters, you and me. Why don't we just embrace this season of advent and not run from the silence, from the unknown, from the darkness. How about this time, we open our hands and invite the mystery invite the wonder. Not rush it, or understand it, just sit with it. Sit in it. Rest.

Day 7 ish

So yeah, I kind of didn't make it here yesterday.  And by kinda, I mean I didn't.  To be honest I'm only sad for selfish reasons, because this writing helps make me whole. But I'm here tonight.  Here with a nice crisp glass of winter ale by my side.

And tonight I want to have a little chat about faith.  About faith and how I've been feeling and about somethings somebody told me.

So I don't know about you, but these days my faith feels like a drug laced with doubt.
Some moments it's all clear, all crisp, and there isn't a doubt in me. I was living there for a while. Sure, sure all the way down to my core about Christ, about God's goodness, about love.

But this week...

This week, that sure faith was laced with doubt. Doubt that didn't just terror my day, but robbed my dreams and stalked my nights.

And the truth is, I don't understand how one moment I can be so sure of something, and the next squeeze every last ounce of doubt out of it?

When did I become that girl?
Cause this girl used to know everything. She had plan, a response for every question, every situation.
And now this baby just shrugs her shoulders and with a tear stained face, answers: "I don't know" to almost every question under the sun.

But somehow, somehow in the midst of all this unknown I find a safety and a clarity. A paradox.
A faith mixed with doubt, a confidence that if God really did create this whole shi-bang, and if his love really is as extraordinary as he claims, than I don't really need to worry about upsetting him, or questioning him, because that love of his will go further than my wandering heart could ever walk. And his truth can sail longer than my unrelenting doubts.

And when I think of that, I feel okay. I feel okay on my wild, rocky sea of unknowing. I feel a little drift of peace. And my heart rests for a beat.

And I've been thinking this all week, and Mr. Gary Best stands up there this morning reminding us about trust, and finding just a little seed of trust and planting it.  I get thinking and looking for that little seed of mine, and I can barely find it. I can't even imagine planting it. This tired, weary, burned and broken heart is too tired to plant her seed. So I throw it to the wind, only to watch it find a resting place. And it plants itself. I'm stunned. Stunned at the paradox, stunned at the mercy. So I watch my little seed, planted in grace. I watch in wonder as it's swallowed by the earth.

So my friends,
If your life is filled with doubt, with disappointments and let downs that seem irreparable, just plant your  little doubts, scatter them to the winds, because Christ came as a baby, not a theologian with all the answers, or an officer bringing judgment. He came at the mercy of others. At the mercy of humans.

Let our doubting heart's sing out,

"Let heaven and earth receive her king".

Day 5: Wandering heart

So Yeah, it might be technically the 6, but I'm getting here. Late. But I'm getting here.
Tonight I might just be so broke on my insides that there seems to be no light to brighten this darkness, no stars to shine through this pain.

But I open my hands,
I open my heart,

Come work your light in this,
in me,
in my doubt,
in my darkness,
in my pain.

Knead your spirit of love and of grace in this hardened heart.
Baking your truth in every moment, every thought, every hurt.

Unclench my hands,
Widen my view.

Oh Holy wonder of light,
Come dwell with me this night.

Don't give up on this wandering heart.

Day 4: A prayer to Mary

I once heard it said, that praying to Saints is really just asking them to intercede for us.  And I liked that concept.  It makes me feel little, like I'm barely a little drop in an ocean filled with little drops. And while it makes me feel little, it also makes me feel like I belong, like the things I'm feeling, experiencing and praying are all woven into the massive sewing project of history. That I get to groan with the same voice what has been prayed for centuries before me, and will be prayed for centuries after me.

I like feeling little. And I like belonging and so every now and then I pray to saints.

And this past week I went to a Taze service, a contemplative prayer service, for those of you wondering. With icons, candles, and quiet. Everything I love! I felt like I was coming home, like some of the lost parts of me could rest, at last, again. And we prayed this prayer together, to Mary, and I wanted to share it with you this Thursday morning:

You bore for me the One who came to bless
And bear for all, to make the broken whole.
You heard his call, and in your open 'yes'
you spoke aloud for every living soul.
Oh gracious Lady, child of your own child,
whose mother-love still calls the child in me,
Call me again, for I am lost and wild.
Waves surround me now.  On this dark sea
shine as a star and call me to the shore.
Open a door that all my sins would close
and hold me in your garden.  Let me share 
the prayer that folds the petals of the Rose.
Enfold me too in love's last mystery,
and bring me to the One you bore for me.

-Malcome Guite, in Sounding the Seasons p.14

Because if I'm really honest with you this morning, I feel "lost and wild".  Thrown out to sea, just ridding the waves out between huge gulps of salt water, and I wish I was a mermaid. A mermaid because then I would feel more at home in the wild sea of my life. But I'm a human, so I open my hands and my heart to the mystery of Christ, and the wonder of his love. Again. Today. A Thursday morning in December.

Day 3: Invitation

I love this cold clear weather. I love waking up to blue skies, empty trees and crisp mountains. This weather inspires me to live, to smile, to invite light. And you know that's one of the most beautiful things about Christ: his invitation.  And this is something I'm just learning, I'm just finally being brave enough to take him up on his offer.  The offer that he loves me regardless of what happened this morning, or that I've meant to go to Mass every morning this week, and still haven't made it even once.  I am invited into advent exactly as I am.  With my tear stained face, with pain filled heart, with my anxious thoughts. I'm invited into the mystery and wonder of advent with all of that. All of this.

It makes me think of the story of the prodigal son. That father he saw his son "while he was a long way off" and just ran out there to meet him.  And I'm invited to the table, I'm invited to the alter of grace, whether I'm a long way off, or living right under his roof. I'm invited. You're invited. Regardless. Regardless of all things, regardless of anything. Literally anything. His love and his grace are enough for this. Whatever your "this" is.

You are invited. You are welcome. At advent, at Christmas with all your pain, with all your hurt, with all your anxiety. You are more than welcome in His presence. So no more hiding, for me, or for you.

Cause we're both invited. Just as we are.

Advent day 2: Mountains

So I live on the top of a hill. And probably my absolute favorite thing about living up here, is my view of the mountains.  I actually tear up most days, because the beauty of the pink morning light illuminating their solid silhouette just wrecks me.  Don't ask me to explain it, cause I don't even know why, all I can tell you is my experience.  And when we go weeks on end socked in with clouds and fog, and I go days without seeing my mountains...it's not good, I miss them, I miss them and the assurance the offer.  On my drive to work I come around one corner to see the solid pronouncement only to turn swiftly to the right and have a full majestic view of Mt. Baker.  Theses mountains take my breath away ever. single. day.

Sometimes I just sit and stare at them. I love how quiet and sure they seem. Like they've been around the block a couple of times and just aren't phased by anything. Not frantic, but solid. Sure. Firm.

So when my day gets hectic, when I'm right in the middle of it all, that's what I pray for this morning: that my heart would be quiet and sure like the mountains. Not phased by all the chaos that December brings, but crisp and majestic. Still and firm.

Melt the snow
Lift the fog
Release your pink morning light.

I invite your wonder.
I invite your mystery.
Oh holy God of light.

So this baby just mustered up ever little bit of courage she could find, put her camo leggings on and sat down to write, to say it just like it is.

Because the truth is, Christmas isn't my favorite time of year.  Infact it hurts, a lot. Especially when this life of mine just keeps on turning out not exactly how I had envisioned.

And if that's you... If the only thing you really love about Christmas is candy cane lattes, then come hangout with me...you'll be in good company.  I might even make you one!  You won't be judged here,  and I'm not gonna question your love of Jesus, just because you don't love Christmas.

But I'm gonna write my way through advent, as a way of healing, a way of inviting Christ to live a little louder here.  I'm not sure what it's gonna look like, and I'm gonna aim for everyday, but ever since my little breakdown, this girl can't seem to get her ducks in a row, or keep to a schedule, and I'm coming to peace with that, even though it kills me.  a little.  But I'm gonna try, I'm gonna try.

Because the beautiful thing is, that for those of us hurting, advent is healing.  Because advent is about waiting, about growing, about mystery, about unknowns, about paradoxes, and about not getting the expected.

So today, on this cold clear day, I open my hands and I open my heart as a posture of invitation for wonder, for the wonder of the mystery of Christ.  For the wonder of the Holy made human. For the mystery of a love that I cannot know the depths.  For realities I have no concept of.

I open my hands.
I open my heart

I let you hover over my darkness. Over my deep.
I embrace the mystery.
I embrace the unknown.
Steep in me Holy One till I'm infused with your essence.