Impatience

It is Advent, for a few more days anyway, and, I will confess that I haven't been feeling all that advent-y this year.  For some reason or another.  Perhaps it's the Texas weather, all sunshine and rain and no snow (except for that one extremely unusual Thursday evening.)  I don't think that's it, though, because this is my third Advent in Texas, and I don't remember feeling this way the last two years.

Maybe it's the fact that Advent is so short this year.  We light the fourth Advent Candle in the morning, and bam!  by sundown it is Christmas Eve.  I love a long advent, with time to reflect over all of the candles, with time to think deep thoughts about wonder and waiting, making time and space for the coming Christ, who is also present.

There is this one small thing, though, every Sunday.  For some odd reason, I decided, on the first Sunday of Advent, to wrap up a number of sunglasses and give them out to the children, and invite them to see differently this season.  Advent is for seeing in a different way.  I am terrible at wrapping gifts.  I will do almost anything to avoid it.  But I got a roll of Christmas wrapping paper and wrapped up the sunglasses, and put the under the tree.  (Don't judge me.  Yes, our church Christmas tree is up before Christmas.)

That first Sunday I had the children look for the present under the tree, and a couple of them ran over and picked it up and brought it back, and we opened it together.

This description, though, does not do justice to the event:  the children tore, ripped, clawed open the box, in their excitement.  It was momentary pandemonium.  (To their credit, they carefully put the wrapping paper pieces in a basket afterwards.)

I decided to wrap up a different present the two next weeks as well.  A gift under the tree.  The children opened it with great joy and wonder and haste.  We could all feel their excitement, even if all the box contained was a play microphone.  It didn't matter!  There was something unknown in there and they wanted to find it!

They were impatient.

I know that Advent is a time of waiting, but sometimes it seems so sedate, and when I saw the children, I caught a glimpse of wildness, and I thought:  maybe Advent is really a wild season, not a tame one.  Maybe Advent is full of things we cannot control, and maybe the things we are waiting for are also wilder than we imagined.  What if we were opening a box of peace on earth?  What if the gift God offered us contained healing and hope for all the things that hurt our hearts, for all the things that endanger our world?

Would we be impatient too?  Would we claw it open just to see what is inside?

For a few more Days, it is Advent.  For these next few days, Lord, let me not be sedate.  Let me be impatient to know what is inside your love.  Not just for me.  But for this whole terrible and beautiful world.

Best Christmas Presents

I ever gave (I think).

1.  The green scarf I got for my Mom at Walgreen's, because I thought it matched her coat.  I was 10 years old.  It cost $1.50
2.  The red and yellow book light I got for my stepson for Christmas before he was my stepson.  He was 10 years old at the time, and I heard later that he kept saying to his dad, "I've just got to thank her."
3.  The box of chocolates we got for our parents and put under the tree on Christmas morning, with a tag on it that said, "From Santa Claus."  The next year my parents went out and bought themselves Christmas stockings.
4.  The time I made hand-stamped Christmas cards for every family in my parish.  Luckily, I did not count the number of families before I began.
5. The guitar-shaped spatula which was a stocking stuffer for my husband, but which turned out to be fun for the whole family.
6.  The boom box we got for my in-laws one Christmas.  "Oh, it's something big!"  My mother-in-law exclaimed.  I never saw anyone so excited.
7.  hand-knitted scarves for my sister, her husband and my niece.
8.  for my brother, a polo shirt I happened to see which had a small Pokey riding a Gumby figure on it (this is a family joke, but 'Gumby' is one of my brother's nicknames).
9.  old-fashioned ribbon candy for my mom who has a sweet tooth.
10.  a particular cookbook for one of my husband's neices who likes to cook.  I marked some of my favorite recipes.

When I think about it more, sometimes I think that the best presents I ever gave were these:  listening to my dad tell stories, learning and singing a song in Swedish for my grandmother, spending time with my mom over coffee, singing and listening to my stepsons play instruments (although it's hard to say whether that was a gift given or received).

What do you think?  What are the best Christmas presents you ever gave?

Presents

I have a very old, very worn book called Bless My Growing.  It is a book of poems by a Lutheran pastor named Gerhard Frost.  It is long out of print.  It has tape on the edge.  The pages are loose.  I have used it many times since becoming a pastor.

But I lost track of the young woman who gave it to me, someone I attended college with.  I got to know her during my senior year.  She loved this little book, and gave me a copy, just because she loved it so much. 

***

Once, many many years ago, as a young woman just out of college and just working in an office, I was standing in line to eat in a downtown cafeteria.  I struck up a conversatsion with a woman standing in line next to me.  We were probably commiserating about the varieties of jellos and entrees, I can't really remember.  But in the end, she and her husband and I ended up sitting together and eating and talking. 

As it turned out, she and her husband owned a very small book publishing concern in Menomonie, Wisconsin.  Before we parted ways, she gave me three small hand-sewn booklets from their publishing company, called The Vagabond Press.  I still have them.

***

Of the many gifts I received when I was leaving Japan, perhaps the most prized was the porcelain doll I received from the 9th grade boys.  A number of them handed me the doll at the very last moment before my mother and I got on a train headed to Tokyo.  I remember them standing there in black school uniforms, and bowing  before one of them quickly handed me a bag with the doll inside.

The 9th grade boys were never my easiest class.  We tried everything to get them to pay attention in class, be more respectful, and learn English.  The gift of the doll was a great surprise, and somehow, humbling

She was a Hakata Ningyo, dressed in kimono, and it looked like she was kneeling in prayer. 

I carried her back with me on the plane, cradling her gently on my lap.  Then, several years later, while I was carelessly adjusting a shelf, she toppled and crashed to the floor.

***

When I arrived at my first parish in South Dakota, the whole congregation was there to welcome me.  Or so it seemed.  They helped me unpack the trucks, and left useful items like dishtowels, rugs, glasses and tableclothes.  Each church had a women's group; each of the women's groups also presented me with a hand-sewn quilt.

***

Today there came in the mail a package for me.  It was two skeins of yarn, hand-woven in another state.  It was sent to me by a friend I have never met, someone I only know through blogging.

What I'm Giving up For Advent

Oh, you don't have to give anything up for Advent?

Well, I'm doing it anyway.

I'm giving up potato chips and french fries for advent.

You can hold me to it.

Perhaps you are wondering: what does this have to do with Advent? Is this some sort of hitherto unheard of new-agey "Advent Discipline"? How is it different from, or better than, say, keeping an advent calendar, lighting an advent wreath and saying a prayer, or making an advent chain?

I'll let you know.

In the meantime, I'm hoping that I won't be in another, even larger, dress size before January. I'm hoping that the cold weather won't want to make me obsessively eat even more calories than I am taking in right now. I'm hoping that I can stay even minimally active for the next month.

That's what advent is all about, isn't it? Hope.

Actually, besides these practical matters, here's what I'm thinking: I'm thinking about Christmas presents. And I'm thinking that I don't really NEED any presents, when you come right down to it. I have plenty of clothes, I have a lot of good books, I have a warm house, I have a nice dog, I have music, and I have shoes. I have a family and friends and meaningful employment. I don't really need anything. But (I'll be honest here) I do want presents. Or, to be even more honest, I want something that presents represent.

I think that the potato chips and the french fries are also kind of like that.

I'll be meditating on that for the next few weeks.