I turned off the radio, and listened to Amy Grant sing hymns instead. Her voice is a strong reminder of my 90s childhood, and hearing the solidarity of hymns and the promises of Jesus was how I found the buoyancy in these weighty days. I had long conversations with some of my friends that rooted me to the understanding of how I'm really doing. I chose to believe them when I said I was brave. And after every conversation, I felt intensely grateful to know such a soul who had become my friend.
In short, I was very much a part of the world, but the internal side of me that usually faces the day as soon as I open my eyes in the morning went away for a while.
This felt like a good time to remove myself from culture too. The current Christmas message of 'Buy this and you'll be happy or make someone happy or right your world a little' is more and more offensive to me as time goes by. Removing myself from this reminded more often of Advent, the waiting in darkness for a great light. It helped me to remember God, who is faithful to show up throughout the ages. What's more, as I get older I see more of the fact that I am an incredibly wealthy person in comparison to most of the world. And I don't want more things.
Instead, I want to do good things with what I've been given and enjoy the people I know and figure more out about the world and really be someone I'm called to be. I want to say good things and teach kids in a relational way and open my heart to the way God sees his people. You can find this in the Christmas season, but it will not be waiting for you in a commercial or on sale at Target. I think we have all tried this.
So this leads me to another thought, which is lately ever close to daily thinking. 'Pendulum swing'....it's one of those terms that continues to come back to me in this season of my life. I want to figure out what is really making my generation tick, and I find myself asking the world what is in a pendulum swing right now. Sometimes I stop myself and get annoyed with how much of an analyst I am of culture. It has to have its place, and analysis that sees all sides takes time. People who don't take time become annoying to listen to, and judgy. No thanks to either of those things.
In the end, I am still always asking myself why people or ideas are in front of me the way that they are. What brought someone to this moment in their life? Why is that commercial saying that to me? How did a certain way of thinking emerge in a certain part of the world? I am finding that as soon as you do that, get into the nitty gritty part of why and how, the look of humanity (and my own self in it) becomes very humbling. It's where I see God most. That's why this quote always catches me.
“I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people.” - John Henry Newman
I have begun to see the bittersweet element of life emerge more often from all sides. I used to try to avoid it, but it comes to you when you weather different things. It has not gone away. And it does not leave in the Christmas season. That's why I think it's really appropriate and also relieving to sometimes talk about how the season can be hard for people. It can be really dark and wearying...at least if you buy into the 'buy in' mentality. I had a conversation with a friend from school yesterday about this very thing, and we both found it relieving to talk about this a little. In this conversation, I learned again that addressing the bittersweet elements of life sometimes making you weary makes room for the good things to be even better.
An example.
Yesterday at the end of every hour, I said 'Merry Christmas' to students in my life and I really meant it. I didn't shout it from the rooftops like Jimmy Stewart would.....though I did say out loud yesterday that I wanted people I knew to burst into my life this week slipping and sliding on the snow and shouting happily about a changed life, just like he did in the movie. (Maybe later in the week...?)
Instead I thought about the weight and stillness of such a greeting. What it can mean to people. For me this year it means peace and hope in a dark and weary world. The last few years have not been an altogether comfortable or easily navigable season of my life. This has built things in me I did not expect...some good, some bad. But the good here is that it makes saying 'Merry Christmas' to anyone in my day a lot more meaningful. When they looked back at me, I could see in their eyes that they meant it too.
Addendum...on books....
I have recently picked up The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society once again. I have mentioned this before, and you can count on me mentioning it again. It is my favorite book. I want to be friends with all of the characters and I wish they were real. As fanciful as that sounds, this to me is the mark of a great book. The book feels alive, and that is why when I read these quotes this morning, I knew that they were true for me too.
"There are books so alive that you're always afraid that while you weren't reading, the book has gone and changed, has shifted like a river; while you went on living, it went on living too, and like a river moved on and moved away. No one has stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book?" ~Marina Tsvetaeva
"Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are" is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you reread." ~François Mauriac
"How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book." ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden
"That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed with profit." ~Amos Bronson Alcott
"A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint.... What I began by reading, I must finish by acting." ~Henry David Thoreau
Last of all...
This discovery tops everything. I came across a quote by the man who is mentioned in this favorite book. The characters make a study of books too, and it is Charles Lamb that brings them together most. He is described as having written books that bring themselves to their perfect reader. It's built into the entire premise of the book!!! Books about books and Charles Lamb....how quaint and fitting and apt.
"A book reads the better which is our own, and has been so long known to us, that we know the topography of its blots, and dog's ears, and can trace the dirt in it to having read it at tea with buttered muffins." ~Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia, 1833
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