…transforming you into a citizen of the world.

I’ve been catching up on my reading while we’re in Texas for Christmas. This passage in Me Talk Pretty One Day made me laugh and reminded me of our year in Denmark.

…I’d begun to imagine my life in a foreign country, some faraway land where, if things went wrong, I could always blame somebody else, saying I’d never wanted to live there in the first place. Life might be difficult for a year or two, but I would tough it out because living in a foreign country is one of those things that everyone should try at least once. My understanding was that it completed a person, sanding down the rough provincial edges and transforming you into a citizen of the world.

I didn’t see this as a romantic idea. It had nothing to do with France itself, with wearing hats or writing tortured letters from a sidewalk cafe. I didn’t care where Hemingway drank or Alice B. Toklas had her mustache trimmed. What I found appealing in life abroad was the inevitable sense of helplessness it would inspire. Equally exciting would be the work involved in overcoming that helplessness. There would be a goal involved, and I like having goals.

And we beheld His glory

It’s the day we celebrate the time God – the infinite, the holy, the Being outside of time and space – became man. He somehow became everything He is not. He humbled Himself. Humbled Himself in a way that is unfathomable to us. So wrapped in mystery that we usually don’t even try to comprehend it, but let it go with an oversimplified “…and Jesus was born.”

A few years back our church choir sang a Christmas cantata, The Incarnation, written by K. Lee Scott. The climax of the piece sets to music the words from John 1 – And we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Until the final phrase, the piece is full of a racking dissonance; the musical expression of the notion of Jesus being fully God yet becoming fully man. At Easter we celebrate the risen Lord who gives hope to the world. At Christmas we celebrate the God who “became flesh and dwelt among us.” The great gift and great mystery of His inhabiting the earth. The God who walked with us.

The God who cares.

The Jolly Old Elf

St. Nicholas has been here
Originally uploaded by ShotSnaps

Our oldest son is three and a half this Christmas, and we had to do something about Santa. Long before we had children, we decided that we weren’t going to “do” Santa. We wanted our children’s first thought of Christmas to be Christ’s birth, and not the jolly old elf who brings them a world of toys.

But as it turns out it isn’t as simple as that.

Santa Claus is everywhere and there is no ignoring him. Plus too, I didn’t want to use language like “Santa isn’t real” since I knew John would be the kid that would go back to his preschool and helpful inform all his shining eyed classmates that dear old Santa doesn’t really exist.

During our year in Copenhagen, we attended an ecumenical Lutheran church that followed the church calendar. Before that I pretty much thought the “church calendar” was limited to Christmas, Easter and the Fourth of July picnic. In Denmark though, we went to a church and lived in a country that followed the traditional church calendar: advent, Christmas, epiphany, Ash Wednesday, the full Holy Week including Easter Monday, and on and on. And it was an incredible, enriching experience.

There are also all these feasts days for giants of the Christian faith including Saint Nicholas who was the Bishop of Myra in the fourth century. He was known for being a particularly kind and generous pastor who, the legend goes, in the middle of a cold winter night dropped bags of gold coins through the window into the shoes of a family of girls who were otherwise doomed for prostitution. His feast day is December 6th.

In hopes of teaching our kids about the original Santa Claus we started celebrating Saint Nicholas Day this year. We taught them the story of Saint Nicholas (there are a number of great books and other resources appropriate for children listed here by an acquaintance of mine) and putting chocolate gold coins in their shoes the morning of December 6th.

We also emphasized how Saint Nicholas gave to people in need, and how we should be Saint Nicholas to people in our community who are in need. This year we practiced being Saint Nicholas by participating in Angel Tree. John and I went shopping for a 4-year-old boy, and I was glad John got to experience the giving side of Christmas before the receiving.

“Aside from the obvious disparities between Saint Nicholas and the secular Santa Claus, perhaps the most poignant difference between them can be seen in the nature of the gifts they give. While Santa has his bundle of toys, the gift that Saint Nicholas gives is nothing short of freedom from poverty and desperation. The life of Saint Nicholas is an example of faith made flesh in actions of true charity” (Neuhaus, God With Us p. 40).

cheer our spirits by Thine advent here

I teach 8 hours a week at a little mom’s day out program at my church. One of the surprisingly fun things about this Christmas is that I got to teach my class of seven 2-year-olds all about the Christmas story. Since our family is in the middle of something of a “liturgical turn,” I also taught them a little about advent.

But they are 2. So their lesson was pretty much limited to showing them advent candles and teaching them that “advent means waiting.”

And honestly? That was pretty much all I knew about advent too.

I’d always thought that the “waiting” of advent was merely a waiting for Christ’s return in the Left Behind sense; Christ’s return was merely my being swept up to heaven which after, growing up in a rapture-obsessed evangelical culture, I just can’t get myself too worked up over anymore.

But then this season our Bible study group did a short study on advent and my perspective on advent changed. I’d never thought about Christ’s return as being a return of justice and comfort for the world. A world that, as my college friend Paul pointed out to me yesterday, has over a billion people in it without clean drinking water and still suffering from terrible diseases that our part of the world no longer has any memory of. Let alone the suffering of populations much closer to home that I have never given the time of day to because I’m too wrapped up in my own small concerns.

And that was the first time in my sheltered, affluent American life that I started to grasp at the deep, deep longing that songs like O Come, Emmanuel are getting at.

Photo Friday Saturday

Almost Christmas, originally uploaded by ShotSnaps.

We are leaving for Texas tonight so yesterday morning we celebrated our family Christmas.

Photo Friday

John’s Parade Face, originally uploaded by ShotSnaps.

John was in the Christmas parade last Saturday with his Montessori school. He took a very short nap before the parade and was NOT a happy camper even though he’d been looking forward to the parade for over a week. This was pretty much his look during the whole of the parade experience.

The funny thing is the next day it was all he could talk about and he wanted to do it again that night.

Mockumentary

My sister Rosalie turned her 2009 Chicago Marathon experience into a mockumentary for her film class. It is awesome, they are awesome, and I even make a tiny cameo.

What We’ve Been Up To

Making Christmas Ornaments, originally uploaded by ShotSnaps.

Photo Friday Saturday

Christmas Tree Wonder, originally uploaded by ShotSnaps.

He’s Lucky He’s Hot

Thursday night…

Me, feeling generous: You can have the last piece of my birthday cake. [Referencing the ice cream cake I had received on Monday which Michael had already consumed all but one final slice]

Michael: I was going to eat it anyway.

Me: … If you had just said, “Oh, thank you!” I would be feeling much more warmly toward you right now.

Michael: “Oh, thank you!”