Advent #1: Mary

So it's come down to this.

Nine months I carried him. And for what?
Thirty-three years he lived. And for what?

All those years I've endured being misunderstood. All I wanted was to be a good mother to my son, but because the father of my other children was not also his father, the other women never knew what to make of me.

Never mind that it didn't matter to the father of my other children that Jeshua wasn't his.
Never mind the divine revelations we received about his birth.
They didn't understand.
But then again, neither did I.

And all these years I watched him grow. From Bethlehem to Nazareth; from the manger to the temple. All these things he did, I never understood. But he was my son. So even while I didn't understand, I loved him.

But he was never really mine. Sure I carried him for nine months. But he came from a place that I never really understood. And the things he did in his lifetime were never really things I could understand. Turning water into wine, healing the sick, making the lame walk again...

But there was something else.
He loved.

He loved me. He loved his father.
He loved the women on the streets, those tax people, and even... even those people who brought him to Golgotha.

But why? Why would he love them? Why SHOULD he love them?

I loved him because I carried him for nine months. But he? He had no blood relations, no ties, no obligations to any of these people. Yet he cared. He owed them nothing; he did not have any reason to worry about the consequences of their life decisions. Yet he loved.

There are days when I wonder, did I carry him all that nine months just to watch him carry that cross? If I had known that this was what it was going to come down to, I would have asked for this yoke to be taken away from me. Then I wouldn't have to hurt because the man on that cross would have been someone else's son and not mine. And I could just watch from a distance and not get involved with the story.

But he knew. He knew even before he was in my womb. And he still chose this.

This.
This is love.
Love that is greater than I can understand
Love that gives all, demanding nothing in return
Love that expects nothing in return
Love that knew all the stories and the ugly baggage, but never withdrew
Love that saw the bigger picture but yet cared about the small details

I could have just been a bystander watching this all unfold. But he chose to show me the depth of this love when he let me carry him, even if just for a little while. He chose to let me understand the pain of this love that overwhelms my humanity.

This was a love that would have come whether or not I was involved. But it also came for me.

And this is the love that compels me to love with that same depth and intensity. But I'm not Jeshua. I don't have it in me to love like that. But come, Emmanuel. Come and overwhelm me with this deep, intense love again that I might love the way you chose to.

O Come Emmanuel

What do I Know of Holy?

You know the song that goes, "Break my heart for what break yours"? I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the songwriter had no idea of the magnitude of what they are asking for.

What do we think we're asking for when we sing that line?
Compassion for the poor and needy?

Not that I don't believe compassion for the poor and needy isn't a part of the heart of God.
But that comes easy, doesn't it?

Compassion? Does compassion drive us to do anything?
And even if it does, the poor and needy are distanced. We can invite them into our lives, but until they become the people that we do everyday life with, they still are our "projects".

So what happens when our hearts are broken because of a love that is far bigger than we in our humanity can understand?
What happens when our hearts are broken because we are asked to say, "I love you," even when we already know that person is going to walk away anyway?
What happens when our hearts are broken because the love that we have understood and been filled with is compelling us to love in that same way?

Do we know what we're asking for when we sing, "Break my heart for what breaks yours"?
What do I know of holy?


And what about that Child?
That Little One lying in a manger, here for some reason that he may or may not even understand.

Did he know this was what love was going to compel him to do?
Did he know this was the love he was born into?
Was he holy? Was he divine?

If You touched my face would I know You?
Looked into my eyes could I behold You?
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life "its" name?
What do I know of Holy?
Of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name
On earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?
What do I know of holy?


I don't know a lot about spiritual things.
But I know they exist, and there's a realm of spirituality that I can only catch glimpses of from time to time.
And I have not traveled into enough parts of the world to know how this spirituality works in other parts of the world.
But I know I cannot disregard that spiritual things happen outside of my "Christian" understanding of this label.
And academia cannot and should never take away the spiritual.

And we are more spiritually connected than we want to think about.
But we like our distance, don't we?

Because distance keeps messiness away.
The messiness of ourselves.
The messiness of things we don't know.
The messiness of getting involved with others.

Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know?
What do I know of Holy?




And then there's that Child.

That Little One lying in a manger, here for some reason that he may or may not even understand.

Did he know this was what love was going to compel him to do?

Did he know this was the love he was born into?

Was he holy? Was he divine?

I guess I thought that I had figured You out
I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about
How You were mighty to save
Those were only empty words on a page
Then I caught a glimpse of who You might be
The slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees

What do I know of HOLY?

Lyrics from Addison Road's "What do I Know of Holy"

Sweet November; Life Together

Alright Blogger world, I did not mean to disappear for so long. But hey, life happens, right? And if life is about the journey where we'll just keep learning, then allow me for a few seconds to share about the things I have learnt in my disappearance.

You know how as the Sunday School kid, you kind of learnt that Jesus was the answer to everything? Then in youth group they tell you that you learn some nugget about God and then comes the time that you will be tested on what you learnt? I guess that has been the last few months.

The realisation hit a few weeks ago that I was finally getting into the deep melancholy of having left a place that took up so much of my heart for a few months. But this time I was surprised that, once again, it wasn't the "cultural transitions" that we typically think about. It wasn't transitioning back to communicating in proper English everyday instead of fragments of English and German.

No, it was missing being relational. It was missing intentionally spending time with people as my full-time job. Granted I know it's unlikely I'll ever have the opportunity to just do that as a full-time job again, I do miss having time to not just hang out with people, but actually do life and walk together with them.

And then along came people who, if left to my own choice, I would never initiate conversations with. And then I fall into their story. And we walk together. In my 6.5 years here, I've never had to take someone to the ER or the chiropractor. But I've also never been to a corn maze or carved pumpkins, or done any of the fall fun stuff.

But that all happened in the last month.
This is what doing life together is about, huh?

But it's also the willingness to stick around and fight the fights when we disagree. To apologise when we mess up. To step outside of our mess and realise that when we're stuck in the thick of the storm, whether intentionally or not, our actions sometimes hurt others.

These were all things that I read about in books. Oh, Bonhoeffer's writing is still so uplifting. But the actual living part of it is so much more painful and emotional. But so worth the while in the end.

No beautiful prose or fancy vocab this time that I'm coming out of hiding and re-entering the blogger-world. Just plain, simple, honest truth - at least, that's what I tried to do.

Love you all, and hope things are well - and if not, at least hopeful - in your world.