The Lost Discipline?

I just ran across this article extolling what might be one of the lost disciplines, you know, one of those torturous routines we enforce upon ourselves to better some trait, habit, or characteristic: diet, exercise, classical literature...no, I do not believe professional sports of any stripe are an acceptable form of discipline unless you happen to be playing one and fantasy football does not count!  In the Christian tradition, the ones I can easily list are prayer, Bible study,  and fasting, I'm sure there are others, but I had not considered 'celebration,' as an option (apparently tailgating is a discipline, who knew!).  But I think the author has a very good point: our culture certainly takes itself too seriously at times, as can our faith.  A little break now and again from the sobriety, angst, and severe focus on 'success' might be just the thing, not only for each of us as individuals but as a society as a whole.  Think what might happen to the 24/7 news stations if they implemented this strategy; I know many (myself included) have given up even watching because it is just too depressing.  For there are good things in the world, as well as bad, but we never hear of them and that's a pity indeed.  So for once, eat, drink, and be merry and godspeed!

Home for the Holidays

I'm so excited to be stuck at home for the holidays this year, it's almost like we're a legitimate family or something.  The extended family on both sides lives at least a state, if not two, away so we inevitably put well over a thousand miles on the car every holiday season making the obligatory pilgrimage, what with owning the only grandkid on either side.  Last year we got stranded an extra three days at my in-laws due to a blizzard over Thanksgiving and then they got snowed in here at Christmas.  We also have a new baby, which makes long distance driving even more complicated, that and we can't possibly fit anything else in the car and how do you tell grandma she can't give your child a hand carved life size mahogany rocking horse for Christmas just because there isn't room in the trunk?  Maybe we'll just leave daddy behind...I jokingly threatened that after the first Christmas with our son after he got so much stuff that there was hardly room for us but now it is more true than ever!

Between the distance, the weather, and the kids, I'm not as gungho about road trips as I used to be when it was just me and a backpack.  That and we are an actual, legitimate family unit that can celebrate in our own right, though this is a hard truth for the grandparents to comprehend.  We'll make the trip, just next summer when snow isn't quite so likely (there's always a chance).  But this year we just don't have the vacation time either after the adoption and everything, and maybe once the extended family figures out it isn't the end of the world and sort of gets into the habit, maybe we can make it an annual tradition without drama, guilt, and recrimination.  I'm more than happy to host so if you really want to see the kids this Christmas, I'm afraid you'll have to make the trip yourself.  What surprises me is how insistent certain of 'the fam' is that it isn't Christmas without the kids home, but the kids are home, at our house with our kids!  The first Christmas consisted of a teenage girl, her newborn baby, the stepdad, and a bunch of shaggy sheepherders without even a decent roof over their heads, let alone a Christmas tree of 5 course dinner, so I think wherever you are, whoever you are with, it can still be Christmas, even if things aren't ideal.

I never had family tradition, joy, or love growing up, so I'm really excited to actually start having our own with our family, for so many years it's been dictated by what the in-laws or great grandma has always done, and since we can never reach those now mythic standards, we're all stressed out, miserable, and disappointed and Christmas is 'not what it used to be,' not that it ever was, we just color it that way in dearest memory.  I guess I really shouldn't complain about the grumblings of disgruntled relatives over this, Mary might have been killed if Joseph decided to press the issue of who the father was.  That's one thing I love about the movie 'The Nativity Story:' they show what it might really have been like, it isn't just a pretty manger scene, it was dirty, hard, cold, scary, and lonely.  I suppose that's why all my favorite seasonal songs are full of minor chords (major chords are happy, triumphant sounding; the minor chords are a little sad and mysterious).

Christmas is full of Joy, but there is an inescapable sense of mystery, awe, wonder, and a pinch of sorrow in the mix as well.  It isn't just 'Jingle all the way,' there's this deep longing, a yearning as old as the world, satisfied at last:

"Long lay the world in sin and error pining. 

Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth. 

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, 

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. 

Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices! 

O night divine, the night when Christ was born; 

O night, O Holy Night , O night divine! 

O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!"

So whether you're 'stuck at home,' hunkered down in a foxhole, working the night shift in the ER, lost in some jungle, or celebrating with family and friends, remember, it isn't who you are with, what you do, or where you are that makes this season so wonderful.  It's none of our doing at all, so even if the gravy is lumpy or the dog eats the turkey or Aunt Edna voted for him, Rejoice, for we have truly received 'glad tidings of great joy!'  And for all people too, even Aunt Edna!

The Answer is always C, right?

The weather, the phase of the moon, our parents, our race/gender/religion/socioeconomic situation/relationship status, our education or lack thereof, a down turn in the economy, that guy at work, our genetics, bad luck, our weight or metabolism or health...there are a million reasons, or rather excuses, why we are the way we are: unhappy, unsettled, uncomfortable, restless, dissatisfied with life in general and ourselves in particular.  But we think life will be better when we fix the problem: lose the weight or get a new job, or get counseling for things beyond fixing, like our childhood, but it never lasts, not for long anyway.  We're like the kid before Christmas who has his heart set on X, life will be so wonderful when he has X, but two weeks after Christmas, X is gathering dust in a corner and life is probably the same, if not a little more drab since X failed to fix it.

It isn't a new diet or boyfriend, it isn't travel to exotic places or adopting a dog; all that is wonderful for its own reasons but none of it will fix your life.  As a culture, we are obsessed with finding the problem or placing the blame outside ourselves, certain that Something must certainly be the problem, if not This then maybe That.  But nothing helps, we're still left feeling like a square peg in a round hole; like a jigsaw puzzle missing the last piece.  It is the root cause of most of the evils in society and the world at large: someone decides to do something drastic to fill that gap and thousands suffer as a result.  But those at the top are just as empty as those of us at the bottom of the heap.  Power, fame, riches don't fill that hole any more than anything else.

I grew up in an emotionally vacant home, at least of all the good emotions; we had plenty of anger, shame, fear, and frustration.  I've been trying to change that in my own family, but somehow managed to collide head on with my in-laws.  They are extremely decent and nice people, but as a mother and daughter-in-law, they always seem to rub me the wrong way.  I think I've finally figured out why.  They both had rather wretched childhoods as well, leaving them scarred emotionally, and now that they are grandparents, they are trying to somehow 'fix' those scars by living vicariously through my kids.  And being thus scarred myself, I've let them pretty much walk all over me only to resent it bitterly later.  It's pretty much the same thing in the wider world, though the root cause of the injury varies from person to person, we are all trying to get whole and healthy through our relationships (or protect ourselves from further injury by social isolation), be it friends, lovers, kids, grandkids, employers or employees, we're all a bunch of burn victims trying to piece ourselves back together in the ICU with nary a physician in sight.  This isn't to say we don't have good and honest intentions, we do, but we are so broken and hurting, and this yearning to be happy and whole is so strong and subtle a part of our nature that we do it quite unwittingly; it is very much a part of what we currently call the human experience.

Some people want to medicate or educate or breed it out of humanity, others think the whole race is too flawed and the only answer is annihilation.  To some, science or technology must surely find an answer be it artificial intelligence or genetic manipulation.  Some embrace their base nature and the evolutionist's creed, eager to be the strongest and thrive amidst their depravity.  But nothing will fill that gap or sooth the unsettled soul, for there is no 'balm in Gilead,' or at least not on this mortal earth, or perhaps I should say wasn't, for the Great Physician has come and we no longer need to sew up our own wounds.  But we are unwise children, too wise in our own eyes to see that we are wounded, let alone in need of a doctor; we continue to look to X to make us happy, and if that doesn't work, there is always Y...but the Answer transcends the whole alphabet, a single letter won't suffice, we need the Alpha and Omega and everything in between, nothing less will satisfy.

Looking for ET in all the wrong places?

The last time I watched 'ET' was in Spanish class in high school, and all I can remember was that epic line, "ET telephono a mi casa."  'Green Eggs and Ham' didn't translate the best either.  ET might have actually been better in Spanish, but in whatever language, I really never liked it.  But it could be worse, my husband was a substitute German teacher once and got to watch the first 45 minutes of 'Finding Nemo' in German seven times in one day, ugh!  But this post isn't about linguistic translation or even pop culture icons, but rather modern culture's obsession with finding non-terrestrial life somewhere, somehow, somewhen, especially a sapient variety.  But it isn't just aliens, we've gone through werewolves, ghosts, robots, vampires, and are currently weathering a zombie phase: anything to find we are not alone, that there is more to reality than the span of our heart beats.

But we aren't alone.  And our modern search for the extraterrestrial is a little ridiculous when you consider our planet was actually invaded two millennia ago, and not just by visitors from another planet or even another galaxy, but by Someone from outside our own reality.  Yeah, wrap your mind around that one for a minute.  It's like me physically trying to cram myself into one of my own books: ain't going to happen!  But He managed to do it.  But we're still watching the stars, hoping someone is out there, somewhere, when all we need do is realize that He's already come, we aren't alone any longer, at least if we don't want to be.  There are all sorts of conspiracy theories about the government covering up all traces of alien visitations, but this is the original and still the most controversial.  And no, I am not giving any credence to the theories that say various visions or miracles in the Bible were actually alien phenomena such as Ezekiel's 'wheels within wheels.'  I speak only of the advent of deity within mortal flesh, the Word made Flesh that dwelt among us.

I am currently reading through the Gospel of John, and it is very intuiging to see some of the language he uses and the word pictures he paints, emphasizing this point; this from the same pen that wrote Revelation, now there's a vision!

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.  But my kingdom is not from the world.” (John 18:36)

This is one passage that caught my eye, but there are many others, especially the first chapter and the passages in chapter 17 where He prays to the Father about His disciples, implying that His followers too are also somehow separated from the world they once knew.  We must still abide within the world, but we are no longer of it, for ours is the Kingdom of Heaven.  So for all those longing to leave behind this troubled and broken humanity, whether you want to join the giant blue cat people from that one movie, run off to become a Jedi, get bit by a radioactive spider, or fall in love with a vampire, this yearning isn't weird or restricted to geek culture: it's innate within our very souls.  We were made to be something more and certainly not to be alone.  And the great news is we aren't.  We just need to know where to look, or perhaps rather to Whom.