Why Kneel?

As part of my Lenten observation this year, I'm taking a break from writing new blog posts and updating and re-posting earlier material. Today's post was first shared on March 20, 2011.

Jesus Christ, Garden of Gethsemane, artist unknown

       Haiku:

         
      The taste
                  of rain

        —Why kneel?

         (Jack Kerouac)

For some reason, kneeling and Lent seemed connected in my mind. Thinking back on the very non-liturgical faith tradition of my childhood, I can’t remember kneeling, or any mention of kneeling. We stood to sing, sat to listen. Our most demonstrative act was to shake someone’s hand after the service.

The first time I remember kneeling was when my grandmother had a heart attack, the spring I was 16. In grief, then prayer, I knelt beside her bed. It seemed the only thing to do, and in my kneeling and prayer, I experienced God's presence and love in a way I had never imagined.

 A few years later I witnessed a frightening domestic dispute, with threatened violence and verbal abuse. By the time the abusive party drove off, all I could think of was to kneel with the shaking injured party, and cry, and pray, and wait for God’s comfort and wisdom.

The first time I took communion in an Episcopal church, kneeling at the altar, I found myself feeling deeply at home, spiritually fed in a profound and unexpected way, and thankful for the opportunity to kneel. There are times when kneeling seems the only thing to do, the best posture for meeting God, the safest place to be. After the tragic events of 9-11, our church held a prayer service, and I remember kneeling with so many others, thankful to kneel in God’s presence.

Why kneel? What are we doing when we kneel?

For me, kneeling can be a physical expression of lament. I kneel when life is too much, when the pain is too great, when there seems no place to turn. Nahum, describing the fall of Ninevah, says “Hearts melt, knees give way, bodies tremble, every face grows pale”  (Nahum 2:10). In Hebrew, the word for grief (כרא- kara) sounds exactly like the word for knee, kneel, smite, sink, fall, bring low (כרע - kara’). 

The Prodigal Son, Salvatore Rosa, Italy, 1650

Kneeling is also an expression of repentence. The prophet Ezra, made aware of Israel’s sin, tore his tunic and cloak:

and fell on my knees with my hands spread out to the Lord my God  and prayed:

I am too ashamed and disgraced, my God, to lift up my face to you, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens. From the days of our ancestors until now, our guilt has been great (Ezra 9:5-7).

Beyond grief and repentence, kneeling is an expression of submission, and supplication. We are small and God is great. In kneeling, we set ourselves in God’s hands. Lepers, seekers, desperate parents knelt as they called out to Jesus for help. Jesus himself knelt in Gethsemene, praying in submission and sorrow before his journey to the cross. 

I sometimes find myself returning, when I kneel, to the words of TS Eliot’s “Little Gidding,” part of his book-length Four Quartets. Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but became a British citizen, and an Anglican, in 1927. Fourteen years later, he served as an air raid warden and firewatcher in London during the Blitz, when German bombers targeted London for 76 consecutive nights. Between September, 1940, and May, 1941, forty thousand British civilians, half of them in London, had been killed by bombing. More than a million houses in London were destroyed or damaged.

"Little Gidding" is about many things, but in large part it’s about the pain of living in a ruined city, in a time of great devastation, and the challenge of living in faith when hope seems gone. In a letter to a friend, Eliot noted that the memorable line “Ash on an old man's sleeve” referred to the debris of a bombing raid hanging in the air for hours afterwards. "Then it would slowly descend and cover one's sleeves and coat in a fine white ash."

In the section before that, Eliot writes of kneeling, and of prayer: 

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion….
…You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying. 

We come to our knees through different routes, through pain, guilt, grief, helplessness. And once there, we set aside “sense and notion,” all the games our minds play, all the willfulness so hard to escape.

In kneeling, we speak to God in a way that goes beyond “the order of words, the conscious occupation of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.” Certainly we can pray in any posture, but in kneeling, in a physical way, we declare our need, our dependence, our submission.

Psalm 22 says “all who go down to the dust will kneel before him— those who cannot keep themselves alive.” Contemporary Americans tend to be control freaks, desperate to fortify ourselves against the hazards that surround us. But despite our efforts, we, like all who have lived before us, are “those who cannot keep themselves alive.” Independent though we are, resourceful as we like to think ourselves, a moment of honest reflection will remind us that we are in need of resources and wisdom beyond our own.

The famous poem “Invictus”, poet William Ernest Henley’s one claim to fame, boasts “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

The truth is something different. We are not masters of anything. We are frighteningly dependent. Watch the evening news and be reminded of how fragile this life is.

In kneeling, we find our place again, as people of the Lord’s pasture, small sheep in his care: "Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care." Psalm 95

We kneel now, in penance and petition, but we are also told there will come a time when all will kneel.  Isaiah tells us: "Before me every knee will bow;  by me every tongue will swear." (Isaiah 45) Paul repeats this in Romans 14:  “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’

Adoration of the Lamb ~ Jan Van Eyck

In Philippians 2, Paul expands this vision, to both a present reality (Jesus is already exalted, already give a name above every name), and a time in the future when we will kneel to acknowledge him:

 Therefore God exalted him

to the highest place

and gave him the name

that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth

and under the earth,

and every tongue acknowledge

that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

          Philippians 2

Jack Keroac, in his 'western haiku', questions the value of kneeling. What is your own experience of kneeling? How would you answer his question "Why kneel?"

 Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments. 

The Dance of Democracy

This past Tuesday I went to poll-monitor with Common Cause in a local university polling place that was a contentious site in the 2008 election. Some voters had waited four, five, even six hours. Those most eager to see students vote had expressed concern about possible mismanagement of lines and voter registration books.

I showed up at 6:45 AM, put on my Voter Protection badge, and introduced myself to others gathering to help make democracy work. We cautiously negotiated turf: candidate’s tables there, poll watchers here, all more than the mandated ten feet from the official polling place door down the hall. The line of waiting voters snaked down one hall, past elevator doors, through a lobby and lounge, down another hall.

The building custodian paused to say there had been a line since six. “I showed up here and there was folks sitting by that door. Already. And then more. By six-thirty the line was already over there.”

The poll opened promptly at seven. Announcements made: “You do not need photo ID, but since we don’t know what the law will be for the next election, you may be asked to show ID. It’s not required unless this is your first time voting here.”

I had volunteered because of concerns about photo ID laws and ongoing  miscommunication from state officials. I take voting seriously, as you know if you’ve been reading my recent posts. I’m moved by the history of women who suffered for the right tovote, and saddened at how little we remember of their courage.

And I’m moved by more recent history: I was eight the summer college students Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney were killed by a Ku Klux Klan lynch mob in Meridian, Mississippi, for daring to register black voters. I’ve had the privilege of hearing first-hand the stories of African-Americans who grew up in the grip of segregation, and know people not much older than I am who were the first in their families to vote.  

So there I was, fueled by my daughter’s homemade muffins and an online training session about voter ID law, election staffing, ways to recognize voter intimidation, hotlines to call for any and every question.

I had come expecting to be outside. Standing by the double doors, I could feel the morning chill as men and women dressed for work hurried in, moving fast toward the end of the line. Two men in suits came in, inspected the crowd, shrugged and hurried off to work. A young woman saw the line and smiled: “Four years ago I waited six hours – outside – in the rain. This is nothing.”

My Common Cause colleague and I timed the wait, tracking a distinctive hat as it traveled down the line, disappeared into the voting room at the end of a long hall, then reemerged toward the exit door. Forty-five minutes. No cause for alarm.

The business crowd disappeared and students took their place. First time voters: “Do I need my registration card?” “I didn’t get a card in the mail.” “I registered in Philly. Can I vote here?”

An election official made periodic announcements: “You do not need photo ID. Unless you’re a first time voter.”

I waited for clarification, then offered it myself: “It doesn’t need to be photo ID.” We had information cards explaining the confusing rules.

Packs of students: “Did you vote?” “I will after class.”  “Did you vote?” “I thought they’d give us a sticker!”

Young moms with kids in tow. Election official: “If you see someone whose kid is about to lose it, bring them to the front of the line so they can vote before they leave.”

Older citizens. A set of frail friends: “That line is long for someone 96!” I pushed my way through the line to ask the election official: “Yes, anyone who looks like they can’t stand in line can come to the front. We want them to vote.”

The day settled into routine. Students who weren’t sure of their polling place: my colleague checked his Your Vote app. “Yes, you vote here.” “No, head to the polling site across campus.” “Looks like you’re registered in Pittsburgh. Sorry!”

People emerged from the polling place, smiling.

A woman in line read a text message out loud: “The election official here says I can only bring one child into the voting booth with me. By law. How wrong is that?”

Wrong. I passed on our hot-line phone number: 1-800-OUR VOTE. “They have volunteer lawyers on call. If she calls and tells them her polling place, they’ll call the election official there and ask them to clarify.” 

Through the course of the day, I had time to talk with the others positioned outside the polling place door. The Republican ward chair (or precinct committeeman?) was amused anyone would think his precinct needed observers. “We play nice here.”

His Democratic counterpart was not as amused. She complained at the way the lines were handled four years ago, determined to see things go more smoothly.

Hours after noon, I went out to find some lunch, and came back with a truck-stand falafel and a can of Dr. Pepper. The custodian was taking his break on a couch in the lounge, watching the students come to vote, so I sat down beside him and we chatted while I munched.

“I was here four years ago,” he said. “When we elected President Obama. They were trying to keep the students from voting. But they stood in line anyway.”

He seemed proud: proud to be part of this polling place, proud to be part of this unfolding story.

“And will you go vote?” I knew he’d been at work since six, an hour before the polls opened.

“You know it! When I get off I’ll drive home to Coatesville and go vote. You know it.”

The Republican ward representative had come to join us, resting his feet for a few minutes after standing most of the day. The three of us talked about what we’d do that evening, then the conversation meandered: Where we lived. Where we were from. How long we’d been playing the specific roles we were playing.

“But I know how you roll!” The Republican seemed please with himself.  “Yes – you!” He nodded at me. “What did Pinochio turn into when he went to Pleasure Island?”

I was baffled. Pinochio? “A real boy?”

“No! He became a donkey!”

What?

“You know. A donkey! A Democrat! You’re a Democrat!”

Ah. So he thought he had me pegged.

“Well, really – no. I’m not. I’m a registered independent. And have been. And will be. My ballot this year will be mixed, as usual.”

"So who do you want to win?" 

“What I want,” I said, “is for democracy to work. And I want to make sure the quiet voices in the middle can be heard.”

“Because the solutions are going to come from the quiet voices in the middle.  People who know how to listen.  I want to make sure everyone gets to vote, and I want to make sure the loud voices don’t drown out the rest of us.”

It occurs to me that democracy is like a dance. Step one way, then another. One person moves backward, the other forward. Balance shifts; direction changes. When one person insists on moving only one way, the dance is done. Ugliness ensues. When we move in harmony, in the bright, light tension of a well-executed dance, we all thrive. All of us.

We want the same things. Republican grandson of immigrant Italians, Democrat great-grandson of former slaves, Independent grey-haired mash-up of Mediterranean, Scandinavian, Old World, New World, farmers, builders, preachers, dreamers, wanderers . . . 

We want the same things. We hope the same things. Opportunity for our sons and daughters, provision for our nearing old age, clean air and water, safe roads and bridges, peace in our homes, our communities, our world. 

We sat there, me sipping the last of my Dr. Pepper, enjoying a warm, sun-filled public space and that sense of being part of something large. Fellow citizens, fellow workers, content to play our separate parts in this dance we call democracy.

A few days before the election, I came across the poem written for the 2008 inauguration:

Praise Song for the Day, by Elizabeth Alexander. It speaks of the noise that surrounds us, and the importance of words: "whispered or declaimed, words to consider, reconsider.”

This election has been full of words: some wise, many not. Some heard, many unheard. Not all the words said have been considered, by the person saying them, or the person hearing. But at least we’re free to speak. To listen, or not listen. Free to vote, to choose, to take a part in the process, wherever that process leads. 

“Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?”

This is the last in a continuing series about faith and politics: What's Your Platform? Join the conversation.  Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.  

Perplexed, but still hopeful

Untitled, Ben-Zion,
New York, 1950s

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;

Not untwist—slack they may be—

    these last strands of man

In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;

Can something, hope, wish day come, 
   not choose not to be.

     (from “Carrion Comfort”
      Gerard Manley Hopkins,1887  )

We see through a glass darkly – but there are times that seem darker than others. Winter nights close in; the accumulating sorrows of friends and family pile like snowdrifts against our windows. We find ourselves wishing for summer, or surfing vacation rental websites, longing for escape. We wrestle with hope: Is healing possible? Is wholeness an illusion? Does it make sense to invest, again, and again, in systems that seem irrevocably broken, in people who seem determined to fail?

Reading Hopkins’ “Carrion Comfort”, I find myself wondering what struggles sapped his strength, stole his joy, led him toward the dark place of doubting God’s goodness. His poem points back toward Jacob, running from home, wrestling in the dark with God.

And it calls to mind Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, confessing his own  temptation to despair.

For some reason, we pretend that conversion to Christ is a guarantee of a smooth and easy ride. Trust God and all will go well. Believe and your problems are solved. Let go and let God.

Praying Monk, Frank Brangwyn, Belgium, 1930s

But there’s Hopkins, a Jesuit priest in his prime, bruised by his dark night of the soul. And Paul, acknowledging that he and his fellow workers were “under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself” (2 Cor. 1).

I could list countless friends, faithful people living lives of deep obedience, who struggle with unexplained tragedies and wrestle with doubt, with a sense of abandonment that rivals David’s when he cried out:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

   Why are you so far from saving me,

   so far from my cries of anguish? 

I am poured out like water,

   and all my bones are out of joint.

My heart has turned to wax;

   it has melted within me."  (Psalm 22)

If suffering is part of the human condition, God's people are not exempt.

There’s a word play in 2 Corinthians 4 that we miss in English translation. Paul says “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Aporeo (perplexed) means to be without resources, in doubt, not knowing which way to turn: stuck. I’m beginning to feel that’s my natural state. Daily, I find myself perplexed. I don’t have what’s needed. I can’t do what I promised. The challenges I face are more than I bargained for. My resources are few, my wisdom is slight, and the situation is beyond me. I laugh as I write this: I thought that state of perplexity would end when I stepped away from full-time ministry with youth. Instead, it’s more pronounced, as God leads me into more and more perplexing missions, with fewer resources at hand.

Paul says: aporea, but not exaporeo. Perplexed, but not to the point of despair. Without resources, but not without hope of help. In doubt, but not in such confusion I can no longer pray, or trust, or wait. Stuck, but not - literally - "out of a way through."

When I look back on the past year, and the years before that, I see that some of the moments when I was most perplexed, God was most at work. Those places where I found myself standing still – uncertain, doubtful, at the end of my resources, ingenuity, understanding - God’s grace intervened, sometimes in ways that were immediate and dramatic, much more often in ways that could only be seen looking back across time.

The Man with the Burden
Rachael Robinson Elmer, New York, 1913

Yet there are situations where I still wrestle, still stand in perplexity, still see no sign of resolution, no clear way through. What then?

In Paul’s example in 2 Corinthians 4 I find clear advice for my own cases of “aporea”:

One: Don’t lose heart. Don’t give up. He says it at the beginning and end of the chapter: We do not lose heart.

Easy to say. Not so easy to do.

Two: Admit, acknowledge, even embrace weakness. We aren’t the ones who need to be strong. I love that. We are jars of clay. Frail, flawed, struggling creatures.

I’ve certainly had the temptation, at different points along the way, to “look strong for the kids,” to try to hold it together. That never works. Much better to say “I’m struggling here. But don’t worry: God will help us.”

Third, Paul says: Keep your eyes on what’s ahead. Don’t let this present moment drag you down. “We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

I have lots of areas of weakness, but one in particular has sometimes been a problem. I hate long, high bridges. I start focusing on the side: the flimsy rail, the too-close edge, the long drop to deep water below. And then I focus on myself: my sweaty hands, the fact that I can’t breath. If I can keep my eyes and attention out ahead, I’m okay. If I start thinking “what if . . .” I’m in trouble.  

The bridges are hard. But the other side is worth it.

And these struggles we face are hard, but they’re not the end of the story, just as those miserable bridges are never the end of the road. As Paul says, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

I pray that will be so.

We travelers, walking towards the sun, can’t see

Ahead, but looking back the very light

That blinded us shows us the way we came,

Along which blessings now appear, risen

As if from sightlessness to sight, and we,

By blessings brightly lit, keep going toward

That blessed light that yet to us is dark.

                  (Sabbaths 1999, IV, Wendell Berry) 

The Pilgrim of the World at the End of his Journey,
Thomas Cole, New York, 1846-47

This post is part of the January Synchroblog on hope, done in partnership with Provoketive, an online magazine devoted to creating space for dialogue about faith, life, justice and culture. As usual, your thoughts and comments are welcome. And if you're needing wrestling with hope yourself, or in conversation with others who are struggling, please take time to visit some of the other websites linked below. 

The Trouble With Hope: John Ptacek

Hope = Possibility x Imagination: Wayne Rumsby

Little Reminders: Mike Victorino

Where Is My Hope: Jonathan Brink

Hope for Hypocrites: Jeremy Myers

Now These Three Remain: Sonny Lemmons

A Hope that Lives: Amy Mitchell

Generations Come and Generations Go: Adam Gonnerman

Demystifying Hope: Glenn Hager

God in the Dark: On Hope: Renee Ronika Klug

Keeping Hope Alive: Maurice Broaddus

Are We Afraid to Hope?: Christine Sine

On Wobbly Wheels, Split Churches and Fear: Laura Droege

Adopting Hope: Travis Klassen

Hope is Held Between Us: Ellen Haroutunian

Hope: In the Hands of the Creatively Maladjusted: Mihee Kim-Kort

Paradox, Hope and Revival: City Safari

Good Theology Saves: Reverend Robyn

Linear: Never Was, Never Will Be: Kathy Escobar

Better Than Hope: Liz Dyer

Caroline for Congress: Hope for the Future: Wendy McCaig

Fumbling the Ball on Hope: KW Leslie

Content to Hope: Alise Wright

Hope: Oh, the Humanity!: Deanna Ogle

Midwinter Wisdom

Midwinter spring is its own season

Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,

Suspended in time, between pole and tropic. 

When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,

The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,

In windless cold that is the heart’s heat,

Reflecting in a watery mirror

A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.

And glow more intense than blaze of branch, 

      or brazier,

Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire

In the dark time of the year.

Between melting and freezing

The soul’s sap quivers.

    (Four Quartets: Little Gidding I, T. S. Eliot)

We often have a day or two of “midwinter spring” -  welcome days of warmth that melt the tops of frozen lakes and remind us that winter won’t last forever. This year, though, it’s been more like a midwinter summer. Our temperature reached 63 °C yesterday – a record high in a week that saw over a thousand new record highs.

I took my binoculars and new spotting scope to Marsh Creek Lake, not far from our home, and headed off on the dirt track on the far side of the lake. The path runs through thickets and brambles, skirting the foundations of old buildings abandoned when the lake was flooded back in the seventies. Dirt bikers plowed through muddy ruts, a young family scrambled happily over a massive downed sycamore, and a lomg line of gulls marked the half-way point in the perfect blue of the lake.

Normally most of the lake is frozen by this point in the year, but kayaks danced along in the bright little waves and a flat-bottomed fishing boat moved along so close to shore I could see the fishing line slice the water.

Kingfisher Pair, Suzanne Britton 

Pausing to watch a pair of belted kingfishers following each other along the lake edge, I found myself wondering: is this a good thing? This beautiful warm weather, this early pairing of solitary kingfishers? What if a day that seems like a reprieve is really a harbinger of harm?

I thought of a blog post I read just days ago: Scot McKnight, responding to a recent debate in The Spectator on global warming, asked “what would it take to change your mind?”  

“Put on the table one of your most cherished theological ideas — say creationism, the historicity of Jonah surviving in a big fish, Calvinism or Arminianism, penal substitution, the gospel as social justice, progressive ideas on the gay/lesbian debates… just put your major idea on the table and ask yourself one question:

What would it take to change your mind?”

McKnight’s book, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible, documents his own change of mind on the topic of women in church leadership, but his question has far-reaching importance in this contentious political season.  How do we know what’s true? What kind of evidence are we looking for? Whose voices do we listen to? What are we willing to question?

The Pharisees were sure of a long list of things, which made it impossible for most of them to hear what Jesus had to say. They started from a position of theological certainty and spent their energy looking for ways to discredit their opposition, rather than taking time to listen to see what truth they could learn from a very new perspective.

Can You See the Writing on the Wall?
Mary Padgelik

Ah, but isn’t it dangerous to listen to voices you’re not sure of, to consider ideas that don’t fit the currently accepted grid?

Standing still in the late afternoon sunlight, I listened to the wild cry of a red-tailed hawk soaring overhead, and the secretive scuffle of the white-throated sparrows, hiding in low bushes along the trail. There are voices easy to hear, like the raucous chorus of crows, or the constant chatter of the chickadees. And there are voices we prefer to hear: the mockingbird song. The sweet chirps of the pretty red house finch.

What happens when we shut out too quickly voices that are new, or difficult, or threatening? What happens when we refuse to hear those whose message doesn’t fit our own?

In Soul of a Citizen, Paul Loeb talks of an “ethic of listening,” learning to act from an awareness “that our knowledge and perception will always be partial, and that we learn best from dialogue with others.” Loeb notes the need “to cultivate a bit of humility. To hear the souls of others requires silencing the clamor of our own obsessions about how the world should be.” (238)

Humility is one of those words we don’t spend much time with. We like to be people who know the answers, who have firm opinions, who are quick to make those opinions known.  We like to know which voices are approved, who is on “our side,” and who is not. Discussions move quickly from ideas offered to ad hominem attack. Once we’ve labeled someone a communist, fascist, racist, heretic, we can stop pretending to listen and go back to celebrating our own strong opinions.

I grew up in a household where argument was plentiful, in a church tradition where the stronger your opinion, the more you were admired. I realized early on that the motivation in most arguments had little to do with the point being offered. What I heard loud and strong in most discussions I witnessed was power, pride, and a deep disregard for the people most affected. 

Reading on my own, I came across James 3: “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.” I had seen enough to know that opinions held in pride cause harm, that real wisdom is gentle, and shows up in action more than bombastic argument.

The Fruit of the Spirit: Peace, Mary Padgelik

In my early twenties, I memorized James 3:17 and 18: 

“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” 

In this warm, strange, midwinter summer, marveling at the beauty of red hawks in flight, dodging mountain bikers who call “on your right!” as they pass me in the muck, I find myself repeating that ancient passage. I pray for humility, wisdom, peace. Not for myself only, but for all of us, fellow travelers on a tired planet, concerned citizens in a divided country. I pray for a wisdom humble enough to consider a change of mind, wide enough to hear all the voices crying to be heard, and for harvests of righteousness abundant enough to meet the needs of all.

Join the conversation: What would it take to change your mind? How do you know when you're holding an opinion from wrong motives, or pride?Where do you hope to see deeper dialogue in the year ahead? 

The Christmas Miracle

Christmas, Helen Siegl 1990, Philadelphia 

We who must die demand a miracle.

How could the Eternal do a temporal act,

The Infinite become a finite fact?

Nothing can save us that is possible:

We who must die demand a miracle.

       (from “For The Time Being” 

                 W. H. Auden)

In last week’s post, I asked: “in a world suffused with miracle and mystery, what do we make of the incarnation, the assertion that God came to earth in the form of a baby?”   There are plenty of people who accept the ample evidence the Jesus was a real person, a man of surprising insight and influence, but stop short of the idea that he was more than that: the son of God, born of a virgin, “God with us,” as the prophets predicted hundreds of years earlier.

Really, no matter how many times we hear the story, no matter how committed we are to the truth of the gospel reports, who could ever claim to understand the idea of God becoming human? The idea of life itself, breath filling us, then suddenly gone, is a mystery no one can fully understand. God in that breath? The power of God in helpless human form?

C. S. Lewis called the incarnation “the grand miracle”: 

“One is very often asked at present whether we could not have a Christianity stripped, or, as people who ask it say, ‘freed’ from its miraculous elements, a Christianity with the miraculous elements suppressed. Now, it seems to me that precisely the one religion in the world, or at least the only one I know, with which you could not do that is Christianity . .  the Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, which is uncreated, eternal, came into Nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing Nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left. . . . 

The Nativity, Jean Charlot, 1943 Mexico

“Just as every natural event exhibits the total character of the natural universe at a particular point and space of time, so every miracle exhibits the character of the Incarnation. Now, if one asks whether that central grand miracle in Christianity is itself probable or improbable, of course, quite clearly you cannot be applying Hume's kind of probability. You cannot mean a probability based on statistics according to which the more often a thing has happened, the more likely it is to happen again . . . Certainly the Incarnation cannot be probable in that sense. It is of its very nature to have happened only once. But then it is of the very nature of the history of this world to have happened only once; and if the Incarnation happened at all, it is the central chapter of that history. It is improbable in the same way in which the whole of nature is improbable, because it is only there once, and will happen only once." 

The mystery of the incarnation, to me, is not so much that of the virgin birth, the dozens of prophecies fulfilled, the angel announcements to Mary, Joseph, shepherds. I know there are many who insist that what we see is what we get. Nature, science, provable fact, that’s all there is, and all there’s going to be.

For me, there’s too much that explanation can’t explain. Science is great, but only goes so far. Reason is a good thing, but I’ve seen how far short reason often lands. Explain the color of a sunset as much as you want – why does the beauty of those colors speak so deeply to our hearts? Show me the math that explains musical theory: why do certain sounds make me homesick for someplace I’ve never been?

Of all the mysteries I wonder over, here’s the big one, as Lewis said, “the grand miracle”: the son of God, himself part of God in a way we can’t explain, chose to come to earth as a baby, helpless, tiny, powerless, and aligned himself with the poorest of the poor, an occupied people, pressed down by the brutality of the Roman military engine. The Word that spoke the universe into being – whatever that means, however it happened – that Word agree to be born as an outcast, a displaced person, in a time of great hardship, in a land with little freedom.

The Nativity, Frank Allen Humphrey, England

Writing to the Philippians, Paul said: “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing, by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

There’s the grand miracle: he used his power to divest himself of it, made himself nothing, the poorest of the poor, to show us another avenue to peace, to freedom, to joy, and to take on our age-old enemy, death, in a way that only God himself could do.

And invites us into that reality. Imagine Paul saying this: “Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus . . .”

I can understand rules: do this, don’t do that.

I can understand liturgy, prayers to say on what occasion.

But God with us? God a baby, hunted by Herod, passed from hand to hand?

Nativity, Sadoa Watanabe, 1965, Japan 

God divested of power, influence, comfort, reputation? 

And for what – for pompous Pharisees, who spat in his face?

For scurvy lepers, who begged to be healed, then ran for home, forgetting to say thank-you?

For a conscience-less thief, ridiculing him from the cross beside him?

For all the generations of defamers, accusers, angry agnostics, cynical skeptics?

I think of my own paltry attempts at love, and how I respond when my efforts are rejected.

I think of my own small investments in peace, kindness, justice, healing, and how discouraged I get when the investments don’t yield immediate rewards.

I think of my own small sacrifices. Hours spent reading a picture book for the millionth time. Weekends spent sharing a bathroom with a dozen middle school girls. Summer evenings singing crazy songs with a bunch of kids in a hot urban neighborhood.

And for what?

Was it sacrifice at all? Or was it a chance to be with people I loved, to share life with people I cared about?

Was Christ’s birth, life, time on earth, a sacrifice? Or was it an explosive, humbling expression of love on a level we’ll never understand?

As I surround myself with Christmas, I’m mindful of the words of the friend who seemed to understand Jesus best:

Nativity, Yo Iwashita, Japan

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." (I John 3).

I pray Christ’s grand miracle be seen in the miracle of our own love for each other, a love pressed down, overflowing, generous, merciful, kind beyond reason.

May Christ’s miraculous love be yours this Christmas season!

Feel free to share your Christmas thoughts and greetings. Look for the "__ comments" link below.