JONATHAN E. CARROLL

Overwhelmed by absence, Propped up by hope

Wed, 2 Dec 2009 22:34:56 -0600

Our lives of following Christ are marked by both anticipation and satiation. We live mostly in the paradox of seeing God’s loving presence and saving work in our lives while at the same time longing for God’s presence and action to be more clearly demonstrated. We are satisfied and yet we wonder why it is God does not do more.

In the celebration of Advent-become-Christmas we are reminded that we are not alone in the experiences of longing and satisfaction. In these two seasons we both anticipate God’s presence in our yearning for the Messiah and celebrate God’s coming. In these celebrations we are reminded that this paradox is not abnormal -- it is (only in part) a reflection of God’s activity in all of human history. It is as if our lives reflect in microcosm the pattern of salvation history (heilsgeschichte) -- they have an Advent and Christmas shape. In recalling these seasons we understand God’s work both in times past and today. For now, we wait.

As Henri Nouwen reminds us, “Waiting is essential to the spiritual life. But waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting. It is waiting with a promise in our hearts that makes already present what we are waiting for.”* We wait during Advent for the birth of Jesus. We wait in winter’s grip, wondering if the Voice will say it again amid the wild, lone man and his soaking-wet cousin, “He is mine. Listen to him.” We wait on Friday to see if the darkness will be scattered again only to illumine our hearts. We wait after Easter for the coming of the Spirit under whose almighty wings we are healed, and after the Ascension of Jesus we wait for his coming again in glory, and again and again and again. “We are always waiting in the conviction that we have already seen God’s footsteps.”

Waiting for God is an active, alert -- yes, even joyful -- waiting. As we wait we remember him for whom we are waiting, and as we remember him we create (and participate in) a community ready to welcome him when he comes.

In what places of your life have you been waiting for the Lord? Is that waiting a hopeful one -- or is it a waiting of despair? Have there been times when it seems that God has been or is hidden? How has your waiting shaped you...both positively and otherwise?

In every way, I have experienced the hoped-for presence of God of late, and, as always, I have experienced this Presence in another, a child of God, a community of faith made of two (and more) gathered in God’s name, where, I trust, God will continue to be, all the evidence sometimes to the contrary.

With my overwhelm and waiting in one hand, I hold hope and deep gratitude in the other.

It is the Advent-shaped life, and it is lived out in a season. Right now, in this moment, I wait. I watch. I hope. And I do so in a way that brings to fruition this hope that I have inside me. It is life lived in the prophetic-future tense: living honestly while at the same time declaring to be true what isn’t yet seen, but which is only believed. And, God, do I believe?! I do. I do.

Eventually, hope, which every now and then springs eternal, will give way to something else. That for which we hope will come.

Will that Presence be any less overwhelming than the Absence?

I think not. But I am ready nonetheless.

As it turns out, the truth, at least in part, is this: when the Presence comes, I will know, I will open myself to it all, and I will receive it with gladness and humility.

I light a candle for you. Come Sunday, make that two.

j.e.c.

*In Joyful Hope: Meditations for Advent

Mixed Blessings are blessings nonetheless

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:13:59 -0600

Giving thanks is not always an easy thing to do. Of course, life has its moments of gladness and grace…but a life comprised of only these is half-lived in a complex world such as ours. Glad tidings are at some point and for some reason always punctuated by sorrow; if not our own, then someone else’s. Loitering, lingering deaths; jobless parents checking their coats and their dignity at the door of another missed opportunity; old marriages crumbling and new ones speeding to an end; peacekeepers assassinated; neighborhoods waking to the sounds of sirens and suicide-bombs; faces of starving children pleading from the cover of magazines; pregnant women hijacked and murdered; nations divided over deliberations and diplomacy, elections and economic disaster. To say nothing of the endless heartaches and hurt feelings we suffer not only in our own homes but in our own bones. Yes, life is marked by goodness and grace, but by terror and tragedy, too.

And for both of them, the blessings and the curses, we show up to give thanks…to give thanks for all of life. We give thanks for what there is of life to give thanks for. Tonight we give thanks for the good in our lives because of the good that it is. And tonight, we give thanks for the bad in our lives, and for the ache that such badness births, an ache for that distant country of our eternal home. Tonight we decide intentionally to be glad, first of all, that we are, because there’s always that chance that we might not have been. Tonight we say thanks for God and for all the mysterious and miraculous ways that God has decided to be for us and never against us. Tonight we say thanks for the bravery to give up our notions of the way life ought to be, and for the peace of accepting that, for whatever reason, disaster must walk hand-in-hand with delight, tragedy with triumph, that it is always both/and and never either/or, and that, in between the cracks of that truth, there are a thousand reasons to say thank you to God and to one another, for the gift of every moment in the life of this world, and in the life of the world to come. We say thanks because whether in the midst of the pleasure or in the midst of the pain we are never exposed to a life or a death outside of the love of God, and are therefore never left alone…ever. So Thanksgiving is about all of it…life as we’ve lived it, for better and for worse.

Our challenge this Thanksgiving is to see our own lives in the soft light of honest gratitude, to learn how to give not only for the mixed blessings of Christ’s life, but also for our own; to say “thank you” for the whole mess, the things we welcome and the things we’d risk our necks to escape. God is God, and our lives are our lives, and we can love them or leave them, give thanks for them or whittle them away with despondence or regret. The dare on the Thursday’s menu is to embrace all that we have ever been and all that we have ever done—the blessings and the baggage—and haul it wherever you are going and heave it up to lay it on the Table, and take a step back so that you may first and finally recognize your life as a sacred gift. Every single thing…every last occasion…is to be understood as an occasion to draw closer to God, to become part of who God is, to join in the campaign for peace and for justice, to latch on to God’s dream, and to become again and again worthy of offering the best we have to offer: our genuine thanksgiving.

When you find yourself walking along the tow path and near the river’s edge as the dawn breaks and the sun stretches up and over the trees like a pumpkin picked to decorate the center of the table of the world, or when you find yourself in the grocery staring teary-eyed over the names and ages and sizes and stories of the children who live in the angel tree, or when you find yourself helping your sixth grader to understand the intricacies of our common life and how those who are different from us make us better people, or when you find yourself unable to focus on your own work and life because a friend’s spouse is dying of cancer or congestive heart failure, or when you find yourself gathering again around a small table that is the joyful feast of the Kingdom of God, a table that makes big promises in a world that’s full of needs and wants, or when you find yourself breaking away from and letting go of everything else that’s going on the night before Thanksgiving or the morning of any given Sunday all because you are called to be with the faithful disciples who offer God praise…in the midst of all of that, and in the midst of the everydayness of it all, may you find also that these words are taking root deep within who you are like trees planted for sure and certain growth, “He stretches out his hand, and you are delivered. O give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.” That is worth remembering. That’s thanksgiving. “O give thanks, for the Lord is good.”

So happy thanksgiving. Whether you plan to prepare a four-course dinner with family or friends, or a quiet meal alone, God goes with us, goes before us, comes behind us and there is no corner of our lives where God does not already live. Be on the lookout for God, and get ready for the life-transforming feeling of being loved all over, again and again, and bring your tongue gently through your teeth and whisper aloud, thank you. Thank you. Thanks be to God. Alleluia. Amen.

j.e.

a prayer for thanksgiving

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:31:23 -0600

It is increasingly difficult for me to imagine, let alone realize, that November is upon us. I know they say, “Time flies when you’re having fun,” and that’s true, I think, but time has flown despite what kind of time we’re having it seems. We—our world, our nation, our community, our church, our families—have enjoyed many things this year, and we have endured a lot, too. And finally comes the time to say, “Thanks!”
“Thanks” is not always easy to say, especially when we are not sure to whom we are saying it and why. But for me those questions do not seem to lurk as intensely as they might in other families. We know the answers, don’t we? To whom and why? To God, because God has knelt to meet us where we are, to walk with us through the thick and the thin of this life of ours—this life of his—this life that he died to make sure we have. Thanks be to God for such a gift as this.
Maybe you are one for whom words of gratitude seem to roll off the lips like sweet honey—tasty and good for you. Maybe you, like me, sense that the ability to give God thanks and praise is not only a responsibility and a duty, but it is also an opportunity, a blessing, and a gift. And yet, even for those of us who know beyond the shadow of a doubt that thanksgiving is not only a responsibility but is a gift, even we still sometimes have a hard time conjuring up enough whatever-it-takes to whisper even the faintest word of gratitude. Sometimes, in a world of words, the right one is the hardest thing to come by.
The Apostle Paul reminds us that during these times, when most words are absent, and the ones that aren’t do not do justice to our innermost thoughts—when we do not know how to pray, “…the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes on our behalf with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8. 26).
Wherever you find yourself during this thankful time of year, whether it’s shouting your gratitude from the top of your house, or whether it’s whispering through fear into a tear-stained pillow—either way, may you find a time, a space, and a prayer in which to say to the One who loves you to death and to new life, too—“Thank you.” And in case you don’t find whatever it is you need to express your gratitude, I offer you this prayer that has been so helpful to me in my own times of wordlessness.

Gracious Lord,
thank you for every single moment.
For the early, blue-sky moment,
the softening earth,
the refreshing wind.
For the life flowing,
the bird singing
the clock ticking
the fiery bush,
For my heart so full
and the joy that because of you is rising inside me.

Soften me
to receive whatever comes to me as a gift
that I may be thankful, and praise you in it.

Lord, thank you for every single moment.
For the twilight, silent moment
the pause,
the good tired.
For the quiet reflection,
the slowing down,
the mysterious setting of the sun.
For my heart’s hard-won contentment,
and the wisdom that because of you is growing inside me.
Gentle me,
to feel whatever comes to me as a gift,
that I may be thankful, and praise you in it.

Lord, thank you for every single moment,
For the midnight moment,
the sleeplessness,
the creeping loneliness,
the wondering and the fret.
For the watchful sky,
the longing ache,
the sleepless wait,
and all that is holy.
For my heart’s restless visioning,
and the hope that because of you is straining inside me.
Focus me,
to see whatever comes to me as a gift,
that I may be thankful, and praise you in it.

Lord, thank you for every single moment,
For the high-noon moment,
the job,
the necessary routine,
the unrelenting stress.
For the sweaty struggle,
the high risk challenge,
the impulse to change,
the fear of joblessness,
and thus stresslessness, challengelessness, and despair,
For my heart that is fierce,
and the courage that because of you is gathering inside me.

Ground me
to wrestle with whatever comes as a gift,
that I may be thankful, and may praise you in it.

Lord, thank you for every single moment,
For the moment shared with another,
the listening,
the unguarded word,
the knowing,
For the fragile openness,
the available smile,
the understood difference,
For my heart that is passionate,
and the trust that because of you is taking root inside me,
Stretch me,
To grow with whatever comes as a gift,
that I may be thankful and praise you in it.

Lord, thank you for every single moment,
For the holy moment,
the music,
the child’s eyes,
For the sunlight,
the forgiving touch,
the healing tears,
For the trembling delight
the unspeakable beauty,
and the breathing,
For my life and love and heart that are aware of your presence,
and the wholeness that because of you is welling up inside me,
Touch me,
Through whatever comes as a gift,
that I may be full of grace,
that I may say “thanks,”
and praise you in it all. Amen.

Thoughts on the discipline of detachment

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:14:47 -0600

I have been thinking of late about detachment. Not the aloof, distancing, unavailable, remote, pejorative kind. Not the kind that renders me somehow indifferent, apathetic, disinterested, or uninvolved. No, the monastic kind, the virtuous kind, the Jesus kind.

Detachment.

Sixth century monk, Dorotheus of Gaza, saw detachment as a way of being free from wanting certain things to happen and remaining so trusting in God that one is able to see what is happening as the thing that one wants, and in that, one can find peace in everything at all times.

Of course, let me be clear: I said I was thinking about detachment, didn't say anything at all about practicing it. I confess, though, to a longing for it, and to being my own best blinding light, stumbling block, and distraction. I get in the way, and detaching myself from the “me” that is so often in the way has proven difficult.

But I am learning it, which is to suggest that someone is teaching me. And I could not be more grateful. And it feels good. Loving as letting go, not in the sense of relinquishing or of losing or of pushing away and giving up, but in the sense of having hands free from holding on so tightly to protect ourselves from the fear of what "may be", free to receive the goodness, the beauty of what is, and of what is coming, whatever that may turn out to be.

Detachment is neither passive nor remote but is - paradoxically - fully engaged with the world and with God's people in it, strangers and friends alike. It is not a resignation but is a vigilance that allows one to see whatever comes as a gift from God. Nothing at all “resigned” about that.

Detachment does not mean being above it all and, thus, somehow untouched by it all, too. It acknowledges instead that one shares in a common human lot. That this story is our story, that we are in this thing together, and that detachment only brings me that much closer to you.

Take another look at our ancient prayerbook: "Our span is 70 years, or 80 for those who are strong, and most of these are emptiness and pain” Psalm 90:10.

Well. That’s that, I guess.

And yet, that is in itself a kind of prayer. Declarative, yes. But a prayer, nonetheless. And detachment is a kind of praying, too, isn't it? The kind of prayer that can fill all manner of emptiness and absorb all manner of pain. transforming them both into hope.

And hope springs eternal once in a while.

Then again, maybe not.

Ultimately, while it matters deeply, it also doesn’t. And in the midst of that paradox is a peace that says, “...come what may.”

The trust that faith depends on bids us come, let go, be freed, and find the courage to see God in it all. A peace that passes understanding.

I am beginning to understand.

Tonight the Wait is over

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:27:43 -0600

Tonight the wait is over. Tonight, all of the preparations have been made, or at this point, have been abandoned, and we are here to settle into a mystery, to gaze into a night sky and to follow that strange and inexplicable light and to join the crowd of believers and skeptics and disinterested ones alike, all of whom are gathering around a feeding trough whether they know it or not. Because tonight is the night when even the cynics among us take a sabbatical from their doubts—we all suspend our disbelief, believing again, if only for now, that God is born among us and that anything is possible. Tonight is the night where, with all of our singing, and praying, and hoping—we celebrate Emmanuel—which means God with us—and we claim him as Lord of our lives. Tonight is the night. And everything is in place.

We know the carols, we know the readings, we know the whole story so well we can tell it by heart: the star, the shepherds, the sheep, the angel, the baby—a pastoral picture so still and serene and scandalous all at once—taken down year after year from the highest shelf of your imagination, dusted off, placed on the mantle with care, candles lit, music playing softly in the background, “Joy to the World. Peace on Earth. Good will toward men.” God with us. And nothing is ever the same.

Well, tonight is the night to do him a favor, and to do yourself a favor, too. Tonight you have the indescribable opportunity to reach again into that picture, to reach into that mangy feeding trough, and to take him into your arms, a bundle of new life about as heavy as a sack of self-rising flour, his head bruised and misshapen from his rough entrance into this rough world. Examine his tiny fingernails, count his little toes, smell his sweet breath, and feel the warmth of his swaddling clothes and whisper to yourself, “I am holding God in my arms, a baby, all for the love of me.” Shocking, isn’t it? To behold the King of the Universe with a speck of cow manure on his cheek, unable to turn over on his stomach without some assistance, utterly dependent on the kindness and sensitivity of his own creatures. Sure, we know the story by heart, but do we have any earthly idea what it means? What child is this? What is God’s message for us this night?

In the first place, a baby is—in the best of worlds—evidence that a love affair has taken place, and that is certainly the case here. God has loved humanity from our beginnings, but the relationship we’ve shared has always been a rocky one. From the start God figured paradise would be a nice gift for us, and he gave us everything and held his breath and hoped for the best. We had everything. But we wanted more. We wanted to possess everything, including him, and we wound up homeless. “All right,” God said patiently, “you need something a bit more concrete. Let’s make a deal together, a covenant. You and Me. I’ll be your God. And you will be my people. You’ll be faithful to me, and I’ll be faithful to you.” But we weren’t faithful. We doubted God at every turn, protested his promises, and proclaimed with each breath that we didn’t understand what he wanted from us. “All right,” God said, “you need some guidelines. Here are ten; it would please me for you to follow them. But more than that, they’re for your own good. If you choose to ignore them, you do so at your own risk. But if you keep them, you’ll be happy.” But we broke them, again and again, in more ways than one. “All right,” God said, “you need for me to simplify. How’s this: Love me, love each other…just those two, nevermind the complicated stuff.” But even that was not enough, and the history of our love affair with God is the repeated story of a dysfunctional relationship marked by our infidelity and his forgiveness. And every time the distance between us threatened to do us in, or to bring our love for one another to a crashing halt, it is God who has stepped across the gaping hole left by our illusions of independence and self-sufficiency; it is God who has taken on more and more of the burden, until with the birth of a baby he accepted every bit of it, once and for all.

Tonight, through the helpless whimpers of a newborn baby, God says, put that old agreement on hold, I have something new in mind, harder for me, better for you, and that’s a price I’m willing to pay to have you back in my arms again. From now on, you do not have to come to where I am, however much I would love to have you. I am so crazy in love with you that I will come all the way to where you are, to be flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone. I will do it all, every bit, and all you have to do is believe that I have it in me to do this for you, that I really do love you, love you exactly the way that you are, love you enough to become one of you, love you to death, and that all of this is from me to you as—gift.

We look everywhere we can in this crazy world for something scandalous enough to catch our attention, and to hold it for a while, so we can talk about it, form opinions around it, and craft a response. We need to look no further. Immanuel – God with us. It is a scandalous move on God’s part. Where is his majesty, now? Where is his pride? What makes him believe that we will respect him after he has made himself vulnerable, laid himself bare like that? God is shameless and persistent, willing to be reduced to a helpless thing in diapers if it will help us love him the way he loves us.

This is the mystery we come to worship tonight, the mystery of incarnation, the mystery of God becoming flesh, of a God so in love with us that he came to be one of us, and it is something that we know so well we are apt to forget that we do not understand it at all. If we did understand it for what it really is, we would probably behave more like Hannah, a five year old girl who ended her own version of the Christmas story by asking her listeners this question? “Then the baby was borned,” she said, “And do you know who he was?” “The baby was God,” she whispered, and leaped into the air, twirled around, and dove into the sofa, where she covered her head with pillows. It was the only proper response to the good news of what this Christmas story is all about, and those of us without pillows over our heads may wonder if we have ever really heard it at all yet.

So that is the first part of tonight’s message. This baby is a love-child, in whom God shows us just how far he will go to be held in our arms. The second part of the message is that in doing so, he has forever blurred the distinction between the holy and the human, the sacred and the ordinary. He could have come among us as some mighty emperor, a victorious warrior, clearly superior and beyond our reach and that way he would have been more easily recognizable and we could have kept our distance from him. But God chose to come among us as a child, and a poor child at that. Choosing flesh, he chose the lowest common denominator, and left us no room for escape. That is why it is so important tonight to let the light of that star show us a real child, to believe that what Mary and Joseph were holding was no Hallmark baby, but a belching, squalling infant who kept them up every night for weeks, and eventually got into everything that wasn’t locked shut or bolted to the ground, and that in choosing to make his entrance in such an ordinary way, God showed us that blood, and flesh, and dirt, and sky, and life, and death were all good enough for him. More than that, he made those ordinary parts of life holy by taking part in them, by being attentive, by being involved, and he left us nothing on earth that we can dismiss as trivial, unimportant, or unknown to him. So that now, the whole world is alive to his grandeur, and nothing remains untouched by the hand of God, so much so that there is gold in the straw and myrrh in the dung on the floor, and the donkeys smell like incense, and the dogs bark hosanna, and the star shows seekers and skeptics from every corner of the world where to look for God—not up in the heavens, but down in the gorgeous muck and mud and the beautiful hubbub of the everyday world in which we live.

For tonight, at least, let us revel in the light of that star under which the ordinary becomes holy and the holy ordinary, under which it becomes exceedingly clear that there is nothing more we must do or be to be loved and held and rescued by God. We are already loved beyond our wildest dreams for being exactly the way we are. Let us believe on this Christmas Eve and Christmas day and on every day of our lives—let us believe that what our True Love sends us is God’s own holy self, in skin around bone like ours, and if we have the wisdom and the courage and the sense to embrace the everyday stuff of the goings-on of our lives, then let us believe that it is God himself who is born in our arms, and who lives and dies and lives again in our hearts. And may the star shine on for those with eyes to see. When once we had waited, now we wait no more. He has come among us. It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms, come down for us and for our salvation. Amen.