Tag: advent

The Longest Night of the Year

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the longest night of the year

photo credit: Adam Hill (http://www.adamhillstudios.ca/)

Last night I attended a special service at my church known as “The Longest Night of the Year,” or “Blue Christmas,” when we as a community remember those for whom this season is marked by grief rather than celebration. We make space to bring our unfulfilled longings, losses, and pain into the open instead of hiding them behind any kind of festive veneer, and we sings songs that are full of both sorrow and hope.

The room was dark except for a few radiant candles. Sometimes the room was filled with beautiful, gentle music; other times it was hushed and still. We passed around a fresh cedar bough–a symbol of cleansing and healing–and as each person held it in their hands, they were invited to name their sadness aloud or take a moment of silence to bring it to mind. Then they would pass the fragrant branch to the person beside them and we would all speak over them, “Oh God, surround them in your love.”

Many of us shed tears, but it was not a depressing atmosphere. It was honest and sad, but hopeful. We believed that Jesus is coming, and that he has come–that Jesus is with us now. I believe that many of us left feeling both stronger and more vulnerable than when we came in. (At least, that’s how it was for me.) That space was holy. I cannot think of a better way to observe Advent.

Earlier this week, I wrote a reflection on grieving with hope for SheLoves Magazine’s Advent series. It’s a brief meditation on one of the lesser-known women in the Christmas story, and what it means to celebrate the light even while we are surrounded by darkness:

“Women figure prominently in the story of Jesus’ birth. From an early age, I learned about Mary’s unwavering trust in God, and her courage; I was told about Elizabeth’s joy at the fulfillment of a dream she had long since abandoned. Yet as an adult, I find that the most haunting female presence in the story is a woman I never learned about during my childhood—a woman who technically wasn’t even there…”

Head on over to SheLoves Magazine to read the rest.

Glimpses of the Kingdom

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This is the second week of Advent, the season of waiting for Christ to come to us in the midst of our darkness. Having spent the last several years getting to know people in poverty and on the margins of society, I am pretty much constantly aware of that darkness, and it is sometimes easy to lose sight of the light altogether. That’s why I want to hold onto any glimpses I catch of the kingdom slowly but surely breaking in, and I want to share a few of them here.

I recently completed a three-month volunteer training with Battered Women’s Support Services here in Vancouver, where my fellow trainees were a group of brave women with beautiful, compassionate hearts. Most of those women don’t identify as people of faith, but I felt the presence of God in the midst of the safe and loving community we built together. That strong sense of community was absolutely vital during the twelve intense weeks we spent staring injustice and violence in the face and sharing some very raw pieces of our own stories.  Exploring the ugliness of the world with a bunch of people who are committed to doing something about it helps keep my hope alive, and reminds me that there is strength in our shared vulnerability as human beings.

I’ve now begun fielding calls on the crisis line. From police to hospitals to courts, it’s been sobering to realize how often the systems that have been set up to protect the vulnerable actually let people slip through the cracks–or worse, further traumatize and isolate them. Sometimes, people struggling with mental health issues are given criminal records instead of help. Sometimes women are arrested for defending themselves against abusive partners while the men who batter them go free. I know this now, not only through statistics or reading articles or listening to experts talk about it, but from speaking to these women on the phone.  All too often, factors such as race, income level, and immigration status determine whether or not a woman will get the help she needs.

Volunteering with BWSS has been a steep learning curve, and the stories of violence and abuse that I have been hearing over the phone are heartbreaking. Yet I also feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the chance to support these brave, resilient women in resisting violence and pursuing lives of dignity and safety.  I am humbled by their tenacity in working against staggering odds to reclaim their own identities and the lives and to heal from trauma.

In other news, I’ve just landed my first paid job in Canada! Yesterday, I accepted a position working directly with refugee claimants: people who have fled their countries of origin because of violence or persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinions or membership in a particular social group. In contrast to privately-sponsored or government-assisted refugees, refugee claimants undertake their dangerous journey without knowing whether or not they will be granted asylum when they reach their destination. They often face detention upon arrival, and the months-long refugee claims process that follows can be a stressful and scary time while claimants struggle to navigate an unfamiliar system, gather evidence for their case, and wait for their fate to be decided by the powers that be.

My job will bring me into contact with families at all stages of this process, but my main responsibility will be to support those whose refugee claims have recently been approved, journeying alongside them as they begin the process of integrating into the local community and helping them to find employment.

I start tomorrow, and I can’t wait. In the face of all the violence and hateful rhetoric lately, I am beyond thrilled to be able to extend the welcome of Christ to refugee claimants from around the world—Muslim and otherwise—who have come to this country seeking safety. I look forward to all of the beautiful people I will meet, and to all the ways they are sure to challenge and humble me and force me to grow, causing me to see more (and differently) than I did before.

I give thanks for every step a woman takes towards freedom and safety. I give thanks for every refugee’s safe arrival, and every successful application for asylum.  I celebrate every small victory for justice in our world, and I recognize Christ’s coming in our midst. Still, I wait impatiently in the dark, willing these pin-prick stars to turn into daylight.

God, be born in our hearts. In our fractured world, let us be the midwives of goodness and truth coming into being.

I am writing a book.

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Three days ago, we had the first snowfall of the season, and it’s still on the ground. Here in Canada, everything is cold and white right now, and I sleep under thick blankets, type next to a space heater during the day, and try to learn how to dress properly with layers and layers of wool. I still remember those TV infomercials a few years ago about “Snuggies,” the blankets with arms that looked like cultic robes when the ad showed what looked like a family of suburban Druids enjoying a nighttime camp fire in their matching fleece ensemble. Now I am cold enough to wear a snuggie around the house without shame, cold enough not to care whether I look like an infomercial from the last decade or a member of a pagan cult.Advent has just begun: the season of waiting for the first spark of hope in the dead of winter, of looking for signs of life in the midst of death. Even Christmas itself will not the triumphant victory of Easter–it will be the quiet celebration of hope born into the world, even while oppression reigns. Shepherds and wise men visit this child in secret, because baby Jesus will still have to flee Herod’s genocide and grow up under foreign occupation before he leads justice to victory and inaugurates the Kingdom. I feel the tension and the hope of this waiting, this hope that is stubborn but uncertain of when fulfillment and completion will come.

I look at squirrel and bird tracks in the snow on the roof outside my window as I edit the manuscript of my book. The scenes outside are so different from the ones that linger in my mind. I’m writing about my life in India: what it was like to be an outsider accepted into community across boundaries of race, religion, culture, and socioeconomic background. I’m writing about how life with Muslim friends shaped my own faith, and how confronting suffering in the lives of my neighbors who were materially poor has challenged me to make sense of where God is in the midst of all the pain. I’m writing about how Muslims and Christians and rich and poor need one another, about what it means for us to love our enemies, and about the changes that community brings in us as individuals and in our world. I’m primarily writing about my own journey, and the love that I have continued to discover no matter how far I travel in any direction.

The process of writing has been good for me. It forces me to be present to process rather than destination, and this is certainly a process over which I have only limited control and knowledge about how long it will take or what the final result will be.

But it’s difficult, because sometimes spending my days writing feels like living with ghosts—not only of my friends and neighbors in India, but of many of my own dreams, expectations, and self-definitions as well. Aside from that, daring to ask for help, to show my writing to others, or to even say out loud that I am working on a book brings my insecurities out of the shadows, revealing my fears about whether this story really will come together in the end, whether it will get published, what people will think about it (and about me) if it is published.

But I believe that it is a story worth telling, even a story that needs to be told, and so I keep on writing. I am struggling, not to bring characters to life, but to allow the vibrant life of the real people I have known to shine through the pages. I want you to see them, to care about them, to learn from them. I am still learning from them myself.

Advent has begun: the season of waiting, expectation, and hope. Whispered promises of new possibilities to come. I am living towards these possibilities, working towards what, as yet, I have never seen but still believe is possible. I struggle on despite my fears, my fresh memories of loss, and the uncertainties of the future.

I trust that new life can begin even in the dead of winter, that those whispers of hope are trustworthy, and that we are but the midwives of the dreams God wants to birth into this world.

Stay tuned.

Advent

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          Two years ago, we were waiting to move to India for the first time. This advent season, we are waiting for visas to be processed so that we can return to India. There are certainly times that seem more clearly marked than others by uncertainty or waiting, but the truth is that Advent speaks to our perpetual life experience of living in the present and waiting for the future to unfold. No matter what season of life we are in, we harbor hopes, fears, and expectations in our hearts; we turn excitement, possibilities, or dread over and over in our minds. And advent speaks to that tension of suspended possibilities; of hoping and preparing but not knowing how it all will turn out.

I used to think it was a bit artificial to go through the motions of supposedly waiting in suspense for something that we all knew was coming in a predictable form on a predictable schedule. After all, Advent culminates in Christmas every year. No surprises there. But Advent is not just the season of counting down to Christmas day—it’s also the long vigil for God’s arrival. We are waiting for God to be born in our world, to grow in our lives, to proclaim peace in every painful situation of conflict and confusion that we find ourselves tangled up in. And the truth is that while we may have our own ideas of what that will mean, we don’t know exactly what it will look like when it happens.

Advent, a wise priest told me last week, is the spiritual art of waiting for the unexpected: preparing ourselves for what we know while remaining open to the unknown. If we aren’t on the lookout for Jesus, we’ll be caught off guard by his arrival in our lives. But if all of our careful planning fools us into believing that we can predict and control the future, then that rigorous preparation may actually prevent us from embracing him when he comes! Our assumptions may prevent us from accepting the surprising ways that Christ chooses to incarnate in our lives and in our world. It’s a delicate balance of planning and not planning; preparation and spontaneity.