The Winter List

Snowy day at Southborough L'Abri

So, I've been trying to think lately about what things I want on my Winter List. For newcomers, this year, I have been trying to make a list of all the things I want to do in each season of the year, things that I feel like the season would be incomplete without. Summer went swimmingly. Fall was jam packed, but fun. Winter...is more of a challenge. Of course the first things I associate with winter "must dos" all have to do with Christmas, the baking, the gifts, the caroling. Check and check. But Christmas is over, and I probably have a good three months of winter yet to fill. I try to also focus my lists on things that I will actually do (taking up skiing would be a great winter activity, but not likely to happen anytime soon) and for this winter, I am trying to balance indoor and outdoor activities. One of the things that I think is great about winter is that it makes staying inside feel cozy and luxurious, rather than stuffy and lazy, which it feels like at other months of the year. So here is the list so far. You can make suggestions if you like. I sure do love making lists...

1. Visit the Botanical Gardens: Sure it makes sense to visit in the summer, but it's nice to go when there's nothing green outside, to anticipate spring. Besides, how could I miss the amaryllis and cymbidium show?!?!
2. Go sledding...the question is, where? Oh, and I have no sled. But a quick trip to Toys R Us would fix that. I prefer the inflatable tubes...
3.Visit the Albright-Knox. Believe it or not, I've been to our largest art museum a few times, but never actually toured the whole permanent collection. And it's free on Friday afternoons. Touring galleries makes more sense to me in the winter when you want to while away an afternoon somewhere warm.
4. Baking. Winter makes me want to bake. I currently have about three different cake recipes rattling around in my head, not to mention all the bread I want to try baking. And having the oven on makes the house warmer! Win!
5. A winter romp. There's something truly magical to me about the way that, when you get all bundled up and really prepare for the cold weather, you can go outside and not feel it. It's like becoming invincible. And everything is so quiet and your head feels so clear. Again, the question is where to go? I'll figure something out.
6. Colored Musician's Club, Zydeco/Cajun Partees: Free jazz music listening parties at one of the most historic sites in Buffalo? A chance to be in the same building that Lena Horne and Billie Holiday once stood in? Yes, please! And five dollars for gumbo, live music, and a dance lesson? All right, then.
7. Art/Craft/Game Night. Just warm things to do when it's cold outside. Spend more time painting, making collages, working on my crossstitch, inviting friends over for a friendly bout of Apples to Apples. Making popcorn. That's winter to me, right there.
8. Make a new best friend? Maybe? Maybe? This is still definitely in the thinking over/planning stages/I still need to run the idea past my housemates, but why not? No, seriously, if you have good reasons why not, you should tell me. I'm trying to be very thorough in my preparation, mental and otherwise.

Okay, those are my plans to warm up the winter and make it fly by. It's really not that bad, people, I don't care what you've heard on the news. Weather is just a state of mind. Let me know if I'm forgetting your ultimate winter activity! Unless it's skiing because...well, we've already gone over that.

S.

Advent Leftovers

One of my Baby's First Christmas ornaments. Awwww...so cute!

Mmmm...a warmed over post! Doesn't that sound tasty? In all honesty, I had some very specific things that I wanted to pontificate on from the Christmas season, and since it passed in such a whirl, and then I had to share my New Year's Guiding Directions, well, I'm just getting to it now. But! They are still important and were really meaningful to me. Also, over the Advent season, I was reading a collection of devotionals entitled Watch for the Light, from all different writers throughout all seasons of church history. I don't know that I will actually reference anything specific, but pretty much all of these revelations came while reading that book, so I feel like it deserves some kind of co-authorship credit.

The thing that I am trying not to launch into right now is my soapbox speech about how the church has lost its liturgical calendar and, therefore I feel, loses nuances in its seasons of celebration. Really, you have no idea the restraint I am exercising in not saying more than that. My fingers are cramping with my exertion at holding them back from saying all that is in my head. But I will say this: Advent and Christmas are not the same thing. Advent is the season of preparation, Christmas is the celebration of Christ's birth, and in the church calendar it doesn't start until Christmas Day! They are separate. And one of the nuances of their separation is that the season of Advent is a penitential season. I never knew this. That's why one of the central figures of Advent is John the Baptist, whose message is repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. I would now like to go on a tangent to say how much I love John the Baptist. I feel like in the heavenly family, you had the responsible, mature kids who grew up to be lawyers and doctors and made their families proud, and then there was John. John the embarrassment, who lived in the desert, wore what was always depicted in my bible story books as an ill fitting camel's hair onesie, and ate bugs. And yet this wild, crazy dude was the one God sent, the one maybe nobody felt like they could take seriously with a message nobody wanted to hear, but there he was. And he keeps coming back, every year. I want to listen to him.

The second thing that I was reflecting on is the revolutionary nature of Advent. If you look at the Magnificat, Mary's Song, beyond the first three or four oft quoted verses, you see a song of revolution, a song of inversions, in which the proud are scattered, the mighty brought down from their thrones and the humble are exalted, in which the poor are filled with good things and the rich sent empty away. I've never heard anyone preach on those verses of the Magnificat. I wonder if this might be because in contemporary mainline churches, we might identify more with the mighty, the proud, and the rich, and we don't feel that we can quite handle what this song seems to be saying about us and what the coming of Messiah means for people in our class. But maybe that just takes us right back up to point number one?

Last point: I was struck this year by the radical nature of the Incarnation. Let me back up. I feel like when we imagine Jesus coming to earth as a human, we put him in full Jesusness right into a baby's body, like a hand slipping into a glove in which the hand remains unaltered, only the outer form changes. He would have lived out his life knowing all along about the cross, following his father's will perfectly, utterly self-aware of his Jesusness every instant he was here, more wearing a costume than becoming one of us. (First of all, if you believe this, you are a Platonist! Confess!) But I believe that Jesus became fully human, which would mean, initially, fully baby. Knowing only what babies know, both about himself and the world around him. Jesus had to learn object permanence, that when his mother or his favorite toy was out of sight, that didn't mean it was gone forever. He had to learn to walk and talk. He had to learn how to discern and follow the will of God, which I guess he did perfectly, but not equipped with any extraordinary tools beyond what normal humans have. That's what I think, anyway, and in my experience, it changes Christmas, makes it even crazier to think of God coming to earth, not to float through with the ease of perfect understanding and self-conception, but with real human struggles and questions. This is not a systematic theology, so I can't cover all the implications of this assertion (and they are multifarious and variegated, as I'm sure you can guess). But my goal is more wonder than explication, so I hope I might have achieved that, at least in some small measure.

Okay, that's it. This is a long post. Merry Christmas! (Oh wait, Christmas is over. Like, way over. Can you tell I'm having a hard time letting go?)

S.

Third Resolution

Oh, yeah. There's been another one that's been bouncing around in the back of my brain too. Here it is:

3. Learning to laugh at myself. Generally, when I do something dumb. I just feel embarrassed about it. Forever. Like, it could be something that happened years and years ago. I still don't want to tell anyone about it. Being able to laugh at yourself, it seems to me, is the asphalt that can fill in and smooth out the potholes of life. Oh, look at that metaphor! It is so ridiculous! I am laughing at the ridiculousness of my own metaphor! Ha ha ha! Okay, not great. But at least it's a start...