We understand this time of Advent as a time of waiting. Not only waiting for the Christ child but also waiting for the return of Christ the King. How can we recapture the joy of waiting in this time of door busters? What can the church demonstrate to the world about the true reason for all these gifts? How are we, as people of faith to respond, without being otherworldly and without being ones stepping on the Wal-Mart employee? My question for this week is, "How do we live as Advent people?"
In Christ's Service,
Jeremiah
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What an appropriate (if very sad) image to depict the cultural "bread which does not satisfy": waiting for the sale. Such waiting indeed brings us not what we hope, but death. Literal death, as you so aptly lift up, Jeremiah.
I have to say that, though we may wax theological about that, and cast aspersions at those whom we may label as misguided - those waiting overnight at the doors of our modern-day shrines to the church of the consumer i.e. (Wal-Mart) - we also need to be compassionate with such misguided yearning. It is in many ways the yearning born of anxiety: people with shrinking resources, hoping to get a bit bigger slice of what seems to us a very tiny pie. I have nothing but compassion for that impulse - because it's also my own. It's my own worry about our family budget, our church's upcoming year...that puts me among those wanting to be waiting at the doors for the sale, to crash through them to be first in line for the flat-screens. It's also me there, trampling on the sales guy, because if I stop, I die too.
But, of course, reading the gospel we know that Jesus "done messed it all up" in the words of one of Flannery O'Connor's colorful characters. Once you hear the vision of life as depicted in the gospel, we'll always know that such things will always leave us unsatisfied. WE can never feel good waiting outside THOSE doors. Once we read the story of Christ's love, Christ's self-donation, we cannot be the same. We can't be satisfied with 50% off. We can only be satisfied with a feast that is free, and completely satisfying.
I guess here's what I yearn for - here's what I wait for. I find myself wishing that we could find some counter-cultural symbol for the feast that we could all rally round; something that would say to the world, "Hey, there's another sale...over here!"
Not something overly pious. Not something terribly onerous. But something that would say: we're different. We stand with the yearning of the masses outside Wal-Mart, and invite them to a different feast. We even stand for the Midwestern execs in white shirts and black ties who calculate thinner and thinner profit margins - they too belong at the feast. But how do we point to it, here and now, even as we wait outside the doors? What would that be?
Would it be like Shane Claiborne's friends, frivilously giving away $10,000 outside the doors of wall street - the $$ that one of the homeless in their community won in a law suit? Would it be something like Ryan White's 3rd grade class shaving their heads in solidarity with him (having lost his hair to cancer treatment)? What radical (that is "rooted in the gospel") symbol could we lift up that would make clear what WE are waiting for?
Maybe it's performance art in Palmer Square (talk with Jake about his stint outside a movie theater)....but then again, maybe not. Maybe we signify our hope in simple and quiet ways. No more neckties; instead, goats for a Laotian farmer through Heifer Project. (Every year, I give my family sheep, my in-laws goats...). Maybe it's no more Christmas goose around our family table; Christmas spam at the homeless center - maybe that's the real feast. Maybe those are the doors we're waiting outside of. A show more clear and fun than anything in hi-def.
What ideas are out there for the REAL doors at which we ought to be waiting? What's the real feast we're waiting for - that may indeed be right beneath our noses?
Jeff V. - yearning in the season....
One more comment - this one from the "pen" of Liz Pasko. This is a Letter to the Editor she wrote recently, and gave me permission to post it to our blog. Thanks Liz!
As a child of the Kennedy era, it seems to
me that we should be asking what we can do for our country.
As a "hope er" I think we have to be the change we hope to see
in the world. As a promoter of the positive, I believe that when
things are as grim as they are now, maybe we should make our
own good news. well... they printed it... so it is out there... moving forward.
good thoughts love, liz
A new president will not really change our lives.
The politics of possibilities still means that we must step up
and find ways to make things better, for ourselves, our neighbors,
our country.
This is the season of giving. This year there may not be an abundant
harvest. The food banks are empty, and our local charities will not be
assisting the same number of families they have served in the past. It
doesn't matter who's the president of the nation when your neighbors are
hungry, your local library is closed, or programs at your child's school are
cut. " Diversity and reality will inspire the nation" because it's where and
how the ordinary people regardless of politics step up and take up the slack
for the things they value with their time and attention.
I 've been volunteering at an afterschool program on Greenwood Ave.
It's a five day program that serves 40 elementary students. The majority
of tutor/mentors walk over from TCHS. It's good kids helping good kids in
an atmosphere of hope and nurture. It's positive action, and proof that the
lessons of character and giving back to the community are working. We train
our kids that it's their responsibility to do what they can to help the community.
Hope becomes the opposite of fear when you can see the light
at the end of the tunnel. We still have some distance to go. It'll take
everybody's cooperation to move forward.
liz pasko
5 harbourton woodsville rd.
pennington, nj 08534
609 466 1605
Perhaps bread and wine would do. And of course a proclamation of the One whom that sign signifies.
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