Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus!

Happy birthday, Baby Jesus.

Even when your birthday’s through.

All year long we remember,

Each precious gift we get from you.

–Clark & Jan Gassman

Baby Jesus has a grubby face. I supposed I should have expected it. I did manage to get the crayon off his head, but even with repeated washing and determined scrubbing with alcohol, he has the unmistakable marks of the many hands through which he has passed over the years. He doesn’t seem to mind.

The year I decided I wanted to send Baby Jesus home with folks during Advent, I knew I wanted a doll that looked like a newborn. There were a number of doll candidates in the church nursery, but none of them seemed quite right. I began looking online for something that might look a bit more like a baby, and less like a Cabbage Patch doll or GI Joe. I had no idea there would be so many choices. This brilliant idea had, unfortunately, hit me in mid-November, rather than August, so there were two important factors in making a choice—how soon it could be delivered, and how much money I was willing to spend. As tempting as it was to get an anatomically correct baby Jesus, I opted for a gender-neutral doll, and the assurance that it could be delivered within three days. I was all set.

On the first Sunday of Advent, I introduced the congregation to Baby Jesus. I invited people to volunteer to take him home for the week. The following Sunday, they were to bring Baby Jesus back to church and share the story of what the week had been like. They could take pictures, write up a little report, or just share some of their experiences.

A lot of parents and grandparents were familiar with the Flat Stanley paper doll that many schools use to encourage literacy. For those who are not familiar with it, “Flat Stanley” was originally a children’s book called Flat Stanley’s Worldwide Adventures by Jeff Brown. It is about a boy who mails himself to a friend, so they could have adventures together. A third grade teacher from London, Ontario, named Dale Hubert, took the book, and created a program to help his students get excited about reading and writing. The program he started in 1995 is now used world-wide to encourage literacy. A child colors a paper version the book character, and then sends him off to friends, relatives, or even famous people to have adventures, and then be returned to the student with pictures and a written report. So, I figured, if folks were game to have adventures with Flat Stanley, taking home Baby Jesus wouldn’t be that much more of a stretch! At least I hoped so.

Even so, I wasn’t at all sure that this idea was going to fly. There  were a number of possible scenarios that would mean my idea had flopped: I might not see Jesus again until after Christmas; Jesus might be left under some child’s bed to preach to the dust bunnies; or (horrors!) no one might volunteer to take him home!

I was totally relieved when Sara, a young mom with two sons, volunteered to take Jesus home the first week. After that, there was someone willing to take Jesus home throughout Advent, and on to Epiphany. One teenager took Jesus to High School with her. He went to Homeroom, got to see what a locker looked like, and apparently took long naps in the afternoons. A retired couple were surprisingly inventive. Jesus must have been exhausted by the end of the week: they played cards with friends; went on a horse and buggy ride; sledded with the grandkids (He fell off a few times, but never complained); and spent the evenings sitting reading beside the fire with his hosts. The reports, as they came in on Sundays, were greeted with great appreciation by the entire congregation. It was just delightful. The conversations continued past the official hour of worship, through coffee hour and into the week, as many folks considered what it would be like to have Jesus in our homes—the infant or the man. We might never have gotten there, without the help of a lifelike(ish*) baby doll.

My experiment would not have worked in every church I have served over the years. In fact, I tried doing it again a few years later, and it just didn’t take off in the same way as it did that first year. There are no guarantees when you are trying to catch the winds of the Spirit. But even if the response of the entire congregation had not been as effusive that first time, the risk would have been totally worth it, if only for the week that Sara and her boys took Baby Jesus home.

Baby Jesus, like the well-loved Rabbit who lived in the nursery in the beloved book, The Velveteen Rabbit, became real—grubby face and all. Sara hadn’t shared the entire story on the Sunday they returned Baby Jesus from his week in their home. It was a few days later, as we sat talking over a cup of coffee, that she explained how moved she had been by the whole experience. Sara hadn’t known what to expect from her two active boys. But from the moment they brought him home, things changed. They played with Jesus, shared their toys with Jesus, took him to the dinner table, wrapped him up in a blanket and took turns taking him to bed with them. Sara read them the Bible stories about Jesus, and as they sat holding Jesus in their laps, the stories took on a different feeling. They weren’t just stories anymore. Jesus wasn’t just a name in a book anymore. And just what, Beloved of God, could be better than that?

Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus.

*My daughter wasn’t totally convinced that he looked lifelike. But she kept her opinions to herself. She said his expression was a bit creepy. Personally, I don’t see it.

Beloved:

This week, I am helping lead a retreat at Suttle Lake. There are three of us leading. The other two leaders, Kate and Michael, have been leading this retreat for over thirty years. Last year, they decided it might be time to invite someone new into the mix, so they asked our camp director, Jane Petke for suggestions. Jane generously suggested they give me a call. Many of the participants have been coming a long time, but there are always one or two new people who find their way here each fall.

            The schedule of days is a lovely balance. We worship three times per day together. In the morning, we meet before breakfast and Kate leads us as we sing, read the day’s scripture and share communion. At 11:00 a.m., I am teaching Centering Prayer. Then at 5:00 p.m., Michael takes us through our scripture in more depth, as we dwell together in the meaning of the text. After dinner, there is a program based on a book that is chosen by the leaders each year. The rest of the time is up to the individual. Hiking, resting, reading, conversation, jig saw puzzles—or just sitting in the sunshine breathing deeply of the pine scented air.

            The program this year is based on a book by Sister Joan Chittister entitled: The Gift of Years: Growing older gracefully. The title might give you a hint as to the age group of our participants. (I am one of the few folks not retired.) But it is an excellent book, that Sr. Joan wrote the year she turned 70. She realized that her life was moving into a new place, an unexplored place, and she wanted to prepare for it with grace.

            In one chapter, Chittister quotes Meribel Le Sueur, who in her nineties wrote: I am luminous with age.  Oh! I want to be that too!

            When I was young, I sometimes visited a nursing home with an adult friend. Some of the folks were simply lovely, but others were difficult to talk to—they were downright cranky. After we had done some visitation, one of the workers at the center taught me something that I have never forgotten. She said, people don’t change who they are when they reach old age—the just become more of who they have been all along. Whoever I have practiced being for all the years of my life, is who I become when I am old. Just MORE. There are no filters. All the world can now see who it is you have spent your life practicing to be. I want to be the old lady in the nursing home (if I have to be in a nursing home) whom all the nurses and staff love. So much so, that they save me all the extra chocolate pudding! I’m not quite that adorable yet, but I’m working on it.

            Now that I am a person of a certain age, I am beginning to get notices online and in the mail about Medicare and old age supplemental insurance. There is no avoiding it. I’m getting older. And I am starting to reflect about what it is that I have been becoming all these decades that are now in the past, and who I still hope to become as my life enters into unknown territory.

            When an infant is born, she is born spiritually naked. Totally vulnerable. Fully knowable. Open and waiting to be shaped. Nothing is hidden. Over time, he learns how to protect himself from harm. She layers protective shields to defend heart and mind and soul. It is necessary if any of us is to survive in a rough and tumble world.  In time, we become very good at hiding who we are on the inside from the dangers of the outside. We become opaque with barriers between ourselves each other, between ourselves and the world, and sometimes between ourselves and whoever it is who is hiding deep within. I wonder, if part of the process of aging, at least from the perspective of the spirit, is that we go through a kind of reversal. We strip away layer after layer after hard-won layer—to once again be a naked spiritual being. Transparent. Whole. Revealed as we truly are. Consonant. Cohesive. The inner life and the outer life are in sync. We are luminous with old age.

            There is a sense where coming to the place in my life where I am becoming “more” is a relief. I can drop all my well-intentioned protections and simply be who God is calling me to be. I’ve been practicing. It isn’t always easy. But, Oh! My beloved! Just imagine—all of us together, luminous, kind, funny, forgiving, resilient, brave, compassionate—what a beautiful sight to behold.

            And don’t forget to pass the chocolate pudding.

Blessings! See you Sunday. Pastor Nancy

Beloved:

There is nothing quite like having long conversations with someone from Deer Ridge to challenge all my judgments and assumptions. It has been almost two years since I began working in the education department at the prison up the hill. With a simple change of clothes, some of the men there would never be taken for a person who has spent most of their adolescence and adult life incarcerated. There are others, whose past no change of wardrobe could disguise.

            I work one-on-one, each inmate’s need dictates what we will work on. Sometimes my job is to listen, at other times, instruct. But always, always, I am much more the learner than the teacher. The men I work with are all highly motivated. They are within months of being paroled. All of them have come through the education department with deficits of opportunity and hope. The staff, peer tutors and volunteers are dedicated folks. The work they do to create possibilities of a future on the outside is spectacular. And then we send them out.

             And often, beloved, the sad truth is, that we send them out to fail. Generally, a person is paroled to the community from which they were incarcerated. They may be given the opportunity to live in a group home facility, where they can begin the process of finding work, or going to school, or going to rehab. These transitional places are many rungs lower than ideal. They are often located in neighborhoods where the incidence of homelessness, drug availability and gang activity are rampant. Upon parole, a person is suddenly dropped into a world of needing to make the kinds of decisions most of us take for granted—when to get up or go to bed, what and when to eat, what to do with my time in between job interviews, what to do with a free evening, how to manage my money, how to make a friend who won’t get me into trouble, negotiating things like laundromats, tipping in a restaurant, casual conversation.

            How much help a parolee receives is dependent upon the resources of the particular community, the parole officer to whom he is assigned, and how the system relates to the history of the individual. I have noticed that someone who has been in and out of the system multiple times generally gets less help. The parolee is suddenly without community. Prison may not be the best kind of community, but at least you know the rules: show no weakness, don’t take any disrespect, don’t trust anyone but your own crew. The only community they have known on the outside, they need to avoid, or risk everything.

            The odds are so stacked against them. Because of my relationship with the institution, I am not allowed to continue contact with inmates after they leave Deer Ridge. That makes total sense. But it is hard. I wish I were there on the other end, to help them find safe places, to guide them in negotiating all the strangeness they are facing, to connect them with faith communities, and people who would be able to see their strengths and not just their mistakes.

            And, the more I get to know about the men with whom I am working, the more I realize how complex a problem we are facing. All of the hundreds of men up the hill will be leaving here to become our neighbors. And I want them to succeed: to have meaningful work, raise their children, have a full and interesting life. But the way our systems are set up, most of them will fail.

            When I learn the stories, hear the determination in their voices to live a different kind of life, I feel like our society has failed them. What would my life have been like, if I had walked where they have had to walk. My guess is, I would not have survived as well as they have given the same options: poverty, abuse, instability, inadequate housing, neglect, hopelessness.

This year I have been working to create a cadre of folks around the state who are willing to connect with some of the men Jan and I have worked with as they are paroled–just to be a contact and possibly a mentor. It is a tiny little thing. Totally voluntary on the part of the parolee. Just someone who is willing to see them just as they are—to grab a cup of coffee, to listen to their struggles, and maybe let them know that they are not alone. One of the things I have learned from working up the hill, is the power of personal connection and story. One person at a time. It doesn’t feel like enough. But, it is a beginning.

Blessings beloved, Pastor Nancy

Beloved:

My grandfather had a special mason jar filled he kept in the fridge. When he would come in from the fields after changing pipe or hauling hay, he would stand there right in front of the door and finish it off in one long satisfying go.

Every summer, my family spent a week or two at my grandparents’ farm. My siblings and I don’t agree on many things, but we all concur that time spent at Grandma and Grandpa’s was just the best. By modern standards, there wasn’t anything to “do.” We were expected to entertain ourselves and stay out of the adults’ way. The boys would often join dad and grandpa when he went irrigating. My sister and I most often played outdoors with the dishes and clothes that grandma had stored in a big old trunk in the old chicken coop.

Grandpa irrigated his lawn, so that the grass was like walking on a carpet. You could run in it barefoot without worry of getting a sticker in your foot from thistles or weeds. The big cottonwood tree in the back was the home of the tire swing—that could be anything from a spaceship to a bucking bronco—depending which of us was using it at the time.

There were feral cats that grandma fed table scraps to each day. We would watch her perched in the kitchen sink, because they wouldn’t come if we were outside. Every once in a while, we might catch a glimpse of a kitten in the haystack, but they were wild little things that had no difficulty escaping from our well-meaning attentions.

The only thing we didn’t like about our visits to the farm, was the water. Our grandparents were on a well. When you turned on the faucet, it smelled of minerals and whatever else might be lurking. To a bunch of city kids, this just wasn’t right. Grandma tried to make it more palatable by making pitchers of Kool-aid. They weren’t pre-sweetened back then, and the instructions suggested adding one cup of sugar. I don’t know how much sugar she used, but I always felt that if I suddenly bit down while I was drinking, my teeth would go “crunch.” It helped. And, at least, it was better than the water from the tap.

Except. The mason jar in the refrigerator. I know for a fact that my sister and brothers and I never talked about the mason jar. But there was just something alluring about seeing grandpa guzzle down that cool water that made it seem like it must have come from a special spring—reserved only for him. We had seen him fill it, so we knew it was from the tap. But, there was just something about seeing that jar on its shelf every time we looked in the fridge.

One summer day, I was by myself in the kitchen. I was thirsty, so I opened the fridge. And there it was: Grandpa’s jar. Cool. Clear. Tempting. I’m sure grandpa wouldn’t mind if I had just a little sip. So, very carefully, I took a little sip, or two. It was good. Really good. No one noticed.

The next day, I did the same. Not much, just a little. I’m sure no one would mind. Grandma always kept a store of Juicy Fruit gum in the cupboard for when we came to visit. We never had to ask to have some. We knew it was okay. This must be like that. At least that is what I tried to tell myself.

A day or so later, my sister and I were playing in the back yard and we suddenly heard grandpa’s voice. It was loud. He called us all into the kitchen. I don’t know about everyone else, but my heart was beating really fast. It beat even faster when we got into the kitchen and discovered what grandpa was upset about. He was standing at the door of the refrigerator (letting all the cool air out, as grandma would always complain). He was holding his mason jar. It had about a half inch of water in the bottom. Not nearly enough to quench a raging thirst.

The four of us stood quietly in front of him. “Who drank all my water?” We all looked at the floor. I knew with absolute certainty that Ihad not drank that whole jar of water. I only took a sip or two. Then it suddenly came to me, I wasn’t the only one! Not one of us confessed, because we were all thinking exactly the same thing, “I didn’t drink all your water.”

Grandpa didn’t stay mad long. He requested, in his gruff serious voice, that if we took a sip, we needed to refill the jar. Obviously, that had not occurred to any of us. We had, after all, just taken a sip or two.

Perception is an interesting thing. The well water was undrinkable in my mind. There was no way I would ever willingly drink anything that came out of that smelly faucet. And yet, the picture of my grandfather thoroughly enjoying draining that jar made four children decide that something magical must have happened to make that same water the best thing any of us had ever tasted.

There are lots of things that I might learn from that story: always refill the jar, for one. But I think the thing that captures me about this memory, is that the water became sweet, not because of a container, or a temperature, but because of my grandfather. He declared it wonderful. And so, it was.

God declares a lot more things to be wonderful than I do: people, situations, invitations. Oh, I usually get there with enough prodding. But I wonder what my life would be like if I simply watched God, like my siblings and I watched our grandfather, for the cues that would teach me about blessings, wonder and grace. My guess is that something magical might happen.

Blessing, Pastor Nancy