Righting Christmas Wrongs

Well, it's over. The Christmas good times are a memory, the New Year's revels are still to come and all that's left are the exchanges of the mistakes under the tree. The size smalls which were too large and the size larges that were too small will be tossed onto the Clearance rack and gift cards will purchase what the wearer really wanted instead. Because of the Blizzard of 2010, the swap was delayed while the roads were cleared, but it was only a temporary pause. Everything wrong will soon be made right back at the malls.

What will remain in the hearts of those who celebrated, though, are the memories of that which wasn't under the tree: the relationships that got strengthened or weakened during the "I'll Be Home for Christmas" moments. What we choose to retain about the holidays is as much our decision now as the reality of our interactions last week. We can focus on any slights or failed expectations or we can let go of judgments and pray for inner peace.

For me, the holiday was wonderful, but not everyone in the world had a Hallmark experience. The resulting temptation to nurse those wounded feelings is really, really strong in all of us. Love, the scripture says, does not "brood over injury," but the mind doesn't easily give up its anger at being hurt. We want to distance ourselves and protect ourselves, and, at the same time, we also hope that this distance causes another some pain in return. We create a somewhat illusionary sense of control over them by not being open to reconciliation.

There's no better way, however, to continue feeling emotional pain than to continue to hold a grudge. The pain is ever present because the person is ever present in his/her worst moments. Holding onto that picture guarantees that we will never be free and that inner peace will always be just out of our grasp. Giving the hurt to God and praying for inner peace will lead to far more happiness than agonizing over the hurt in a desperate attempt to understand it. In most cases, we never will.

Peace should be the end we seek. The Christmas cards we all received expressed many wishes for it, but only we can choose to embrace it as our goal. The alternative is life as a victim of the carelessness of others or the care-less-ness of others, but the outcome is the same: darkness and pain for ourselves.

Walk in the Light, St. John tells us. St. Paul tells us how: Love does not brood over injury.

sons of God

It's not often that there's music during a homily, but last night we heard a couple of clips as the Deacon spoke about the coming of Emmanuel. We heard Michael Card sing about Joseph's doubt as he faced into his role as foster father of Jesus. It's called Joseph's Song:

How can a man be father to the Son of God
Lord for all my life I've been a simple carpenter
How can I raise a king, How can I raise a king

He looks so small, His face and hands so fair
And when He cries the sun just seems to disappear
But when He laughs it shines again

What struck me about these words is the utter familiarity of them. What father or mother has not looked at the baby just birthed and not said, "Dear God, how can I raise this miracle so that the pure love I see here does not disappear?"

The prospect of parenthood is overwhelming in those early days (and not only then!). The real nature of the call that we all have is so clear and the baby's innocence is so apparent that the overwhelming responsibility seems almost too much to bear.

Joseph's song speaks of the Son of God, but we could sing the same words because we all are a son of God or a daughter of God. The words during the Baptismal rite of anointing pray that As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life.We all have a share in the kingship of Christ.

How can any of us raise a king? How can any of us raise a son of God? How can any of us raise a daughter of God?

Only by God's grace can we be the parents we want to be when that little one is placed into our arms at birth. We see pure, accepting love and we want to be pure, giving love in return.

Too soon, though, our own needs - legitimate needs - come to the fore and the love the child must learn is how to function as a member of a family in which others must be considered. Adapting to these needs prepares a child to live in the wider world where there will be a demand for his or her time, gifts and resources. This is Love's cycle: the child as gift becomes a gift to others.

All of us grownups are sons and daughters of God, too. May we look at each other as we honor Christmas this season and remember that the King dwells within us! Together, let us usher in the Kingdom.

Access Denied

I tried to use Microsoft Access today and I couldn't get it to do what I wanted it to do. Access Denied.

As I thought about it, I realized that relationships are often like that. So often, we approach a person, do the human version of point and click, and the results aren't what we expect. It's like a program that doesn't open or has bad data or freezes up or sends out the blue screen of death. Access Denied.

With a computer, very often rebooting clears the buffer and sets things aright: Turn off the machine, turn it on again and voila!, problem solved and back to work. With people, it isn't as easy. When we are locked out of another's inner self, there isn't any switch that will wipe the slate clean and allow us to begin again.

People keep, as the Bible calls it, a "record of wrongs" in a way that a Mac or PC do not. The words of past conversations aren't deleted; they are a shadow on the page of the present and the hurt they might have caused leaves a mark, not an empty white space.

My field is communication, so one would think that I could hardly argue with people sharing their issues in the name of honesty and authenticity. I believe in the power of openness to heal, reassure or change a relationship. What I do have a problem with, however, is honesty without charity, with emotional dumping rather than a search for mutual understanding.

Healing one's own hurt only occurs when the search for it treads lightly on the feelings of the other involved. People get defensive when told that they have made a mistake or handled something badly. Awakening this self protective instinct is to shut down any desire on their part to reach out to the one who has just mauled the heart. Hurt begets hurt, not healing.

So, it is in our ultimate self interest to care about the feelings of someone who has hurt us deeply, but only God can give us enough grace to even ask for the desire to be so inclined. To do the loving thing requires persistence in prayer that God would change our perspective to see the whole picture and not just our version of it. Otherwise, the equivalent of a pop up screen appears on the relationship: Access Denied.

A Piece of Myself

A host of people ran through my mind today as I was praying in church. Not just relatives and friends, current and past, but all the people around me came alive as I thought about their illnesses, their heartaches and their needs. I was overwhelmed by a deep concern for each of them and my heart was filled with a compassionate longing that God would give them healing, provision, an awareness of grace and  hope for the future.

It suddenly occurred to me that if I could be so moved - even about people I barely know - God's heart must be infinitely more concerned than mine. If I, who have so many limitations and inadequacies, could feel love, what must our completely perfect and all loving God feel for each of us? Can God ever feel happiness when creation suffers so much? Jesus wept over the dead Lazarus; is it the Father's tears over you and me that water the earth?

In my spirit, God seemed to answer my question: in response to all the pain, I tear out my heart and give you a piece of myself. As I looked around, I saw each of us filled with a piece of God. God sends us to bring healing and restoration to the hurting people who come our way. God uses us and gives us the wherewithal to do the job.

This morning, God gave me a new awareness of what it means to be filled the Spirit. You are and I am - and the world will be if we share the love within us.

The Moment Passes

The gears of many relationships advance like a  steady watch until, for want of some lubrication or cleaning, they begin to slow and malfunction. Their sprockets no longer mesh neatly and are no longer in sync. Misunderstandings happen; hurt is deep. Without some attention, like the watch, the relationship will halt completely.

Attention, however, is not always forthcoming. To many, making up seems harder than breaking up and separation is the more tempting choice. The prospect of trying to repair the broken relationship appears to be worse than simply putting it aside.

Why is making up so hard to do? Perhaps it's because, in the hurt of the moment, we can't imagine anything worse. The pain of regret and complete rejection hasn't been tasted yet. Neil Sedaka illustrated this with two versions of his hit song Breaking Up is Hard to Do.

The first recording was a high energy, youthful rock and roll number that he did in 1962. It sounded confident and brash. The singer did a remake in 1976. Same words, same music, but a much slower tempo. This time it was poignant and rueful - the cry of a now too wise lover who really knew the pain of the solitude that was to come.

There is a moment when hurt has not yet created a rut in our brains and healing is easier. Hurt and anger that sticks around for awhile, waiting for the right time or the less painful time or for the other to make the first move, tends to move in and take over. Each person has more time to misunderstand and more time to savor the hurt. That outcome is seldom good.

Healing is better than brokenness; now is better than later. "Don't let the sun go down on your anger," says St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians. Let us pray for each other that we would have the grace to not let the moment pass.

In the Groove

Where do your thoughts go when you're unoccupied and non productive? In other words, what do you think about when you're brushing your teeth?

If there's been a recent hurt in your life, you might spend a lot of time licking your wounds and rehashing the issue over and over. Whether it is physical or emotional, pain seems to do that. It calls attention to itself and it's hard to avoid thinking about the pain, the circumstances that produced it and the ways in which we might escape it. Undirected thought seems to get sucked into the pain morass pretty quickly. It's important, though, to try mightily to escape.

Emotional pain can become such a preoccupation that it produces a kind of groove in our brains and ultimately, it's difficult to get out of the pathway. We get stuck and the world becomes a very dark place. This kind of depression needs some kind of external kick to force it out of the groove and into another path. Better to not spend much time in reliving painful memories in the first place.

I've concluded that God is the only answer to those inward journeys that lead nowhere good. In trying to "get over" the hurt, we carve it more deeply into our psyches by analyzing it, rehearsing it and feeling the pain over and over.

Developing a "mantra" that lifts the memory to God and asks for inner peace is the first step towards genuine healing. Deliberately thinking about something else is the second. We can't give the thought any more house room than the second it takes to recognize it.

The world will take on the images that are the most familiar to us. Spend a lot of time with violent media and we run the risk of seeing everything through that lens. Concentrate on the ways that others have let us down and we lose confidence that there are those who won't.

Where we take our wandering thoughts makes a difference. St. Paul gives some good advice:

Whatever is true, honorable, right; whatever is pure, lovely or commendable; if there is any excellence, and if there anything worthy of praise, think on these things.

Merry Christmas

Love came in the mail yesterday. A smile came, too, and great curiosity and a very thankful heart. God laid it on someone's spirit to send us an anonymous check for $1000. In the envelope was a strip of paper with the message, "Merry Christmas."

In this season of gift giving, this is a pretty spectacular gift.What is more important than the money, however, is the heart that sent it. It overflowed with love and out came some money, too.

Love should be the reason for all gift giving; however, love is a sentiment that may get lost in this frantic season of tit for tat gifting. In our capitalistic culture, parity becomes the big issue and this is sad because the very nature of "gift" is that there are no expectations attached. Gifts are pieces of one's heart; they are a way to make seeable what is only feelable within us all. Gifts are love made visible.

The outcome of true gifts is out of our control. Our responsibility is to respond to God's leading and give; what the other does with our gift is between them and God. The gift to givers is the joy of knowing that they cared about someone else and added to the love and pleasure in the world.

The adage that it is "more blessed to give than receive" requires good givers, but it also requires good receivers who see the gift as the blessing that it is. Paul and I can't give back to the person who sent us the check yesterday; we can only pray for him or her and praise God for initiating the generosity. We must accept the gift of love without having to have earned it or return it. Our joy is the gift we give back, not something that comes in a box.

God's love is pure gift. The response that gives God the most joy is when we accept this love and give joy and thankfulness in return. Some of us have a hard time with that. We know we don't deserve God's love and so we loathe ourselves, we deny ourselves and we implore God to have mercy while all God wants to do is hold us, love us and reassure us. Sometimes we are too busy telling God that we are not worthy to experience the love God offers.

I wonder if God feels as we did many years ago when we invited someone who was new in town to stay with us while he looked for a place to live. We wanted to give him friendship and he treated us like a hotel. He wouldn't eat with us and he tried to give us money when he moved out. I know that he thought he was doing the right thing by not "bothering" us with his presence and paying his way so that he was not in our debt, but what we offered was treated like an economic transaction and not the gift that it was.

Merry Christmas is the message from our generous anonymous friend and it is a fitting one. The gift of the Babe, the gift of the Savior, the gift of the ever present Spirit of God living within us is simply that: gift. In our eagerness to be good givers this Season, may we not forget to be the most open of receivers as well.