Are You an Artificial or Natural Christmas Tree Person?

 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. --Hebrews 13:8 NRSV

I know our culture has already put Christmas in its rearview mirror, but according to church tradition, we remain in the season of Christmas which lasts for twelve days (hence the Christmas song). I didn’t grow up knowing anything about the liturgical seasons of the church (this was all too “Catholic” for the Southern Baptist churches I grew up in). Christmas passed and we stopped singing carols in the same way radio stations stop the 24-7 Christmas music on December 26. I’ve grown to like the idea of lingering with Christmas no matter what our culture does, because once the pressure of shopping and family get-togethers has passed, we can focus just on the meaning of Christmas itself, as well as its rich traditions.

I’m still learning about the traditions of Christmas. This year I learned about Christmas wreaths, which I have never given much thought to before. Here’s why.

When I got married, I came to understand there are two types of people in the world: those with artificial Christmas trees and those with natural Christmas trees. I came from a plastic Christmas tree family. Each year we took the box containing the tree from the basement and assembled our plastic tree. I still have warm feelings of nostalgia when I think of that fake tree. It disappeared in one of my parents’ moves after they became empty nesters. I knew from movies and TV shows that there were people who bought a real tree every Christmas like I also knew people in Australia said, “G’day.” It was interesting cultural trivia but nonetheless utterly foreign.

My wife, however, came from a real or natural Christmas tree family. One of our early matrimonial negotiations was over what kind of Christmas tree to get. We settled on a real tree but every year since I have looked longingly towards our storage bins of Christmas decorations missing my plastic tree.

Over the years since, I have bought natural Christmas trees at big box home improvement stores and more expensive tree lots. As an associate minister in New York, I led the annual youth Christmas tree sale which was the fundraiser for our youth mission trips. It wasn’t until those sales that I saw people gathering up the pruned branches as if they were precious treasure. You see, not only did I grow up with a plastic Christmas tree but also plastic Christmas wreaths, so it was completely new to me seeing people gather up the branches to make their own wreaths for decorating their homes and even the graves of loved ones. Why were wreaths so special to these folks? I simply had accepted the existence of Christmas wreaths but never thought of what they meant, not until this year, I guess.

I came across an article at Time.com entitled, “Christmas Wreaths are a Classic Holiday Decoration With a Surprisingly Deep History.” I wondered about the “deep history” and discovered that the tradition of making Christmas wreaths came from 16th century Germany. Christmas trees were trimmed to fit small rooms and to make them triangular in shape in order to represent the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The Time article quotes author Ace Collins who wrote the book Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas. He notes that the tree trimmings were kept and used because “These people were living in a time when everything in their lives was used until it was gone.” The way I grew up tree trimmings of all kinds were merely yard waste, besides plastic trees had no extra parts, so this idea of using all of the tree is a new concept for me.

For Germans living in the tumultuous times of the 1500’s (the Protestant Reformation, the Thirty Years’ War, the rise of the printing press and more), the fir trees and the wreaths made from them were symbols of resilience. In the same way the evergreen trees withstood the dangerous and harsh winters, so could they withstand the danger of their times. The branches twisted into a circle represented eternity, no beginning and no end, so the wreaths became a reminder of the promise of eternal life Christ offered them. The Christmas wreath was a sign of hope in difficult times.

In our own difficult times of a pandemic-filled 2020, let us linger in the Christmas season and take in the message of the Christmas wreath. Just as the fir tree weathers a harsh winter, so can we make it through this time of trial. We can hold onto the hope of God’s eternal care for us no matter our temporary struggles. We can trust that just like the circle has no beginning and no end, so does our God, who exists beyond the constraints of our existence but nonetheless chose not to stay apart from us but instead came to be one of us.

The last line of the Time.com article caught my attention. It ended with another quote from the author Ace Collins: “We live in a throwaway culture, The wreath was born out of not throwing things away.” In our disposable culture of convenience that has produced an ecological crisis, we can learn a lesson from our spiritual ancestors who gathered up the scraps from their Christmas tree trimmings, so nothing was wasted. This is a lesson I never learned from the plastic Christmas tree of my upbringing.

The concept of nothing being wasted is also perhaps another spiritual offering for us this year. God doesn’t let anything in our lives go to waste, but instead makes use of even our struggles and failures to enable our growing as human beings and as Christians. Just as the trimmings from Christmas trees are gathered up and made into wreaths rich in meaning, so are the pieces of our lives gathered up by God to give us the rich existence we crave. 

Seen in this light, I guess twenty-five years into my marriage, I must finally admit I have converted from plastic to natural Christmas trees. 

Grace and Peace, Chase

Ghost Stories at Christmastime

Arise, shine, for your light has come,
  and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth
    and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
    and his glory appears over you.
--Isaiah 60:1-2 NIV

My wife loves Christmas music, so since a local radio station began playing Christmas songs 24-7 in early November the stereo in our den has been blasting yuletide carols. For weeks now, I’ve been puzzling over a line from “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” which says along with parties, roasting marshmallows and caroling “there’ll be scary ghost stories.” Scary ghost stories? At Christmas? 

I should have realized Christmastime is an appropriate time for ghosts, I guess, since, as I mentioned in Sunday’s sermon, my wife’s favorite book is Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. This beloved classic is filled with ghosts. Thanks to her, I’ve actually sat down and read the book, instead of relying on its many adaptations. Most of the film and TV versions leave out what I consider its most haunting scene. In addition to the ghost of Jacob Marley and the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future, Scrooge discovers the whole world is filled with ghosts! 

The ghost of Scrooge’s friend and business partner Jacob Marley explains to him that he is doomed in his afterlife to walk the earth fettered in chains attached to his accounting ledgers. Because he loved money more than people, he must forever wander the earth seeing the suffering of humanity but be unable to help them. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the ghost leads Scrooge to the window, through which Scrooge sees the following horrific vision:

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever. 

To me, this vision of a world of tortured spirits makes A Christmas Carol into a story much scarier than the horror movies released around Halloween. No wonder this scene is left out of most adaptations of Dickens’ tale—who wants to ponder such things at Christmastime? No one wishes to imagine themselves among such a tortured spectral host. It’s far better to let Scrooge go through his journey with our smug belief that he deserves such a haunted morality lesson and we do not. 

Yet, the short days and the long cold nights around the winter solstice are made for self-reflection, and at such times nagging doubts about our superiority to Scrooge have a way of sneaking into our minds. A recent article in The Smithsonian describes how our pagan ancestors held perhaps a more honest understanding about how the long nights around solstice made for a time ripe with spirits. The lights from yule logs were meant to keep such spirits at bay. One religious studies professor notes, “The darkest day of the year was seen by many as a time when the dead would have particularly good access to the living,” Who knows what warnings the dead might bear to the living? 

Perhaps 2020 is an especially good time for us to take note of the ghostly aspects of Christmastime. Our isolation and fear cannot entirely be banished by the trappings of the Christmas season. When the glow from the screens of our phones, tablets and TV’s subsides, we are left to ponder our lives, our deaths and what they all mean, if anything. 

I don’t believe in ghosts, but I believe many people, myself included, often live as if they were neither alive nor dead. The ghastly vision Scrooge saw outside his window speaks not to our afterlife but the capital “L” Life we are missing in our present existence. Frederick Buechner has this to say about ghosts: 

What keeps ghosts going seems to be usually some ancient tragedy they can't cut loose from or some dramatic event they are perpetually reenacting or some unfinished business they never seem able to resolve. They are so shadowy that it's hard to believe they exist. Some of the more spectacular hauntings . . . suggest they may have grave doubts on the subject themselves. It seems to be that if they can only make somebody's hair stand on end, possibly their own even, it helps convince them they aren't just figments of their own imagination. They prefer deserted places because they feel deserted. They disappear at cockcrow because the idea of seeing themselves, or being seen, for what they truly are scares the daylights out of them. If you want to see one, take a look in the mirror someday when you yourself are feeling particularly haggard and shadowy. 

It turns out we aren’t as different from Scrooge as we like to think. Our misplaced priorities and misspent lives sneak into our awareness on these long dark nights around Christmas. This is the reason we light candles and remind one another of the "anti-ghost story," the one  about God’s light entering the world to save us from our ghost-like selves. As we read the promises of the prophets once more, promises given millennia ago but still available to us now, we realize, along with Scrooge, a different sort of life is possible: 

Arise, shine, for your light has come,
    and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth
    and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
    and his glory appears over you.

Grace and Peace,
Rev. Chase Peeples

Blessings Out Your Windshield, Not Just in Your Rearview Mirror

But [Zechariah and Elizabeth} had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years. --Luke 2:7 NRSV

At the age of 48, I am struggling to accept that I am in the second half of my life. I’m well aware that 48 isn’t “old” but I wouldn’t say I feel “young” anymore. I’m beginning to have back pains that I swear I didn’t have only a few years ago. I’m not sure when it happened, but some time ago I stopped listening to popular music altogether. The music from my teens and twenties just sounds better to me than what’s on the radio today. My teenage sons roll their eyes at me when I complain that the music they listen to just doesn’t sound like music to me. I see twenty-somethings and I wonder, “Did I seem so young when I was their age? I remember thinking I was grown up and knew everything.” It has become a little bit of an effort to look forward to what is still to come in my life, because the pull of looking backward feels so strong.

I have talked with a lot of older folks over the years--people in their seventies, eighties and nineties. I have heard them describe what it is like to have more life behind you than in front of you. That always made sense to me, but I’d say now that I’m past mid-life I’m beginning to understand what they mean at a deeper level. There is a temptation that grows ever stronger to believe one’s best days are in the rearview mirror and that feeling brings a particular kind of grief which must be reckoned with.

I have been pondering this part of aging, I guess, so when I read writer and minister Tony Robinson’s take on the Advent story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, it rocked my consciousness a bit. We read the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth during Advent, because it is a part of Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus. This older couple have never had children but are informed by an angel that they will have a son, John the Baptist. Like Abraham and Sarah before them, God is blessing an older couple with new life they had believed was impossible. Robinson writes the following about this story:

Sometimes in the Christmas focus on children, on the young woman Mary and the birth in the manger, we miss another element in the story of Christ's birth. There is grace here not just for the young, but for the old, or older, as well. It's not hard, is it, to see the possibility of new life and new beginnings, when we are young or in the lives of the young? It may be more difficult to imagine such grace and newness when we are well beyond that time of life, when the future is no longer so open or full of promise as it once seemed. All the more reason then to receive the gift of this part of the story, the promise of grace and new life, not only for the young, but for no-longer-young too. Grace happens, surprise and new life can come, no matter what our age. 

No, I don’t believe retirement communities will suddenly erupt with geriatric pregnancies, I’m pretty sure that’s not the point of Luke’s story. Luke wants us to see the story of Jesus Christ is connected with the larger story of God told to us in the Hebrew Bible. Throughout scripture we find God offering people new life where none seemed possible, abundance where only seemed to exist scarcity. The God of the Bible and of Jesus Christ doesn’t create us with a Sell By Date after which we are spoiled and used up. Blessings await people who have more life in their rearview mirror than out their front windshield.

In our culture which worships youth, Robinson correctly notes that it’s probably easier for us to imagine new life with the young Mary and Joseph, but Zechariah and Elizabeth remind us that God’s surprises and new life are for people of all ages.

I have known people who acted old, worn out and tired long before they were old enough to really act that way. I have also known people who were old in years but you would never guess it, because they were so full of life that old age didn’t seem to stick to them. I’m beginning to think that a difference between the two might be a trust that more blessings were still to come rather than a fatalistic mindset of life having already passed them by.

My teenagers tell me around the dinner table in the evenings about what their favorite YouTuber said that day or what they watched on TikTok and I begin to feel like I have pulled over on the side of life’s freeway with my out of touch blinkers on. Yet, the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth gives me a different outlook. Their story encourages me to keep driving forward with excitement about what is yet to be in this one precious life I’ve been given.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Believing in the Promises of Christmas is Crazy

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
--Luke 2:7 NRSV

This verse has inspired untold thousands of Christmas cards, paintings, sculptures, TV commercials and Christmas pageants. We have portrayed it in such monumental ways that it is a bit difficult to remember how absurd it is. Sure, the image of mother and newborn child is always beautiful, but the Gospel of Luke asks us to believe that somehow the God of the universe is present in this newborn fragile infant born in a backwater village in the Roman empire. It’s a little crazy, right?

Sometimes it’s okay to think the promises of Christmastime are crazy. It can be difficult to believe the promises of “peace on earth” and “do not be afraid” in a world where thousands of people die each day of COVID-19. The serenity we imagine present at the nativity may look about as real life as a Hallmark Christmas movie; a feel-good escape but not how the world really works.

My family just watched again a movie that has become one of our go-to Christmas movie favorites: Daddy’s Home 2. Granted, in order to enjoy it, you’ve got to be okay with some foul language and also be able to enjoy Mel Gibson without remembering some of the awful things he has said and done, but it’s a hilarious comedy that actually has a good message about our pain-filled families. I won’t spoil too much by sharing that there’s a scene when this blended family of parents, step-parents, children, step-children, grandparents and step-grandparents attempt to do a live nativity together that ends up in a disaster. Their attempt to recreate the solemnity and peace of your typical nativity scene ends up in an over-the-top family fight. The scene is funny because we know life often looks more like a Will Farrell movie than a picture on a Christmas card.

Even though so many Christians act as if Christianity is perfectly reasonable, the story of Jesus Christ is utterly unreasonable—that’s what is so great about it! Despite appearances to the contrary, there is still good in the world, not just a sprinkle here and there but the ultimate goodness of the God of the universe who does everything to demonstrate that goodness to us, even taking the form of a helpless baby to prove the point. All the pain and difficulty of this world which seems so overwhelming isn’t the way this universe ultimately works. There really is a Creator behind it all, one who loves each one of us more than we can imagine or comprehend.

So, don’t worry if believing in the promises of Christmas seems crazy to you this year. You are in good company. There’s a good reason the Bible is full of people questioning what God is up to and wondering why God allows the pain we experience; life can be hard and believing in hope, peace, joy and love sometimes seems near impossible.

Sometimes we have to just embrace the craziness of it all in order to find what God is up to. So, go ahead send the cards, buy the presents, binge watch the cheesy Christmas movies and sing your favorite Christmas songs, just don’t be surprised if your cynicism turns to wonder and your crying turns to laughter and before you know it, believing the most powerful being in the universe became a helpless infant in order to show us how to love may not seem so crazy after all.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Intentional Waiting

Most of the time I hate waiting. When I’m ready to stream a TV show, I hate waiting even a few seconds for it to start. It seems like only yesterday I was fine with driving to the video store and spending 30 minutes looking for a movie to rent, but now the movie is beamed straight into my home and I get petulant when it doesn’t instantly start. I hate waiting in line at the supermarket even though throughout history and even today most humans had to grow, harvest and cook their food themselves. Living a middle-class life in America today means most everything is designed to happen on my own schedule, so when I must wait for something I blow a fuse.

Yet sometimes I must admit I enjoy waiting. If I can be bothered to think ahead and bring a book along with me, sitting in a doctor’s waiting room becomes a pocket of time where I can get lost in a good story. When I’m sitting in my car waiting to pick up one of my sons, provided I can put down my phone, I can listen to music for a few minutes and get lost in a favorite song. There are moments when I am forced to wait, moments when I can be intentional enough to set aside my smartphone pacifier, in which I find a relief from my frenetic activity. Those moments become something other than inconvenience, something that feels like grace.

 

The Advent season is a time of waiting—at least it’s supposed to be. In most years, it becomes a chaotic countdown to Christmas full of shopping, office parties, decorating and family dinners. This year the weeks before Christmas may be spent ordering things online while stuck at home. The church season however, reminds us that there is joy in the waiting if we are intentional about using our time for something other than stress and distraction.

 

Truth be told, I’m having trouble finding much joy in waiting this Advent, because 2020 has been a year of waiting: waiting for quarantine to end, waiting for a vaccine, waiting for a presidential election and waiting to discover what carefully laid plans will be cancelled next. I’m sick of waiting, so trying to get in the spirit of Advent seems sort of impossible. Yet, God’s people have always had times of waiting. The Bible is full of people waiting. From the Israelites in Egypt to the early church, from the writers of the Psalms to the Hebrew prophets, God’s people have always struggled during times they must wait for God to act. “How long, O Lord?” is a common refrain in scripture.

 

Since God could act anytime, there must be some value for us in the waiting? Dare we set aside our distractions, even for a moment, and see what such moments teach us?

 

Recently I read what Ernest Hemingway said about waiting. Injured in WWI, the famous author spent six months in a hospital ward. He observed how other patients endured their own waiting: some relied on distractions, others cried out in lament and others pondered the meaning of their lives. Hemingway later wrote about this experience, “The waiting does not break us, it reveals us.” If we have the courage to reflect on it, what has this year of waiting revealed about each of us? The Advent season offers us the chance to make good use of our waiting, because we can pause and see what God wants us to embrace or perhaps change about our efforts to find hope, peace, joy and love.

 

The minister and writer Tony Robinson shares that waiting is an essential part of faith in God.

If you're still waiting [for God], it means you haven't settled in, insisting that present arrangements are the be-all and end-all just because they happen to suit you.  

You're still waiting.  

And if you're still waiting, it means you haven't given up. You haven't decided, cynically, that it all amounts to nothing and why bother anyhow? You're still waiting. 

Are you still waiting—fiercely waiting?  

And here's the great thing . . . if you are still waiting, you stand an excellent chance of seeing Jesus.

If we are willing to learn what the season of Advent wishes to teach us, we may discover that this season of anticipation offers some essential keys to our spiritual lives. Author Michelle Blake writes, "One of the essential paradoxes of Advent: that while we wait for God, we are with God all along, that while we need to be reassured of God’s arrival, or the arrival of our homecoming, we are already at home. " We may cry out with the Psalmist, “How Long, O Lord?” and then discover a deeper level of trust in God’s presence even when what we want, need and hope for has yet to materialize.

In our waiting for Christmas each year, which is a metaphor for our waiting for God to act at any time all year long, we may even discover not only joy at God’s presence but also excitement as we anticipate what God will do in our lives. Just as God broke into the world in an unexpected way as a helpless infant born to a family without shelter, a family soon to become refugees running for their lives, God is just as capable of braking into the lives of you and me in unexpected ways. Waiting for that action of God can be like the excitement of waiting for Christmas morning when we were children.

Author Frederick Buechner writes the following about Advent in his book Wishful Thinking:

The house lights go off and the footlights come on. Even the chattiest stop chattering as they wait in darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the violin bows are poised. The conductor has raised his baton . . . The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.

I wish you the courage to set down your distractions in order to wait with joy and excitement for what God is about to do in your life.

Grace and Peace,
Chase 

What Would You Like Read at Your Funeral?

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. --Romans 15:4 NRSV

This week I am officiating two memorial services It’s a nearly impossible task to try to honor the life of someone in such a service. There really is no way to say everything that could or even should be said about a person. The whole reason we have rituals like funerals and memorial services is to attempt to express the deep truths that words can never fully articulate. 

I’m not surprised when family members are daunted by the task of what to say about a loved one when the minister asks what they want to be included in a funeral or memorial service. I know their silence is not a lack of love but rather finding themselves overwhelmed by the moment. Words seem inadequate. So, we lean on scripture, prayers, poetry and other time-tested aids to assist us in giving voice to the cries of our hearts.

When loved ones of a person who has died do have a favorite scripture passage, a poem or stories to share, such readings end up being a comfort for all who hear then at a funeral. As the minister, I am especially glad to hear when the one who has died had a favorite Bible verse. Sometimes family members find it underlined in their loved one’s Bible. Other times it is on a greeting card that was kept and affixed to a bedroom mirror or refrigerator door where it was seen every day. The most special are when spouses/partners, children and friends hear the verse repeated by their loved one as they endeavored to live out its truth in their lives.

I guess in our social media age, parlor games of years past have become hashtags of “What would you. . . ?” You know, the question games like “What book/food/movie would you take with you to a deserted island?” A similar one asks, “What would you want written on your tombstone?” As someone who has officiated dozens of funerals and memorial services, I would add to these sort of question and answer games, “What would you want read at your funeral?”

For some people, the answer might be a favorite poem, a letter written to a loved one, a line from Shakespeare or a passage from a favorite book. For a person of faith, the answer might include a scripture verse or two. What would you want your loved ones to remember you by?

For the record, I’d like Romans 8:38-39 read at my funeral:

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NRSV)

Not only would I want my loved ones to be comforted by the promise that nothing can separate us from God, I’d hope that at least once or twice they experienced me living as if these words were true for my life. At my lowest and when my faith was most lacking, I have clung to these words as if they were a life preserver, the only thing keeping me from going under,--because their assurance probably was the only thing keeping me from being overwhelmed by the troubles in this life.

Take it from a minister who does funerals, memorial services and graveside services on a regular basis, you are not only doing a favor for the minister officiating your service but offering your loved ones a great gift when you make clear what you would like read at your service. Who knows? You may discover that those words are not only worth having read after your death but also words to read while you are alive. Those sacred words may be worth living out each precious day you have in this life and not just after your life is over.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Over-Packing Spiritually for Our Journeys

“Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
--Luke 12:33-34 NIV

Each day I receive an email listing estate sales happening in my area. Especially during COVID-19, estate sales have gone high tech and begun posting pictures of their contents for online-only auctions. For reasons I am unsure of—maybe because I grew up lower middle-class acquiring things from other people’s garage sales, I like looking for deals at estate sales. Yet, I’ve reached a point in life where I have most of the things I need and the boxes in my basement full of stuff feel more like a burden and less like something worth holding on to.

Lately as I look at estate sales it feels like I’m seeing a whole lot of the same stuff. I see furniture, clothing, tchotchkes and collections of everything from antiques to figurines to auto parts that adult children of downsizing or deceased parents don’t want. It feels a bit sad to see the stuff that a generation held on to simply passed on to estate sale companies. I wonder how much of the leftovers from estate sales end up simply thrown into a dumpster? Was all this stuff a comfort to the people who left it behind or was it a burden in the end?

Once one is privileged enough to have one’s basic needs met, how much more do we need? TV shows like Hoarders show materialism as a mental health problem where even the most insignificant piece of trash is imbued with an undeserved significance. In less extreme but perhaps no less unhealthy cases, the current trends of minimalism and simplicity along with books like The Life-Changing Art of Tidying Up and The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning reveal the deep spiritual hunger people are feeling who have exhausted finding meaning in their possessions.

We Christians should not be surprised by the truth that our possessions cannot satisfy our deepest longings. Jesus did say after all, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:33-34 NIV) I don’t think Jesus expected every follower to be an ascetic. He asked some to sell everything, while others provided him and his followers with food, lodging and even a burial tomb. Yet, I don’t know anyone in the middle class or above who doesn’t have too much of something.

Thinking about the excess of possessions we carry through this life is an apt analogy for all the emotional, psychological and spiritual things we carry with us which are more burden than help. Recently I discovered a book I’ve added to my reading list: Without Oars: Casting Off Into a Life of Pilgrimage by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson. I haven’t read it yet, but it intrigues me, because it is a collection of reflections by an American Protestant Christian about what he learned on the ancient pilgrimage routes of Europe.

The author describes his experience travelling the Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James) in northern Spain, a famous pilgrimage route travelled by medieval pilgrims and modern pilgrims and tourists. He has this interesting observation from his journey:

On the Camino de Santiago, makeshift shrines along the way are littered with things pilgrims have left behind—an extra pair of shoes, a sweater, a razorblade, an inflatable pillow, a book, a pair of pants, a makeup kit. Nearly every pilgrim on the Camino, despite careful packing, discovers that they are carrying too much.

On this pilgrimage route, pilgrims on a spiritual journey realized that they could not complete their pilgrimage and make it to their destination unless they let go of things along the way.

Maybe you’ve had a similar experience on a hiking or camping trip. Or maybe you’ve realized you packed too much for a vacation as you lugged a heavy suitcase through an airport. Maybe you didn’t abandon unneeded items, but you regretted the weight of carrying things you did not need for your journey.

Similarly, maybe you’ve discovered, as I have on a regular basis, that what you were carrying inside of your mind, heart and soul were similarly too burdensome for your pilgrimage through this life. Anne Lamott said the following in an interview:

We're here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don't have time to carry grudges; you don't have time to cling to the need to be right.

Christine Valters Paintner describes how we don’t need to actually walk a medieval pilgrimage route to be on a pilgrimage. We head out into the unknown all the time when life throws us a curve ball and we must set out on a spiritual journey to find our purpose and meaning once more. She writes:

This call to embark on a rigorous journey of reclaiming ourselves and our relationship to the divine often comes without our bidding. There are many reasons we might begin an inner pilgrimage. Perhaps we’ve experienced a great loss: a job, our health, a dear friend, a sense of identity, financial security, or a marriage. We know we can’t return to life as usual. 

The goal of such a pilgrimage, I suspect, is that at the end of our lives when we are united with God we will have to leave behind as little spiritual baggage as possible. The loved ones we leave behind hopefully won’t have to deal with the consequences of our neuroses, anxieties and suffering but rather they will cherish our joy, strength and love.

Before my mother died, she worked hard to dispose of all of her stuff that she knew we wouldn’t want. She would ask us if we wanted something, and if not, off it went to a thrift store or a trash can. She remembered having to pay for a dumpster when her own mother died in order to dispose of so much of my grandmother’s stuff that had mildewed and deteriorated to the point that it was of no use to anyone. She didn’t want to leave us the same burden.

I’m less worried about leaving my sons junk to throw in a dumpster and more concerned I will leave behind for them memories of their father stressed out, anxious and preoccupied by things that didn’t really matter much in the scheme of things. Instead of an estate sale company, will they have to hire a therapist to dispose of what I leave behind for them? How much better would it be for me to leave those burdensome things one by one on the side of the trail as I make my own spiritual pilgrimage through this life? I not only believe my sons would be better off in the future if I adopted such a perspective, but I also think both they and I would be better off while we journey through life together in the here and now.

The African American mystical writer, civil rights leader and chaplain at Howard University, Howard Thurman, expressed well our need as spiritual pilgrims in one of his prayers; may it become our prayer too.

Teach me, O God, how to free myself of dearest possessions,
So that in my trust I shall find restored to me
all I need to walk in Thy path and to fulfill l Thy will.
Let me know Thee for myself that I may not be satisfied
With aught that is less.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Giving Every Day Not Just on Giving Tuesday

Honor the Lord with your wealth,
    with the firstfruits of all your crops
--Proverbs 3:9 NIV

This morning my inbox was full of messages asking me to give to particular causes and organizations because it is Giving Tuesday. From religious organizations to nonprofits to advocacy groups, if I ever subscribed to or had my name added to an email list, then today each of those organizations sent me an email. I began noticing this annual phenomenon about five years ago, and while I don’t have any statistics on how much money is actually given on Giving Tuesday, I sure hope the number of emails about it correlates to a reciprocal number of generous responses.

If you are unfamiliar with Giving Tuesday, here is an explainer. Giving Tuesday began in 2012 when a couple of large nonprofits in New York City partnered with some for-profit corporations to emphasize charitable giving. They chose the Tuesday after Black Friday as a time to emphasize giving after a weekend of consumerism. Our culture experiences the Friday after Thanksgiving as Black Friday when the supposedly best deals of the year are rolled out for consumers who want to spend their day off buying Christmas presents. The next day has been called Small Business Saturday to emphasize local businesses after a day of people lined up to shop at the big box store retailers. Then, of course, Cyber Monday occurs when supposedly the best online shopping deals happen for people going back to work who stare at computer screens all day. Finally comes Giving Tuesday when those who have perhaps over-indulged in purchasing stuff nobody needs for people who lack very little stop to consider people who lack basic necessities. 

I have yet to hear of a label for the Sunday of this weekend. Maybe churches should call it Spiritual Sunday to get people to spend a day thinking about their spiritual lives? I also think it is just a matter of time before somebody comes up with a clever name for the Wednesday after these special days? Maybe Work Present Wednesday where you shop for impersonal gifts to give people at your workplace? 

I’m all for Giving Tuesday. Any way nonprofit organizations who are working to make the world a better place can get more funding sounds like a good thing to me. From what I can tell, the change in tax law that began in 2017 which raised the standard deduction for most families has really hurt charitable giving in America. Since most middle class families don’t give enough to charity to raise their deductions higher than the one they automatically get, there is less reason to give more--that is if one needs a tax deduction to prompt oneself to give.

So while I am all for Giving Tuesday, as a Christian I think God expects much more from us than giving on a special day once a year. I feel quite sure God wishes us to make our generosity into a lifestyle rather than an afterthought. Generosity should be a key point of our identity rather than one that needs prompting through emails or tax deductions.

Throughout the Bible in commands, narratives and poetry there is an expectation that people will give to God out of their “first fruits.” In our time, where most of us exist far removed from the growing and harvesting of the food we consume, this image may be lost on us. It is an important image however, because it asks each person to acknowledge where what they consume comes from in the first place. 

Contrary to our capitalist economy which says we earn what we have, the concept of giving from the “first fruits” or the first things harvested means we have what we have because God gave it to us whether we earned it or not. Therefore before we enjoy it, we remember what we have is grace and “but for the grace of God” we could live under different circumstances where we would not enjoy such blessings. Giving as a first thought rather than as an afterthought is a spiritual practice of humility that reminds us of the many who exist without the things we take for granted. It is also a spiritual practice that says we are not at the center of all things but rather God is.

This spiritual truth is expressed by the farmer-poet Wendall Berry:

Nothing
is given that is not
Taken, and nothing taken
That was not first gift.
The gift is balanced by
its total loss, and yet,
And yet the light breaks in,
Heaven seizing its moments
That are at once its own
and yours.

I have found that making giving a discipline which I think of first rather than something I only consider last with what I have “left over” is one of the most difficult changes in mindset and in my spiritual life that I have ever undertaken. Looking at my paycheck and monthly budget with giving as something I put right at the top of the list before things like mortgage, utilities, internet, car payments/repairs is truly difficult. If I don’t give to my church or to a nonprofit I support, they will not come and foreclose on my house, repossess my car or cut off my lights. Even more important than these things is the cultivation of my soul and my spiritual life. Yet, I keep living as if the cost of my lack of generosity is somehow less than the cost of my water being cut off. Such are the struggles of following Jesus.

This morning my wife and I were discussing one of the nonprofits she volunteers with to provide food and Christmas presents to low income families this time of year. She mentioned that their annual fundraiser, a charity ball, couldn’t happen because of COVID-19 so their income is way down. We marveled at how the “big givers” won’t give unless they receive in return a big party to add to their social calendar. As I write these words however, I’m considering that even though I may not be a “big giver” who attends large galas and fundraisers there are probably many reasons a “little giver” like me only gives when I get something in return. 

I’m pretty sure Jesus showed both “big givers” and “little givers” there is a whole different way to be generous. Jesus’ idea of generosity involves not merely giving on Giving Tuesday but every other day of the year too.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

How About a Family “Re-union” This Thanksgiving?

In years that don’t include a deadly viral pandemic, I usually offer words of encouragement to church folks about how to get along with their families on Thanksgiving. This year many people are having Thanksgiving apart from loved ones due to COVID-19, but maybe this distance offers us an opportunity. Since we have some space this year away from our family members with whom we have strained relationships, perhaps we could reassess what family means and offer grace to one another.

I had an insight about family get-togethers from, of all places, reading a review of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air Reunion Special which is airing now on HBO Max. The sit-com starring Will Smith aired in the years 1990-1996. If you don’t know the show, Fresh Prince centers on the character “Will Smith,” played by the actor of the same name, a streetwise Black teenager from a rough part of Philadelphia. In order to keep him out of trouble, Will’s mom sends him to live with extended family who are rich and live in Bel Air, CA. I was in college and seminary during those years and not watching a lot of TV, so I only caught the show in syndication now and then. Yet, I read a review about the cast reunion which is airing now after 24 years, because there was controversy!

During season 3 of the show, conflict arose between the star Will Smith and Janet Hubert, who played Will’s Aunt Viv. Hubert feels she was forced out of the show by Smith and replaced by another actor. When news broke a reunion special was planned, fans expected that “the original Aunt Viv” would not be a part of it. This expectation is well-founded, because reunion specials have conventional rules, as reviewer Aisha Tyler at NPR writes:

The unspoken rules of gathering the cast of a beloved TV show for a reunion special are familiar: Gin up the nostalgia and warm, fuzzy feels. Montages and clip reels highlight the memorable onscreen moments from years past, as everyone jovially reminisces about the time spent playing and creating together on set. If a key member is absent because of behind-the-scenes drama or personal setbacks, try to avoid acknowledging they were ever a part of the show in the first place, and/or gloss over any tensions that might spoil the lovefest. Put on a happy face.

The happy faces were on for 45 minutes of the special, but in the final 15 minutes, things became real. “Aunt Viv #1” showed up to sit down with Will Smith and talk about their past conflict. Suddenly things moved from the unrealistic world of a sit-com family into the real-world families we all live in.

The reviewer Aisha Tyler wrote this summary which really got me thinking about our real-life families:

For those few moments, funnily enough, the special feels like an actual family reunion with real stakes, as the estranged relatives awkwardly and uncomfortably confront one another, let it all out, and, finally and cathartically, reach reconciliation.

As a child who grew up watching reruns of sit-coms, I still secretly wish that all my family’s problems could be resolved in 22 minutes. Yet, real-life family conflicts rarely get resolved so quickly, if ever. More likely, family members nurse long grudges, remember slights from years past and harbor secret pains, none of which ever gets talked about. Families in real life are not like a warm fuzzy smile-fest of a reunion special but rather like those last 15 minutes of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air Reunion Special—raw, awkward and painful.

As a minister who is privy to the stories of lots of families (which I keep confidential), I can assure you that if you feel your family is dysfunctional then you are in good company. Trust me on this. Every family has its secret pain. But maybe this year as we are apart from our family members whom we love but resent we can meditate on the possibilities of reconciliation.

Christians are called to the work of reconciliation and peacemaking, but often the most difficult places to do such work is in one’s own family. What would it look like for you to honestly express feelings and work toward reconciliation with that sibling, parent, or cousin with whom you have issues? Could you offer grace and forgiveness while accepting responsibility for your own hurtful actions and words? Could you do so even if your family member didn’t offer the same in return? Is such a thing possible?

Ponder and pray about these things seriously enough, and you might find yourself picking up the phone and calling that loved one and having a difficult but life changing conversation. Sometimes such “re-unions” happen in real life and not only in sit-coms.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Holding Together Our Grief and Thanksgiving

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted,
    and saves the crushed in spirit.
--Psalm 34:18 NRSV

A recurring theme in conversations I have had with church folks this week is sadness over not sharing the Thanksgiving table with loved ones this year. Due to the alarming increase in COVID cases in our area, people are justifiably limiting their guest lists and either inviting only a few people or none at all. Even as we look forward to the hope of vaccines enabling us to return to our usual holiday traditions next year, we nonetheless must acknowledge our grief over what has been lost this year.

For far too many people a limited Thanksgiving dinner is not merely a precaution but a necessity, because they have loved ones who have died from COVID or who are currently suffering from it. For them, this week is a time of mourning and/or a time of intense anxiety and helplessness. Their pain is magnified as others around them in person or in the media deny the reality they are experiencing in the present moment. Our separation from one another keeps us from sharing normal rituals of grief and comfort such as funerals, memorial services, visits by friends and family to the hospital rooms or bedsides of those who are ill, etc. The grief of those directly affected by this pandemic must be respected and acknowledged.

Then there is the grief of the many who are not directly affected by the virus but nonetheless affected by the separation and isolation of these days. For those of us fortunate enough not to have loved ones suffering from COVID, there may be a sort of tension in our emotions. On the one hand, we may be thankful for the health of our loved ones, while on the other hand we grieve our separation from them. Rather than feeling our grief in such cases is inappropriate, I believe we can hold on to both grief and gratitude at the same time. When we sit down at our Thanksgiving meals, we can offer thanks for our loved ones even as we feel the weight of their absence around the table. 

For many of us, disrupted Thanksgiving plans are a powerful reminder of all the plans which have been disrupted throughout 2020. Everything from travel to weddings to funerals to school to work has been put on hold or cancelled. Our grief over what has been lost mixes with our grief over what still will be lost in the coming months. 

I found a helpful article online called “It’s Okay to Grieve the Time You’ve Lost in 2020.” In it, I found a quote by clinical psychologist Dr. Emma Hepburn helpful. She says, “Our brain is a planning and future-anticipating organ so we can experience loss not just about what has gone from our past or present but what has potentially gone from our future too.” We evolved as human beings to try and control our futures. For example, the future harvest meant safety, security and survival. As much as spontaneous events may offer unexpected blessings, our ancestors knew unexpected events more likely meant danger for ourselves and our families in the forms of disease, natural disaster, famine or war. Even though we have reasons to hope for an end to the pandemic, knowing there is more disruption and pain to come means more grief in the meantime.

As is the case when we grieve any loss, there are things we can do to deal with our grief in healthy ways. 

1. We can acknowledge our grief rather than putting on a brave face, denying it, feeling guilty for not being “positive enough” or ashamed for “acting weak.”
2. We can express our emotions. Sometimes each of us needs a good cry. Other times we need to allow ourselves to feel sad for a while.
3. We can seek out a sympathetic ear. Our concern about burdening someone else may be valid in some cases when loved ones are in crisis, but all of us can find others who are able to listen and commiserate. One is not weak when they seek out someone to share their feelings, rather it takes real strength to rise above embarrassment and shame to seek support. If your circle of loved ones is short of listening ears, might I recommend reaching out to your minister whose job it is to listen and support folks like you?
4. We can seek professional help if necessary. Depression and other forms of mental illness as well as addiction are not things to be minimized at any time but especially during the holidays. When the holidays occur during a raging deadly pandemic, such struggles must be managed with extreme care. Now is not the time to miss your AA or NA meeting. Nor is now the time to let your antidepressant prescription lapse. If you or someone you love spirals into dangerous territory, do not excuse or ignore the signs of crisis. Get help from a counselor, doctor, sponsor or other helping person.
5. We can adjust our expectations. In the same article I referred to above, a different psychiatrist, Dr. Catherine Huckle of Surry University, offers the idea that we are currently in the “bargaining stage” of grief. The risks and rule-breaking we see this week and will probably see more of as we get closer to Christmas are due to the simple fact most of us have never experienced anything like this before. Huckle says, "Whereas older generations didn’t expect life to be rosy or easy, we’ve got freedoms that are implicit in our lives. COVID has really disrupted our ideas of what life should be like and it’s a huge challenge to our belief and value systems." In other words, we aren’t used to being told “no.” For the near term, we can spare ourselves pain by working on accepting things as they are instead of fueling our anger over things not being like we wish they were.
6. We can still be thankful.

Number six seems especially difficult and maybe even trite in the face of loss and pain. I believe however, (and so does pretty much every spiritual thinker out there) that gratitude and thanksgiving are powerful strategies for dealing with grief and pain in our lives. Even as we grieve the absence of loved ones and feel pain due to the loss of traditions and rituals this Thanksgiving, we can develop deeper gratitude for the people we love. We can discover the ways we take for granted those who mean the most to us. We can learn that the grudges and grievances we hold against loved ones are not as important as those loved ones themselves.

As Christians, finding blessings in our lives can become a vital part of our devotion to God. We find purpose and meaning in our lives, even during grief, by remembering all that we have been given by a loving God. Even as we wrestle with the mysteries of why a loving God allows suffering, we can focus on what is not mysterious but plain as day before us, the blessings of love, relationship and connection which remain in our lives no matter our losses.

The great scholar of the Hebrew Bible, Walter Brueggemann, wrote about such thanksgiving in the midst of grief in a recent column on the wonderful web site Church Anew. He shared about the history of the hymn “Now Thank We All Our God.” He writes:

I suggest that the hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God,” [is] a welcome model for a life of disciplined gratitude.

Now thank we all our God, with heart, and hands, and voices,
who wondrous things hath done, in whom this world rejoices;
who from our mother’s arms hath blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us!
with ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us;
and keep us in his grace and guide us when perplexed,
and free us from all ills in this world and the next.

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given,
the Son and him who reigns with them in highest heaven,
eternal, Triune God, whom earth and heaven adore;
for thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.
(Prayer Book and Hymnal (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 1982) 396.

This warm, intimate, trusting poetry was written by Pastor Martin Rinkart as a table grace during the Thirty Years War that devastated all of Europe. His wife had died of the pestilence and he wrote this for his children. The hymn affirms that we, along with Pastor Rinkart and his children, are on the receiving end of God’s goodness even in the most dire of circumstances.

This Thanksgiving may God “keep us in his grace and guide us when perplexed and free us from all ills in this world and the next.”

Grace and Peace,
Chase