12 days of Christmas.

I am interested in recapturing, or perhaps, capturing for the first time, the spirit of celebrating Christmas for 12 days, starting on December 25th. Of course this is difficult in American culture, what-with the big shopping frenzy-buildup to the 25th and then the holiday being "over", other than catching the "after Christmas" sales. It's after because Christmas is, effectually, over.

But this is not how it has been in the church calendar. There is a song about the 12 days of Christmas, which I hear is reputed to have spiritual significance. Perhaps that is an appropriate starting point to discovering the meaning in the 12 days. But the practical question remains.. how to incorporate a 12-long day Christmas celebration into your home, your family, your church, your own heart?

I'd love to hear ideas and suggestions for celebrating Christmas for 12 days... leave them in the comments, along with any other feedback of course. ;)

Christmas.

Arise, shine, for your Light has come! It shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

I've enjoyed a Christmas celebration this week that has been completely different from any previous celebration of the holiday. The biggest highlight has been coming to Denmark and enjoying time with friends from home, whose conversation and company has been most enjoyable, encouraging, and refreshing. The second biggest highlight has been worshipping with their international ecumenical community here in Copenhagen.

First, this community though ecumenical is led by a Lutheran pastor. I had never been to a Lutheran service, though in many ways it has been similar to my reformed tradition back home, a tradition that I have missed since being in Belarus. One thing I found interesting was how they commune at the Lord's table. Everyone came to the front of the church, to the chancel, gathered in a semi-circle and kneeled before the altar with other believers to receive the elements, by intinction, and real wine was used. (as it should be, :) ) I loved this aspect of kneeling side by side with my family to commune. We also communed at the Lord's table Sunday, Monday on Christmas eve, and Tuesday on Christmas.

Christmas was a special service because it was held in the home of the pastor and his family. We enjoyed a relaxed brunch, then gathered in the family room. (see photo above) At the front was a manger holding the bread and the goblet with the wine for communion. It was a reminder... the babe in the manger became this broken bread and poured out wine. The manger that held a babe was also holding the broken body and blood of our Lord, God's presence with us... and now, at communion, we remember anew how God's presence is continually with us. The Word took on flesh, and dwelt among us. This presence was temporal and yet is at the same time eternal.

I have never had a Christmas like this one. I have never been to so many times of worship and communion before. I completely loved it. It made me also think about how sometimes I know of churches that don't hold services on Sunday if Christmas is on Sunday.... and it led to thoughts about being a widow or orphan, or perhaps even just spiritually an orphan or widow. There are tons of people who do not have a nuclear family or whose family they do have do not care to celebrate Christmas by worshipping the King. If our churches stop meeting on Christmas, for "family time," what happens to the orphans and widows? The students and singles? The elderly and sick? The lonely and isolated? Is it good or even right for them to celebrate Christmas alone? Isn't it antithetical to Christmas to celebrate alone? Not because the holiday is a family holiday in the cultural sense of the word, but a family holiday in the spiritual sense...! Shouldn't we spend the holiday with our family in Christ? It seems there is a whole contingent of folks out there who may not have a community to be with on the holiday... so it is my hope that the church would step up to the plate, or maybe individuals and families, to open their doors to the "stranger" who is alone, be they an actual orphan or widow or spiritually so... Everyone needs community, especially at Christmas.

I found myself a "stranger" in a strange country among people who are not my nuclear or blood family in a church I had never set foot into before... and yet I felt in my heart and soul that I was not alone, not at all a stranger. I was with friends who are also my spiritual family... I was with an international family in Christ who in a matter of three days knew my face, name, connection to Denmark, my story... who welcomed me to the Table with them, who laughed with me, talked with me, communed with me. It was beautiful. I hope every person who remotely finds themselves or feels themselves alone or isolated in this world will be sought after by the Church, by families and individuals, and treated not as guests, but as family at the same table, under the same roof, just as I have been ever-so graciously welcomed.

Thank you Tilley's, thank you to the church here in Copenhagen, those who made me feel like family and not an inconvenient guest or worse, just a visitor passing through or even a stranger...

unholiday depression overseas...

I have on more than one occasion railed about the commercialism in America, and the consumeristic, materialistic addictions we as Americans have that are, literally, consuming us from the inside out. This commercialism and consumerism is all the more rampant at the time of Christmas. Oh, how I once loathed when the malls would be rife with Santas and trees and stockings, advertising, tempting you, to buy this or that trinket, this or that item… and how the pressure to buy buy buy and please please please others often racks us… and it will break us. For a month, maybe even two, Americans are surrounded by commercials, advertisements, decorations, meant to supply the spirit and joy of the holiday, the Christmas spirit perhaps. Oh, I grew to hate it. I already hated malls, all I needed was another time of year to have an even better excuse to avoid entering their premises.

And yet.

Here I am, miles and miles away. I am in a culture that does not celebrate Christmas until January 7th. Even then, it is not their big holiday. It is their religious holiday, for religious types. Which means it goes basically unnoticed by the culture at large. Maybe they’ll give you the day off of work and studies, but maybe not. No, the real holiday here is New Years. In searching for Christmas cards, it’s ironic that from the outside, they LOOK like Christmas cards, at least, your run-of-the-mill American “Christmas” scene sans the baby Jesus (“Christlessmas”). Bells, garlands, wreaths, snow covered homes, ornaments, pine trees, sleds, presents, candles… But when you read the words, they rarely make mention of Christmas… rather, they wish you a happy new year. Ironic.

Maybe you wonder, how is the new year celebrated here? I’ll tell you: they have new year’s trees, very much like our Christmas trees. They exchange gifts. They spend it with family, and occasionally with friends. They eat a lot of food. They watch TV after midnight when the President gives a speech congratulating the people on the new year. They have fireworks. They drink, a lot. They don’t go to work the next day. This is new year. And Christmas? Most people don’t celebrate it at all.

So I find myself… missing America at Christmas time. Yes, even slightly missing the barrage of decorations and music incessantly playing in the shopping malls… but I remember being in the States and feeling like it was Christmas time, awaiting it. There was more anticipation for its arrival. Maybe I anticipated the days off of school or work. Maybe I anticipated time with family and watching American football on TV. Maybe I anticipated the holiday foods. The scents of sugar cookies and apple cider and fires in the fireplace and pine. The joy of stealthily wrapping a few carefully selected gifts for those near and dear to me. Hearing the piano played, or singing some carols. Seeing the sanctuary every Sunday, decorated and reminding me of One’s great coming. Such joy, expectation, anticipation, delight, wonder... Here, I am lacking some of this luster, this Christmas spirit. Granted, nothing about trees and garlands and lights truly belongs to Christmas... but it brought me joy, and ushered my heart into a time of expectation, reflection... here I find I'm simply falling into a dry winter depression. No one here is thinking much about Christmas and only a handful celebrate it on December 25th. Every “Christmas”-esque decoration is hailing the new year, not the birth of Jesus. No one knows any Christmas hymns to sing. Here we are, less than 10 days away from the day, and I still don’t feel like it’s already here… Celebrating holidays overseas is just not the same. It is enough to make me feel depressed!

I am thankful though, because I must make my own preparations, in my mind and heart as well as among my friends, for this great celebration. Two days ago, my roommates and I hung up decorations: tree, garland, lights, candles, cards, stockings. We played Christmas music from my computer. There was even some snow blowing around outside our window. Though vastly different from being among family and friends at Christmas, it was still very much welcome… without such little things, the holidays really are very depressing for an expat.

(Luckily, this expat won’t be alone on Christmas. I’ll be visiting wonderful people sojourning for this year in Copenhagen. Perhaps there, we can enjoy fellowship on this day, and together celebrate the great Advent.)

All the more, how I must, on my own, look deeply into myself, and once again find that great joy worth searching the whole world over for, worth giving up life as we familiarly know it for… the joy that is good tidings and peace on earth for men… the joy of knowing the mysterious and beautiful Love Incarnate.

html help?

if anyone knows how to help me fix my header/banner/photo montage thing so it's not cut off on the top and bottom like it suddenly is now... shoot me an email. that would be a big help! ;)

highlight of today.

Today, after returning home after 3pm to thaw out, I had the most delightful surprise waiting for me in my mailbox: the Fall 2007 edition of The College, St. John’s alumni quarterly. Last year I never received a copy over here in Belarus… this year, for some reason, I was mailed a copy! Thank you whoever sent it; it was certainly a highlight to me. I sat over my 3pm lunch reading it cover to cover. It’s so nice to feel engaged and connected to a community even when very far away.

How rare, it seems, that we take the time to practice dialectic with one another, to not merely read for our own enjoyment and betterment, but to intentionally discuss and strive and search for truth and beauty with other pilgrim souls... this is what I miss most, and what I long most to foster in my life, a community of questions and discussions and striving for truth and beauty and understanding and getting at that deep marrow of life... but it must be a community, or something essential is lost to this whole endeavor. Adventures are meant to be shared. So is life. So are thoughts. So are questions and the quest in them.

pomp & circumstance

Today, I was hoping to get a glimpse from across a five lane road of none other than President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. Alas, it was not meant to be. Now, I did wait patiently in sub-zero temperatures at our infamous Victory Square. I even skipped the second half of my Russian class, in hopes of seeing him and hearing him give some short speech. The military arrives. Roads were blocked off. Metro was inaccessible. The military band arrives with instruments. Film crew arrives and sets up. Black clothed security patrols the streets and the square. Photographers are preparing to snap away. People rush around talking on their cell phones, radios squawk. A banner proudly welcomes the president. Light poles are adorned with flags of Belarus and Russia, side by side. The colors of Red, Green, White, and Blue are seen wherever your eyes glance. Students line up on the curbs of the streets surrounding the Square, flying high the flags of those two countries. There was certainly a lot of pomp, but the circumstance was less than hoped. I was there. I arrived after 11:15am. I was watching. Waiting. I was joking with my friends that maybe his car was speeding and he got pulled over. They joked back that maybe he forgot to bring his passport with him, or tried to enter the metro without a token. We waited longer. We were freezing. It was 1pm when my Korean classmates decided to leave. I decided to hold out a little longer. I stood with a Frenchman and a Swede. We shivered. We talked with some Belarusians. We asked “official” looking people and “unofficial” people when the President might arrive… no one knew. We were told 11:15. We were there at 11:15. No President. Fashionably late, I suppose. By 1:35pm the band and military left the square to practice and take a break underground. Probably to warm up as well. Students were leaving in droves. The flag-bearers didn’t want to stick around anymore. If we knew when he was to arrive, we might have been able to know whether it was worth it to wait. But by 1:45pm, I decided my nearly frozen fingers and toes were more precious to me than seeing Russia’s President. As usual, lots of show! But where was the delivery?

Maybe I can read about it in the paper tomorrow.

small worldliness

Interesting experience the other day. I go to a Belarusian gathering of believers and before meeting at the Table, they showed a short film clip about a guy who carries this card table around and sets up his own communion for passerbys, which is for the most part ignored or unnoticed. But this wasn’t even what struck me. As soon as they started playing the film, I knew exactly where this film was shot. It was shot in the historic downtown Annapolis, Maryland. None other than my college town. There was Stevens hardware on the corner, there were the boats at city dock, the market house behind the dock, there was the food court at the Annapolis mall, etc. Every place in this video I had been. Now how weird and random is this: I’m halfway around the world in a culture entirely other than my native country and culture and in this place, I find myself on a Sunday morning at a service entirely in the Russian language, watching a short video clip in a room full of Belarusians (with a few Russians, Chinese, Slovakians, Cameroonians, Nigerians, and the scattered Americans as well), and there we watch together scenes from a town that I once called home. The strangeness of the circumstance made me smile.