All the Words of Becoming: Growing Together Into the New Year

There are no better words to end a year than "Thank you."

And perhaps no better place to be than in a space of gratitude.

For many things.

But in this moment right now with you, at the end of a year that I know has held such a truckload of life for both of us, I want to thank you for the simple gift of reading my words.

I write a lot of them, I am aware.

So are you, if you are one who checks in on this blog or is connected with me on Facebook and takes the time to read to the end of my longish posts.  Thank you for that.   I might carefully call myself a word-crafter and a lexophile.  So, in a Youtube/TikTok/video-streaming, TLDR* world that seems to me increasingly illiterate, anyone who engages with what I'm putting out there (in sentences with all the words actually spelled out) feels like a kindred spirit and a welcome companion in my own spiritual formation journey.  

And to offset my edge of (hopefully uncharacteristic because I find it mostly unkind) sarcasm just now, I should say that I know there's a lot of great information out there, and that people absorb it in different ways, grow in different ways.  And that's really the point.

For me 'all these words' are windows into what it means to be in a 'process of being formed into the likeness of Christ for the sake of others' (Mulholland).  It's a journey via the development of thoughts and ideas, reflections and (for lack of a better term) arguments that help shape, inform, redirect, categorize and bring humility to my own theology and practice of life.  

And putting 'all the words' out on social media seem to me an opportunity to use my voice in ways and about things that matter to me.

So thank you.

You have been an important companion to me as I figure this out.  

And, of course, my hope is that some of these words have been at least a little bit helpful to you as well.  

Maybe, like me, you've needed the reframing and mental postures of positive hope to press against the harsh realities and tedious press of some of 'those days' this year.  I pray you have been enriched, reminded of who you are and Whose you are, and cheered on in your own journey of growth and formation.

We embark together now on a brand new year, my word-faithful friend.  

I want to write more.  I want to read more.

Words that shape my soul.

Hope we can journey together still.

Gratefully,

Ruth Anne

*"Too long, didn't read"

 

The Christmas No One Plans For

We're all watching the weather reports right now.  Significant storm heading our way just in time for Christmas weekend.  Thursday through Sunday. 

Yikes!

They're using the phrases like "flash freeze" and "blizzard".  They are reminding us of how to put together an emergency kit with water and flashlights and food and stuff.

They are asking us to "consider altering plans through the holiday weekend as travel conditions may become dangerous."

Altering plans?!  That's a problem.  I have plans.

Most of us do.  Family meals, Christmas concerts, candlelight services.  Probably all of these involve driving somewhere.  

I find myself checking Environment Canada's website several times throughout the day.  Just to see if there are any updates, any new projections that might see the storm veer away.  

Because....we have plans.

Then again, so many dear people I love well are not having the Christmas they planned for.  And it has nothing to do with the weather.  It has to do with storms that fiercely blasted in at various times through this whole tumultuous year.  Evictions and diagnoses and illness and treatments -- and death.  So many folks having that dreaded "first Christmas since."  Or new stuff just now in December, piling on to all that came before.  

The kind of Christmas you can't really plan for.  Nobody plans for.  Nobody wants.

The irony of it is this.  It's exactly these kinds of Christmases, the ones that feel all awful and chaotic and unplanned for, that best reflect the very first time anything to do with Christmas was ever introduced on the planet.

Having a daughter pregnant before she was properly married was not in the plans for Mary's parents.

Having a fiancee tell him something quite unbelievable was not in the plans for Joseph.

Traveling pregnant was definitely not in Mary's plans (or for any mom-to-be for that matter).

And you can bet no birth plan ever crafted included a cattle shed delivery and a feeding tough bassinet.

So the picture we have in our heads of that perfect, well-planned-out Christmas?  Not in the Bible.  The shimmering gold and lights against the snowy backdrop?  Not in the original screenplay.  The part where everything you want comes true "this Christmas"?  Nope.

Except.  Actually.  That is the plan.  Eventually.

We don't read from Revelation very often at Christmastime.  Maybe we should.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea [often representing turmoil, danger and chaos]

...And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people and he will dwell with them.  [Immanuel = God with us.] 

They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  [God's longing all throughout Scripture is to be WITH us.] 

He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain,[sounds like a good Christmas plan to me], for the old order of things has passed away."  He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"  Revelation 19:1-4

With a nod to John Lennon (which is appropriate given our Let It Be Christmas theme at Highview), I might suggest that Christmas is what happens while you're busy making plans.  

And with the threat of everything we've planned being thwarted by a storm, it's clearer that Christmas is actually about hope and tenacity and fierce faith

-- and welcoming God to be with us exactly where we are.  

So hunker down beloveds.  Get ready for the storm coming this weekend.  Plan to give yourself space to heal from the storms of this past year.  Plan to love the people you're with.  Plan some grace where it's badly needed. Stay safe.  Stay quiet if need be.  Make those plans.

And maybe....plan for an encounter with God that has nothing to do with anything pretty and sweet, necessarily. 

Or maybe that will come to you in ways you didn't plan on.  

I hope so.

Waiting Softly In the Corners

"Even so, Lord Jesus come."                      Revelation 22:20

Anticipation.

Remember it?

I wonder sometimes, if in our adult manifestations of the season, we forget that Advent, Christmastime, Yuletide is in fact marked by the waiting.

We 'got this' big time as children.  Counting down the days in oh so many impatiently creative ways.  Little chocolate treats behind little numbered doors.  Quilted pockets that revealed a new decoration for the tree each day.  Or maybe just a sticker on the calendar all leading to the big number 25!

And didn't it seem to take oh so long!  We ached with anticipation.

Then we grew up and got all busy about it.  Suddenly, what used to take forever was now upon us in no time.  We traded anticipation for a stressed-out sense that the markings on the calendar were now against us in the opposite direction.  There is no waiting for Christmas.  It's trying to keep up with it that's the problem. 

 It's taken me a long time, but I think I finally figured out that this is why I am so intent on having most of the cultural expectations of Christmas ready by the end of November.  The cards, the shopping, the wrapping, the meal plans.  If that's all pretty much in the works as December arrives, not only can I enjoy what the season has to offer, but I'm waiting for it.  There's an eagerness, a keener sense of something, what is it, yes....a keener sense of anticipation.

Longing is a good thing.  It means there is something loved even in its absence.  It means life's goodness lingers even in the dark.  It means we are humans hoping.

This Christmas I am freshly back from longings fulfilled in my recent time at Hot Springs.  All the aching of almost three years away transformed into so much goodness and joy and love, I can't even.  Of course, now I am in a state of longing again, even as I embrace and choose to be fully present in the goodness of family and friends (and hardly knowing the difference) here on this side of the planet.  It never ends and is just a 'thing' for those whose hearts live in more than one place.

But it helps me now.  To reclaim, not just a childhood sense of anticipation, but a deeper theological reflection of longing.  This time and space in which we live now.

Oh, our planet it aching for it!  Wars and famines and plagues and tyranny and injustice and corruption and fear and gruesome atrocities.  And this is Christmas, really.  Aching with anticipation for the day when every tear will be wiped from our faces (Revelation 21:4), and no one will make us afraid (Micah 4:4).

In the corners Christmas, where the soft lights hum, I hear Him.  He's on the way.