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.

Perspective Pivot - Both Sides of One Weird Morning

Part One - Bilingual Interference, Or "Where Did My Brain Go?"

Learning a new language as an adult is a thing.

It's a slow thing.  A precarious thing.  Sometimes I think I'm just a tad delusional to think I might be able to get enough Thai in this brain to call it conversive.  Not if I just got started at 51.  Really?  It's like a linguistic version of "So You Think You Can Dance?"  Except with a different audience, and a different purpose.  And actually, I can't dance either.

At this point in the visit, eleven days in and more or less halfway through, I am feeling the disappointment, the edges of discouragement, and a bit of frustration, - or is that embarrassment? - of the linguistic awkwardness born of my almost three-year absence from the immersion experience.  

Apparently, all that I was doing in between to try to stay 'sharp' was not enough.

If "language leaks", my shoulders are damp.

Learning a new language as an adult is a humbling thing.  It interferes with your illusions of competence and puts you back into the care of people who love you enough to listen carefully, with grace upon grace, and interpret with their hearts as much as anything else.

It renews your mind.  Not in the synapses of it like language learning is supposed to do, but in the spaces in between that don’t yet look like Jesus.  The spaces that don’t respond well to the struggle.  The spaces that want to look smart and witty and competent, more than real and loving and submissive.

Holy Spirit come and do Your work in me.  More than to be able to speak Thai, I long to be able to speak Love.  Would You please come and take my fumbling attempts and interpret Your peace into hearts, beginning with mine.

[The above was written first thing on this fine Friday morning, while waiting for Suradet and Yupa to return from the school run.  We had plans for the latter part of the morning, so I was ready to go as soon as they returned.  And then this.]

Part Two - The Pivot, Or "Wait. What Just Happened Here?"

We have two pastoral visits lined up for today.  Both are about an hour's drive from Hot Springs, and within close proximity to one another, so it makes sense to plan it this way.  

I wish I could say I enjoy the spectacular view as we zig zag part way up the mountain, marveling at the yellow flowers in full bloom this time of year.  But I'm not looking outside.  I am instead obsessing with my Thai pronunciation in preparation for delivering Sunday's sermon.  After all, it's been a bit rough in the language department so far this visit (ahem, see above).

Our first destination pulls me up and out of my own head to what I will later say was the first turn of the pivot.  We are in a small village featuring the characteristic narrow roads and wooden slat houses with livestock beneath.  Pi Why meets us on his motorcycle and leads us further through to where the fields open and a large piece of land has been cleared away.

His wife, Oh, is there with their five month old baby sleeping snug in his hammock tied tightly to his mother.  It's hot all of a sudden, under the sun, but we pick our way over the stubbled undergrowth and find ourselves a place to pray.  This is land dedicated to the building of the first Christian church in this area.  Why and Oh are the only Christian family, and they would like to build something where their friends might explore the hope of Jesus.  We pray hot prayers of promise and protection and prosperity for the plans being laid out.  Mountains in the backdrop. It feels good to have come to encourage this hearty couple and their bold plans.  It lifts me.  I take a close up of one of the yellow flowers I missed on the way here.

We are headed next to the house of A-non and Mintra, a couple I have some history with, but we'll get to that later.  Mintra makes purses in a shop attached to their house (some of you have one), so I get ready for a bit of business, hoping to bring more home with me.  But we do not stop at the house.  We stop at a small but brand new building with a cross on the side.  "What church is this?" I ask.  I am told it's actually a 'baby church'.  A brand new church plant from the Baptists of Chiang Mai.  And A-non and Mintra are meeting us here.

Because of our history, Mintra greets me enthusiastically, warmly.  And she and A-non tell us very excitedly about the forty people that have started to gather on Sundays, and the twenty baptisms that happened just recently.  And they are glowing and then so are we, because it's all such very good news for a new church plant.

And in that glowing moment, the history lays itself down in the room, and we start talking about it.  About how it was one visit while I was here that A-non invited us to come to his house where his wife was working because she said she was ready to become a Christian.  And how that day I got to be a spiritual midwife and watch a 'new creation' birthed from Mintra's heart.  And how it was another visit when I was here that she wanted to be baptized and make her faith public, so I got to do that too.  And how they had faithfully put themselves under the care and teaching of Ahjahn Suradet and Yupa, to nurture and grow their faith.  And now, here they were, part of a new and exciting extension of the Church of Christ in a land very curious about how life and death and goodness and freedom from sin works.  And Jesus has something to say about that.

And I heard the Spirit say, "Here.  A gift of a moment where you get to see just a little bit of how all your fumbling attempts have been given life and power in My Name to bring peace into hearts."  

And it spun in my soul like light and life.

So I said so.  A little bit in Thai, mostly in English that had to be interpreted.  I said how hugely my heart was encouraged in this moment.  How amazing it was to see Mintra especially growing into a fully devoted follower of Jesus.  How honoured I was that they would invite me into their lives like this.

And we cried together a little bit.  

Because Love was spoken 

and I'm not sure which language said it.

Wonderment Reflections on the First Few Days

Escargot, anyone?

This is Steve, a new friend I named and who gave me permission to post his photo, as well as send it along to Jayden who has a fondness for snails.  So, no, we won't be having him for lunch.

Strangely enough, Steve is helping me to feel right at home.

It's these quirky little touches, for example, the fact that a rather large snail in the bathroom doesn't phase me in the least, that remind me of how far away from home I am, and how I've come back home all at the same time.

I think that's what surprising me most in these first few days.  The lack of intensity I sort of expected since I was gone for as long as I was.  [Two years, eight months, two weeks, six days, eleven hours and 33 minutes, to be exact, in case I haven't mentioned it.]  With that much time in between, I expected things to feel strange and different again, or to have to get adjusted all over again.

But no.  Just two days in, with two decent night's sleep under me, and it sort of feels like I never left.  I feel calm, safe, happy, healthy, and ready and able to serve in the ways I'm called to while I'm here.

First night handing out the Sponsors' packets, I was still travel-weary, and a little jet-lag spinny.  But being there to watch the kids receive with such delight all the treasures in their pouches....so much energy from that right there.

Im's new shirt fits perfectly!

I've slept well already, although still getting up too early, which is an advantage for morning worship.  By 5:30 when everyone else gathers, I'm up and dressed and have sent out a few emails already.  Then breakfast, and great news is that I'm eating well, taking it easy on the over-travelled stomach for the first few days, and experiencing the benefits of that.  

Fresh and cold.

And while I think I've lost a bit of ground in pronunciation, I'm quite surprised that my Thai language comprehension is as good as it is.  Not bad for this old brain, considering how easily language leaks.

So things are very, very good, and I am very, very relieved.

To take this a bit deeper...

Last January when I was beset with a three-in-one health challenge (difficult tooth extraction, significant sciatic pain, suspicious kidney stone activity) that literally kept me in bed for the better of three weeks, I sincerely wondered if I might be done the travelling thing.  I was not sleeping and not eating probably for the better of six weeks.  The medications I was on caused a wretched amount of heartburn, and made me dizzy.  

The idea of putting this unsteady body on a plane and hauling it halfway around the world provoked no small degree of anxiety during those cold, dark nights last winter.  My heart was wrung out at the thought that the physically demanding part of what I do now might not be possible.  

And yet....

Here I am, feeling amazing.  Feeling like I never left.

Don't worry.  I'm quite aware that my gut might betray me at some point.  And it hasn't really been all that hot yet.  Also, there are any number of unexpected 'friends' more sinister than a bathroom snail to be wary of.   Still, I am so very encouraged by this very strong start.

All our girls are growing so tall and lovely!

Father God, I am amazed again by Your tender intimacy.  

To hold me so beautifully those uncertain weeks last winter.  

To carry me safely here now.  

To provide everything I need, as promised.  

My heart is Yours.  

No matter what. 

No matter where.

 

Time Warp Bonus

I've done it twice now.

In this last month leading up to my first trip back to Thailand in a looooooonnnnng time, I've shortchanged myself from an entire week.  Once when writing out my weekly list, and once when mapping out prep work for the sermon/report I'll be giving to Highview on October 30th (the day before I leave).  In each case, I've actually 'dropped' seven whole days and mentally pressed the prep into a smaller segment of time.

This is a good problem.  At least, way better than making the opposite mistake.  When I realized it again yesterday, there was a little rush of 'yay' in receiving what, by virtue of my confusion, seemed to me now a bonus.  

Oh! Great!  Not quite so much pressure.  I'll take it.

But it's a weird sensation.  The same kind of weirdness depicted in any story about time travel, or time folding over itself, or 'wrinkling' or standing still, or any manner by which humans explore their fascination with time.

Maybe we're all in that state these days anyways.  

What sensation of time have we known these past two and a half years?  Hasn't 'blursday' sort of smudged out over the entire pandemic by now?  Without regular markers and celebrations, particularly in the broader scope of 'annually', does it even feel like two years have gone by?  Has it gone by really slowly?  Really fast?  Or has it all just sort of turned to mush in our memories?

For anyone measuring any kind of growth or productivity in any arena of life and work, does it feel like a lot of time's been wasted?  Did we put plans and visions on hold, and are we now just taking stock to survey all that did NOT get accomplished?  

This is where I am most naturally wired up to go.  I like efficiency.  I hate wasting time.  The phrase 'killing time' sounds criminal to me.  Yes, yes, we need to rest and sabbath and care for our own souls.  I know this.  I do this.  But overall, over a two plus years period of whatever it is we're counting here, something surely has to have happened!  Surely there's something I can look to as having been completed, or progressed, or even just started.  Pu-leeeese!

Ironically, it's the very work that God has called me to, in these latter years of my life, that helps bring some answers, some balance, and hopefully more maturity (I mean, really) to how I interact with time. Beyond the very wild weirdness of flying ahead trhough time zones (believe me, that still messes with me a little), Thai culture is 'event-oriented' not 'time-oriented', as we are so much more prone to be here in the West.  Especially me.  Being there - which I am longing for - is such a good immersion in a gentler, less controlling way of moving through any given day.  It's like there's a general communal understanding that all things happen 'at the proper time'.  

This is why, even with all the strange traffic congestion and free-style way of driving, there is rarely an angry beeping of a horn.  It's remarkable.

This is why when you ask when something will start, there seems to be a bit of confusion, because whatever it is starts when everyone is there.  And it ends with it's over.  

This is why if you're the last person gathering your things before getting in the car to go somewhere, no one is annoyed with you.  Truly.  They only seem upset if you start to rush about.  Because...we have time.  We always seem to have time.

I wonder if the fine folks in Galatia were dipping forward into a more modern, Westernized frustration on these things.  Or maybe they were just genuinely discouraged by whatever circumstances prompted Paul to write his letter to them.  

"Do not grow weary in doing good," he comforts them.  "For at the proper time we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up."  (Galatians 6:9 emphasis added)

Coincidentally, or maybe not so, this is one of the verses we have learned together at Hot Springs during the ESL portion of our Bible times in the evenings.  I could hear their strong young voices in my head as I write out the words just now.  

At the proper time.  Of course, it's God's call on this.  It's His time, not ours that's 'proper', timely, perfect.  All we have to do is keep on doing good.

I pause here to let that sink in....for me.

Things are coming along nicely in all the trip preparations, by the way.  One of two happy bonuses of my scheduling error is that I am well in hand (at least at this point) to have everything ready and packed well before the October 31st departure date.  

The other happy bonus?  This moment to reflect again on Who is really in charge.  In charge of outcomes.  In charge of time.  In charge of me.  And it's okay.  He's got the time.

What I Love About Labour Day

It's the Labour Day Holiday Monday and we are here, home in the city, and I am really very fine with that.

There are a number of reasons Ken and I normally opt out of staying at the cottage over this weekend, noise and traffic being just two of them.  But if I think about it, the best part of this weekend for me every year is the chance it gives me to get my house in order.

By 'house', I don't just mean our physical home, but that's part of it.  It's more or less that sense that a new season of work is about to begin, and here's the chance to put everything in place - on the calendar, on my desk and workspace, on the bookshelves and files, in the closets (especially the sock drawer), in the kitchen, out on the porch - and basically anywhere where I will be working and living and moving.  If it's in place and in order now, not only am I better set up for success in anything that's on the books, but I am also better able to handle all the unexpected and incidentals that will no doubt and almost immediately require some time and attention.

While I am a summer girl through and through, I love September for this.

It's like a bit of a reset for the season ahead, that time between summers when 'regular life' and 'regular schedules' set the tone and rhythm of all the good work we get to do.

So all weekend that's been my unhurried, non-anxious focus.  And today I get to just finish it all up, straighten out all the last little things, and then get ready for a very casual meal together with friends at the end of the day.

"Unhurried and non-anxious" has been a lovely theme for me over the summer months.  While there was significant loss, I also had the time and space to grieve and rest and think and write and kayak and gather blueberries.  And be Gramma.  And it was healing and revealing.

A word, a concept, a theme that's repeatedly come up in the journaling and prayer times is "Enough."

This seems to me to be related to a few layers of nuance.  

One, it is a descriptor of my inner self right now.  Here at the beginning of a new season, I am replenished, restored, rested,  I do not have a sense of neediness in my spirit.  What I have is 'enough' and then some.  I am over the top grateful for this, as I can't recall feeling this content for a very very long time.  Past journals (which I brought with me to reflect on over the summer) confirm this.

But the other nuance, and this is more related to Labour Day and my approach to work, has more to do with the lovely responsibilities I have been given at this point in my life, my life's work, and a sense that loving and serving our children in Thailand is more than 'enough' for me to be doing right now.  I experience what the psalmist expresses in probably the most well known of the psalms, chapter 23: "My cup overflows."  

Beyond that, there is more to unpack from all of this.  To protect my "Enough" there will need to be some "nos", and some good discernment to go with.  And my tendency to overwork for all the wrong reasons is still part of my wiring.  But in my own spiritual formation, as I regularly submit all the ways I do not reflect the Jesus I say I follow to the Spirit's work in me, there is a movement on this, I think.  I hope.  

Today I am thinking of all the teachers, students, parents getting ready for a new season of school.

I am thinking of all the pastors and ministry leaders getting ready for a new season of serving.

I am thinking of everyone whose summer was anything but restful, and are heading into the next few weeks feeling anything but ready, and I am praying for you.  I've had those seasons too.  They're brutal and pressing and shows us what we're made of and how sufficient our God is.  

Strength and peace to you to all.

The Puffy Places

 I'm no weather expert.  Let's start there.

What I am is an avid weather-watcher.  Especially in the summer.  Especially when it comes to timing out a trip across the water to the cottage.  Boaters know this.  Island cottagers know this.  Anyone dealing with any sort of open water whatsoever knows this.  

Weather matters, and you don't want to be caught out in a storm.

The repeated weather pattern of the days ending last week and on into the weekend were, to quote the weather guy on our local station, "Cut and paste."  Clear and cool in the morning.  Building heat with a wide circle of pressure and upper level wind throughout the day.  Risk of localized thunderstorm by afternoon.  Cut and paste, on repeat for about four days in a row.  

Sunday wasn't really supposed to be one of those days.  In fact the radar indicated it would just outright rain all day, throwing in the odd thunderstorm at random, for good measure.  And also the radar indicated there might be a break around noonish or so.  

That's not really what happened.  

Almost, but not quite.

That's how we missed getting rained on, but also missed worship.  

Believing the radar, and really needing to be back to the cottage by at least Sunday evening, we left too early to be with our peeps at Highview, but arrived too late to be with our peeps in Cognashene, at the service that in fact did NOT get called off due to rain.  Beautiful day.  All the way up.  Beautiful ride out under a bright sky.  But just not quite in time for service.  

By now, even to me, this is all sounding like an over-apology for missing church.  Maybe it is.  But I actually want to get to the clouds.

Once unpacked and settled, things looked so NOT stormy, in fact quite calm out on the water, that I got myself into the kayak to mark my twenty-second time around the island this season.  Couldn't help myself.  Since I missed worship, my soul needed this.

And there were clouds.

The open sky is one of Georgian Bay's best features, so it's not like I haven't seen clouds on many if not most of my paddles.  Just, this day, with the cut and paste storm still being predicted for a few hours from now, they had a different texture to them.

There was just a hint of the storm to come.  But mostly they were brilliantly white and layered, with complex billows of cloudness (that's not a word, but I've already mentioned that I'm no weather expert, so).  

There are many ways to worship, many kinds of cathedrals, and I discovered this 'puffy place' to be one for me.  In the unhurried-but-something's-coming space, I found myself suddenly on the inhale, in one of those involuntary shudders usually reserved for after a good, hard cry.  Except I hadn't been, crying that is.  At least not physically.  Happened more than once, and both times in response to simply studying the intricacies of the clouds.

Maybe I was just tired from the drive and unpacking.  Maybe.  But.

I am still making my way through the marking of loss of five beloveds this summer, of course I am.  Every one of those beautiful senior souls left their mark on me, and it takes a while to say a proper goodbye.  

And I think I'm still unpacking some of the good things this spring also held, such as graduating and turning 65 and celebrating 25 years with Highview.  All that sort of flew by in the midst of some stunning difficulty (that I have previously and vaguely referred to on Facebook postings), and it's taken a lot of kayak worship to recover from it all.

Later that same afternoon it did rain, yes it did.  Like a deluge of tears perhaps.  It feels good to cry,

But before that, there's the puffy places of wonder.  

Like right now.  

These last two weeks I will be very much in that unhurried-but-something's-coming space, I think.