On Not Using Words

As I look back over the Twelve Days of Christmas and the season of Advent that preceded it, three things bubble up in my memory as uniquely special. One occurred in a grocery store. After paying my bill, I realized that the customer ahead of me had neatly bagged all my groceries for me. Smiling and waving, she said, "Happy Holidays," and immediately turned to leave. Clearly, anonymity was a big part of the random kindness she wished to deliver to me that day. Delighted, I called out after her to thank her.

The second thing that I am still savoring is the silent, daylong vigil that a local church held to honor and pray for the victims of the Newtown shooting. Scheduled a week after the fact, I had already heard and read and said more than was helpful to me or anyone else in processing the event. The silence was exactly what my soul needed to regain its equilibrium and get back to the spiritual focus of the season, preparing for the birth of the light that shines in darkness without being overcome by the darkness. The silence shared with others helped me to personally move out of the darkness into the light of the coming Christmas season.

And lastly, I was pleased to have been reminded of J.R.R Tolkien's Christian worldview through watching Peter Jackon's "The Hobbit" in all its 3-D magnificence. Prompted by Gandalf, Tolkien's grace-filled wisdom figure, Bilbo accepts the call to leave his happy hobbit hole and undertake his grand and perilous "adventure," simply because he had a home "and the dwarves did not." Bilbo thus makes the life-changing decision (conversion!) to develop and flex his capacity for self-sacrificing love. Need I say that movies with deeply hopeful themes such as this are not exactly plentiful these days?

Reflecting on these three things--a surprise favor from a stranger, a silent vigil, and an entertaining movie delivering Christian values--together points me to Saint Francis' astute advice to "Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." Although the grocery-bagging stranger was most likely a professing Christian, she did not strain the encounter by trying to rope me into attending her church or seeing the world as she does. Actions speak louder than words: do kindness. The day of the silent vigil, I had become oversaturated with media ruminations about the Newtown tragedy; I simply could not have tolerated any sermonizing. Sometimes silence is the best thing we can "say" in painful situations: let's share more of it. Lastly, stories can teach and inspire in ways that direct discussion cannot. Tolkien's work is all the more powerful for not crossing the line into explicit evangelism. Let's cultivate direct appreciation for the great literature of Christianity. Can you hear C.S. Lewis and Dante calling you?

2013 will be year in which I: 1) Practice random acts of kindness; 2) Find more opportunities for shared silence; and 3) Read and discuss more classics. I'll bet these resolutions will make me--and anyone--a much more attractive witness to faith out in the secular world than anything that is preached or written. But hey! Keep reading the blog, please!

Hope Even Now

Matthew 2:18 - “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”

I like this icon a lot. By coincidence, there are twenty-two babies pictured, the exact number of children wounded in China last Friday. While Newtown, Connecticut's, homicidal maniac used a gun, 36-year-old Min Yingjun used knives in his vicious attack on the children walking through the gate to their elementary school in Henan province.

We are avoiding the truth if we don't acknowledge that there likely were children all around the world murdered, wounded, and otherwise traumatized last week, that we don't even know about. The hotspots of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Syria; the favelas in Brazil, the giant trash heaps in India, and the Nigerian churches eyed by terrorists come to mind. We don't live in a safe world, and it is a luxurious illusion to which we Americans have become all too-accustomed, to think that the world is, or can be made, secure and pleasant. It was into such a world that Jesus was born; his family had to flee in order to escape Herod's homicidal wrath. Ultimately, Jesus would take the whole world's wrath, from all of time, onto himself as he died on the cross.

So why do I like this picture of Mary keeping watch over twenty-two infants? Part of it is because the swaddled babies pictured look ever so much like twenty-two Christmas-card-worthy Christchilds. The point in that is that every baby, God's very image, enjoys God's tender-loving care as depicted here, channeled through Mary's motherly care. So we need to care for every child in the world--just as much as Kate and her husband William care for the prince or princess growing in her womb.

In the icon, Mary's grief-stricken gaze is upon the babies, and her arms are lifted up in prayer on their behalf. So must our eyes be upon the suffering masses of humanity and so must our hearts be uplifted in prayer on their behalf.

At the center of the icon are Mary's prayer-crossed legs, forming a triangle, pulling us, as all good icons do, into the presence of our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Like this icon, so must we center ourselves in God. Although evidence for despair may encircle us, the love from this center radiates and vanquishes it.

The icon is painted in the calming Advent shades of blue and purple. Advent is the season of hope, and this icon calls us to hopefulness even in the midst of tragedy. The tragedy is not the final word at this time. Mary's prayer and our prayer is the final word at this time. God's answer to our words of prayer comes in the Word made flesh, Jesus, who was in the beginning, is now, and evermore shall be.

Come, Lord Jesus.