hidden treasures

hidden, discarded and utterly tucked away in the christmas shelves of target, there it was. the perfect tree topper. we had compromised and put my star on top of the tree and the russian spy's garland (it's still not up, but will be after the tree trimming party tomorrow). and as we gazed upon the tree--shoes hanging off of it (to weight the branches so the drop more fully), mixed sets of lights, we noticed it. well, more precisely, the russian spy noticed it. the star tree topper had a pentagram hidden in it. i know, i know...it's a symbol that has many meanings, the divine feminine, among them. but, well...it's like seeing the arrow hidden in the FedEx logo...once you see it you can't NOT see it. so it was feeling like the pentagram tree topper, which, frankly, just isn't me.

so amid the errands we ran yesterday, we found ourselves in target. and there it was. it's a lighted tree topper, which i've never had before. kinda tacky, i know, but the tree is tacky, in a very good way. and most of all, it's a bethlehem star. i looked all over bethlehem for a bethlehem star tree topper, with no sucess. i did find a candle holder, but i've wanted one since then. at the grotto of the nativity a spot marks the place where jesus was born and when you enter you go and touch it. surrounding it is the star like pattern.


so while the tree topper doesn't look exactly like that, it reminds me more of this pattern. moreover, it reminds me of bethlehem. and that, as you know by now, makes me very happy.

procrastinate

okay. so maybe this is just more procrastinating, but i think i'm having an iareawriter moment. she always is good at spotting these scenes.

so, here i sit at caribou coffee, where, much to my delight, they have free wifi and, if you order a large coffee, housed in a small mug, they'll refill it for free until you leave.

i'm working on my sermon. it's dragging. but something new has come in. you have to remember that i'm in boystown, so interesting people come in all the time, but i think this is just a plain girl/woman. she's dressed, head to to in black (that's not unusual, so am i). her hair is even dyed to match. but she's got on super cheap looking, hooker red shoes. and a matching, cheap hooker red bag to match. she's not a hooker. she's just a little out of place. she sits, in front of the fireplace, small coffee in hand, and puts on her makeup. black liquid eyeliner from a large ink-like jar, applied with a long, painful stick pretending to be an eyeliner brush. and then she pulls out the perfume and coats herself in it. the strange stench fills the coffee shop, the wrong aroma for this place. and there's the strange intimacy of watching a bathroom routine, the secret applications of potions and polish, done here in the midst of the communal coffee shop living room.

she's all done now. black nails, black clothes, black makeup, save the hooker red lipstick. sort of a young, goth liza. harsh looking, yet looking overwhelmingly lost, waiting for someone who has yet to arrive. the caroller sings on, wishing me a merry christmas--the muzac of the season, all too familiar now. she tries, in vain, to reach him/her/them on the phone. she tries to blend, to belong and to not look anxious. it doesn't work. and so she waits, hooker red highlighting the rainy, dark night.

instead of writing a sermon...

There’s a commercial that runs this time of year. I’ve noticed it for at least three years now. In it, a beautiful, blue-eyed, blonde haired woman in her mid to late 20s sits on a train, moving through the snow covered territory, which reminds me of the Hudson Valley in New York state. As the train pulls into the station, her eyes light up and her brilliant white teeth break beam through her perfectly polished lips as her face erupts in a grand smile. As the train comes to a stop, cherub like children run along side the train, the cause, no doubt, of her smile, waving to her and running, until, the scene culminates with them running into her arms as Christmas music plays in the background and we are reminded of the power that teeth whitening strips can have on our holiday.

The commercial used to make me cry. It evokes, in me, such longing, and such a reminder of those things unfulfilled in my life. The woman, as presented in this 30 second film, seems to have everything: the family, the idyllic back drop for the season, the teeth. I can remember when I first moved to Chicago from New York, from knowing a whole community of people to knowing almost no one, I would watch this commercial and wonder who I had failed so miserably—failed to create this life that was being projected as what I was supposed to want, what I was supposed to have. Of course, it wasn’t just that commercial. There were and are others as well—reminders of what I don’t have—the big house, the perfectly decorated living room, the 2.5 children, the family that never fights—all the things I see, all the ways I come up short.

And now? Now life is different...people I love are all around me. Chicago feels, if not like home, at least like a good resting place. And yet I see that commercial and while I don't cry, I find myself still feeling like I've come up short, like I've not done what is supposed to be done.

The challenge of living in Advent--the challenge of living the Christian faith--is living with both a foot in both worlds--the world of media, of life, of this world and the world that is that of the Christian life--the world that is and yet is not yet, looking for the coming, looking for the things, the places where the veil grows thin and the world is transformed without the power of Crest white strips.

A Song on the End of the World

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it
should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under
their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the end of the lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
A voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed,
And those who expected signs of archangels'
trumpets
Do not believe it is happening now,
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be
a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.

--Warsaw, 1944
Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Anthony Milosz

Friday Five

It's been awhile since I've done the Friday Five. Since I'm actually taking my day off work today, I thought it might be a good time to catch up on blogging and the Friday Five.

From Rev Gal Blog Pals:

"Imagine a complex, multi-cultural society that annually holds an elaborate winter festival, one that lasts not simply a few days, but several weeks. This great festival celebrates the birth of the Lord and Saviour of the world, the prince of peace, a man who is divine. People mark the festival with great abundance- feasting, drinking and gift giving....." (Richard Horsley-The Liberation of Christmas)

The passage goes on, recounting the decorations that are hung, and the songs and dances that accompany the festival, how the economy booms and philanthropic acts abound....

But this is not Christmas- this is a Roman festival in celebration of the Emperor....This is the world that Jesus was born into! The world where the early Christians would ask "Who is your Saviour the Emperor or Christ?"

And yet our shops and stores and often our lives are caught up in a world that looks very much like the one of ancient Rome, where we worship at the shrine of consumerism....

Advent on the other hand calls us into the darkness, a time of quiet preparation, a time of waiting, and re-discovering the wonder of the knowledge that God is with us. Advent's call is to simplicity and not abundance, a time when we wait for glorious light of God to come again...

Christ is with us at this time of advent, in the darkness, and Christ is coming with his light- not the light of the shopping centre, but the light of love and truth and beauty.

What do you long for this advent? What are your hopes and dreams for the future? What is your prayer today?

In the vein of simplicity I ask you to list five advent longings....

Longings...

1. I long to be free to the things that trap me--debt, weight, stuff. I want to be lighter, to be more free to do things, to be still, to not worry (and, I'm happy to report that I'm actively working on all these things).

2. I long for a break in the frenzy. Things get busy. People get anxious. I get anxious. I get busy. People act one way. I act another. And all this can drive me a little nuts. I think the challenge is to remember that wackyness will ensue. Wackyness will always be part of my life--it always has been, it's part of my genetic make-up. What I want is to remember that it's okay when things get a little wonky and that it's all part of the whole being human piece. I long for is being able to be centered and calm in the midst of the wackyness of the world, of my world.

3. I long for people to recognize that the Twilight series has some seriously problematic themes and messages to young women. Buffy, however, rocks and is wicked empowering. (this third longing is really just a shout out to I are a writer, who, gratefully, gets this).

4. I long for a child.

5. I long for space: space to write, space to pray, space to be still and know that God is God.

that's the very rev, thank you very much

so a couple of weeks ago i was named a dean by the bishop. all very fancy. means i'm now the VERY rev. caffeinated priest. AND, for extra liturgical goodness, my cassock gets to be decked out in red piping. the deans meet with the bishop four times a year and act as a sort of liaison between the bishop and the area they serve. i'm excited. i love our bishop and getting to work a bit more closely with him is a treat. and i like the other deans. funny people. and they served us lunch from potbelly, so what more could you ask for?

but here's the story that goes with WHY i'm a dean....

last year, one of the longest members of the congregation died. she was one of, if not, the church martiarch. and so, having been there for all of 5 months, i called the former rector and invited him to come and preside over the funeral. and he did. it was a cold day and the snow was falling. as we prepared to go to the cemetery, i asked him what he wore over his cassock. and he told me that he simply wore the cassock. "my dear," he said, " a good wool cassock will keep you warm even in this weather!" "but," i protested, "my cassock IS wool." "my dear," he replied, "yours is not the true, pure wool cassock. it won't keep you warm." i was distraught. my $300 custom made almy cassock was wool. but he was right. it is lightweight and not at all warm. a good weight wool one would be...well...a lot more.

we went to the cemetery and buried this women, my knees literally knocking. he tried to get me to wear a coat, but i refused, wanting to at least give this woman the good anglo-catholic looking send off she would've wanted. and it was, i must say, a gorgeous tableu. a young and a not-so-young cleric, dressed in black, white surplice overlying, and stole rounding the outfit out, standing as snow covers the granite of the surronding tombstones. it was the movie picture of a what a funeral looks like.

but i was freezing. and so the former rector said "my dear" (yeah, he begins a lot of sentences with "my dear."), "when you become dean, i shall buy you a new cassock, a proper cassock, with red piping" (which indicates that one is a dean). i laughed and said "then i'm going to call rev. dean and ask her to resign so i can run for dean!" my knees were still knocking.

jokingly, i tell this story to the dean. her eyes light up. sparkle a bit, even. and, 11 months later, the phone call comes. i've been asked to be dean. i accept, in a sarah palin fashion of not really knowing what a dean does. thankfully, yesterday at the meeting, i got an actual job description, which has me pretty excited about the work that's coming.

and the cassock...well, i've been measured. and it's being handmade in england. pictures when it arrives (in about 9 months...).