That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!

Well, not really. But it kinda sucked.

Christmas is one of my favourite times of the year. So for the first time in five years, I used several vacation days to extend my days off.  I was hoping to spend some time with my elderly grandfather, make lots of music with my aunt, see a whole bunch of movies in theatres, and spend time alone reading and writing.

On the 23rd, after a nearly perfect Christmas tree hunt,  I went downtown to meet up with a best friend to watch Jackie at Eau Claire. Thanks to the nasty roads and snowfall, he was unable to show up. So I went into a pub to catch up on emails and ordered a large serving of fish and chips. The meal was too expensive and left a bad taste in the mouth. Frustrated, I went across the street to watch the excellent film Manchester by the Sea. I went to bed around midnight, excited for my vacation to begin.

At 3:10 am I woke up with an even worse taste in my mouth. "Just get rid of it and all will be well" I told myself. That was not so easily done.

It was nine hours later that I dared swallow a sip of water. It took the next twelve hours to get rehydrated, forty hours before I dared eat a full meal, and sixty before the diarrhea stopped. I was throwing up so hard that I burst blood vessels in my left eye, resulting in two days of hazing vision  and looking like I'd survived a bar fight rather than food poisoning. It's now been four days and I'm still exhausted.

I'm surprised how easy I've fallen into despair. To not find enjoyment in the rich gifts around us is expected, for they can quickly grow old. But not finding hope and comfort on the truths and power of prayer and scripture is verging on inexcusable. I have so much to learn!

And then I saw reports of friends' Christmases. A trip to the emergency room on Christmas Day because an infant daughter is chocking. A Christmas Eve in the hospital due to colitis. A wife whose brain tumour has resulted in a hand refuses to recover and is throbbing with pain. Or even worse: a miscarriage.

So I resolve to enjoy these next few days off. It will be easy to look back with regret on time wasted and memories ruined. It will be tempting to find joy solely in the music I'll play, the movies I'll see, the friends I'll meet, the quite time I'll savour. What's the alternative? Perhaps it's knowing that these circumstances exist to humble us, to re-anchor us in something greater than the well-being that we have built up around us, that bursts so easily. When I am made aware of that again, contentment is possible. I can rest in someone outside of myself.

Christmas Day and Advent Antiphons

Today is Christmas, a day of celebration; for although all is not right, and sorrow and frustrations are real, the promised Messiah has come. His arrival, heralded by angels and foretold by prophets, is foretaste of our future and ultimate deliverance. Our Eternal God has stepped into human form, redeeming us by living and dying in the flesh, and he will come again. 

Just as the reunion of a bride and groom on their wedding day is anticipated by their preparations, so the season of advent prepares us for today’s festivities. The seven great ‘O Antiphons’ of advent are a series of prayers thatcome from early Christians (as early as the 6th century). Each prayer uses a name of Christ from Scripture, calling upon him to come anew into our lives. Many will recognize them from the lyrics of ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.  The prayers are rooted in and breath forth Scripture. I was introduced to them through the outstanding influence of the Cambridge poet-priest Malcolm Guite, who has an excellent series of sonnets based on each of these prayers.

In the seven days leading up to Christmas, I paired an excerpt of each prayer with a photo and a few lines from Malcolm’s sonnet. Click on the lines of poetry to head to Malcom’s website where you can hear the entire prayer and poem. I hope you find in these prayers, their pictures, and Malcolm’s sonnets a fresh way to yearn for, and rejoice in, Christ’s coming. 

Antiphon 1
Antiphon 2
Antiphon 2
Antiphon 4

O Key of David!
Come, and lead the prisoners. 

"O come again, come quickly, set me free
Cut to the quick to fit, the master key."

 

 

 

Antiphon 5
Antiphon 6
Antiphon 7

O, Emmanuel
Come, and save us, O Lord our God.

 "O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without"

 

By the way, as Malcom points out on his blog, the antiphonies reveal a “secret message embedded subtly into the whole sequence. In each of these antiohons we have been calling on Him to come to us, to come as Light as Key, as King, as God-with-us. Now, standing on the brink of Christmas, looking back at the illuminated capital letters for each of the seven titles of Christ, we would see an answer to our pleas : ERO CRAS the latin words meaning ‘TOMORROW I WILL COME!’

O Emmanuel

O Rex

O Oriens

O Clavis

O Radix

O Adonai

O Sapientia”

 

Christ has come. Let us rejoice in who he is this Christmas Day!

How We Get Our Christmas Tree

Every year, on either December 23rd or 24th, my family cuts down a Christmas tree. They pile into the van, and follow winding roads into the Kananaskis, carols sung by the choir of Trinity College Cambridge playing through the car stereo  Eventually they pull into a trailhead chosen by my dad after consulting mountain maps and the tree cutting permit. But since one doesn't find Christmas trees on trails, the family disperses, outfitted with boots and gators,  willy-nilly off-road, through forests of knee-deep snow.

When in the wild, one assumes that every small symmetrical spruce tree will fit into our living room. When one summons the family to consult over your choice of a potential, some complaint is always raised. Usually, it's that the tree is too tall. Or the branches are too thick. Or not thick enough.

 (A friend once told me how his family would get their tree by going to their back forty and firing their guns at the top of a tall trunk until its tip fell off. Tips of tall tress almost always look good.)

In the end, there is usually more than one finalist in our tree selection. Since nobody can quite agree which one would look best in the living room, and since the cutting permit includes up to three trees, both of our top choices are cut down with Dad's orange saw and carried on shoulders back to the car. My Dad's former career as a tall-ship sailing instructor reasserts itself, as he ties both trees to the roof of our van, using an ingenious assembly of ropes, cords, and clever knots. The rest of the family huddles in the car, heaters at full blast, the mountain dusk settling around them.

Once home, gators and boots are scattered around the door, as each tree takes its place in the witness box of our living room. The winning specimen is mounted in the tree stand, while the looser suffers the ignoble fate of being hacked to pieces and served up as firewood. (A resting place that the victor, twelve days later, will also join; a reminder that despite our conquests and victories, the grave will swallow us all.)

After the honoured tree is given a chance to let its branches rest and recover their natural figure, my dad gets the honour of trying to fix our string of white lights, while we all sit around hoping and praying that they actually work. (This happens every year. Never have we thought ahead and  purchased a new set.) When the string finally comes alive, a cheer goes forth and Dad tastefully drapes them on the branches, the tip of the tree always receiving its own single bulb. I, being the tallest, always get the honour of mounting that branch with the straw star, symbol of my childhood.

By now, the rest of the family has attacked the tree with our 20 year old collection of ornaments, a mixture of small, tasteful decorations from my childhood (at least, those that have survived this far) - each one conjuring the very spirit of Christmases past - along with the larger, tackier objects that were received as gifts in the years since. (I'm surprised my minimalist mother hasn't thrown them out by now.) Last year, my brother insisted on including every single Christmas ball he purchased from thrift stores over the year. I hope this year he's grown out of that fancy.

The finished tree, lit and tinkling, with splashes of gold and red, is ready to provide the backdrop to an evening filled with the aromas of French onion soup, stories and read-alouds with our 93-year-old grandfather, and the rest of the family happily exchanging gifts.

And that is how the tree arrives in our home; at least, usually. Certain years, when everyone is sick, Mum just goes to Greengate on the 24th and picks up, discounted to $5, the tree that has the most live needles (picking it up by the trunk and stamping it on the ground is the best way to tell).

I would love to have posted a cozy photo of the Christmas tree on our car, admidst the falling snow; but this year, I stayed home, rested from my cold, and wrapped presents.

image.jpg

Advent and Christmastide

The poetic potential of the advent and Christmas seasons is limitless. The painters, wordsmiths, musicians, and speakers of our faith have mined it for millennium and have yet to finish. The yearning of every heart is for the coming of our King. This season is about setting time aside to prepare for his coming and celebrating his arrival and the implications it brings.

For the month of Advent and the two weeks since Christmas I have been mediating upon these truths, marinating on them my prayers, listening to music that examines them, sitting under teaching on the subject in church, and celebrating the season with family and friends. So when it came to write about Christmas here, I felt inadequate. I wondered where to begin and upon what to limit the boundary of my discussion. 

I came back to the Scripture readings that I daily reflected upon during this season. These are what inspired the pictures I daily posted during both Advent (the days leading up to Christmas) and Christmastide (the “12 Days of Christmas” following the 25th). These portions of the Bible are what tell of the One Who created and sustains everything, Who stepped into our world to redeem it, and Who will come again.

Enjoy the gallery and mediate with me on the words. Christmas may be over but its implications never end.