Not Feeling Christmas-y

Before she gave birth to the Christ child, Mary gave birth to a song – a heartsong, we call the “Magnificat” from the Latin “to magnify” – a word which is rooted in the idea of “extolling greatly, making much of, to extol”. Mary’s heartsong begins: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”,and this song becomes one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns embedded in the liturgical services of the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Church and the Anglican Communion. The “Magnificat” has settings in Gregorian Chant in each of the eight liturgical modes and has been set to music by western composers including Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart, Mendelsohn, Schubert, Rutter, Arvo Part and many others.

And yet, I could never quite get into it or quite frankly, the Virgin Mary either.  As much of a Bible student as I am, I had always thought that the “Magnificat” was in response to the Angel Gabriel’s message to Mary – to the Annunciation when Gabriel greeted Mary with “Be Not Afraid,  for you have found favor with God” and then delivered the message that she would bear a child who would be known as the Son of God, the Counselor and Prince of Peace, the fulfillment of all prophecy and that for which the entire creation awaits.  I always thought that Mary must have warranted such favor as to be chosen to bear such a weighty child – the Savior of the world -- because somehow she must have embodied not so much what I understood her virginity to represent --  a perfection of body – but rather a perfection of spirit. That even as a young, most likely teenaged woman, she must have exhibited a peaceful unity of body, soul and mind – a harmony of emotions, hormones, thoughts, deeds that integrated into some devotional outpouring of the light (albeit a modest shining), of goodwill and equanimity toward all around her. I think I believed that she must have felt what we might call “Christmas-y” all the time.

But this year, my teacher, Therese Schroeder-Shekar, who created and still tends with such care to the Chalice of Repose Project, perhaps unknowingly prompted me in a unit of study she calls “The Spirituality of the Voice” to walk for a while through image and word and song, with the “story of Mary, the mystical rose, with the Child, the midwife, the three Magi, and with the shepherds in the fields in celebration of all things made new in the birth of a child.”  To take note, that it is said “that the forest and trees, springs and even the stars quiver at such incarnation and if we trace those threads with love and awe, with wonder and humility, all things will be reborn in us as well.”

And so I looked again, this time more carefully at the story and Mary’s heartsong and realized that the song is a response to the realization of the mercies that are being visited upon the young Mary and beyond that, upon Elizabeth her elderly cousin who is also to bear a child miraculously in her old age and after a lifetime of the disgrace of barrenness.   In fact, there are some scholars who attribute the “Magnificat” to Elizabeth rather than Mary and indeed when you read the passage in Luke when the two women come together, and the song pours forth, it really seems as if it could have been Elizabeth’s song.  But it doesn’t really matter because what we have come to call the “Magnificat” is an outpouring in response to the baby within Elizabeth’s womb leaping inside her and Elizabeth’s sudden realization and exclamation that “Blessed is she who has believed the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”  

And this year I realize that one of the reasons I never “got” the Magnificat was that I had never seen that the song was an outpouring from Mary and/or Elizabeth and/or any woman who suddenly sees their life through a different lens, one that magnifies the mercies that they are swimming in and that have been visited upon generations of humankind.

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
 for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant.
    Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,
 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
    and holy is his name;
 indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him
    from generation to generation.

So this year, via Mary’s heartsong, I catch sight that it is the realization of mercies – which are not always beautifully wrapped gifts that arrive on our doorsteps in the middle of the night – that the realization of mercies – not some perfection of personality, is what renders Mary as blessed.  I am not sure the younger ones among us will understand this, but as you grow older and things do not quite seem to have worked out as you thought they would or should, there is no better, more amazing feeling than to have a full circle moment.  No better moment that to experience a surprise twist that brings you to the realization that yes, a prayer has been answered, a promise kept, a prophecy fulfilled – perhaps in a totally unexpected way, yet in a fulness of truth, goodness and beauty that you could never have imagined, much less engineered. It is truly a blessed moment when you suddenly recognize that mercies have been given you that you didn’t even know you needed or much less warranted.

This year I visited a real life library only one time – and I am convinced it was in order to discover an author and public theologian Nadia Bolz-Weber – I will tell you about her later, and at another time, but I want to read you her latest newsletter entitled, “Not Feeling Christmas-y”.

Not Very Christmas-y

Those two big plastic boxes of Christmas decorations had been sitting by our back door for nearly two weeks … like an accusation. So finally, this morning, in a fit of defeat, I put them back in the garage on their metal shelf where they cannot talk shit to me anymore.

I mean, I did trim the tree.

And I aspired to decorate the house.

But . . . meh.

I just keep thinking, I don’t feel very Christmas-y.

It’s like something is missing, or maybe just not fully snapping into place.

I know I am not alone. A couple days ago, during my Q and Q with subscribers here, several of you mentioned feeling the same.

But then yesterday afternoon, sitting in the common area of a unit at Denver Women’s Prison with 10 or so residents, all fellow members of New Beginnings lutheran Church, we read part of the Magnificat, Mary’s song, from the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel.

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
 for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant.
    Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,
 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
    and holy is his name;
 indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him
    from generation to generation.

Then, in turn, each of these women spoke of their own experiences with mercy: the unfathomable forgiveness given by those who they have harmed, and what can feel like the impossibility of forgiving themselves, and the mercy they fear might never come, and the difficulty of remembering that they are forgiven, and their desperate prayers offered at two in the morning when they seem to struggle most with all of it.

So many tears came, and without anyone making a fuss about it, tissue-thin prison toilet paper passed from one to the other, quietly, reverently, like a sacrament.

Mercy.

Feelings of good will, sentimentality, coziness, and peace may or may not show up for me this year, and that’s ok. Because there is such mercy all around me. Streams of mercy never ceasing.

I’ve never thought of the contemplation of mercy as a “holiday” thing until yesterday. But maybe instead of thinking about what seems to be missing, I can:

… think about how many times I (an unconvicted felon) drove drunk and never got arrested or worse, killed someone.

I can recall the nearly 32 years of sobriety that I have somehow been given while others have not,

I can give thanks for all the people who have forgiven me who, in all fairness, had every right to withhold it.

I can forgive some jackass who also doesn’t “deserve” it.

I can stop treating my life as a reward, when it is really a gift.

Maybe finally just putting that damn box of decorations back in the garage was an act of mercy and not defeat after all.

Perhaps you yourself are all goodness and light this season. And if so, that is a blessing.

For the rest of us, a gentle reminder that Christ will be born on Christmas with or without us "feeling" Christmas-y. Because this pattern of time, this story, these rituals and practices and songs have gone on long before us and will continue long after us. Sometimes we are floating in that river of faith, just swimming in it and feeling the transcendent warmth of the season. And other times we seem to be standing in just a half inch of the stuff; not even enough to cover our feet. But the power of the river, its source and its destination changes not at all. And both things: submerged in and barely having our feet in are the same. There’s no ranking system at work here. One is not "better" than the other. One does not "count more". That's just not how this thing works. Thank God.”

I will pause in the reading for a moment, to say that I’ve been trying to pay attention to Advent this year. Mostly worrying it about…pushing it like a broom ineffectively across the floor first in one way, then another…trying to catch all the scattered debris of thinking and feeling…wondering how to carve out the time, silence the noise, find the contemplative pitch and mode for that Silent Night in which I need to give birth to the Child, the Christ within.  How can I be so silly as to forget that pregnancy overtakes you…you can’t worry it into completion. That’s why Advent is called Advent.   And Nadia Bolz-Weber and Luke the physician and author of the Gospel that includes Gabriel Annunciation and Mary’s song, reminds me that Mary gave birth to a song before she gave birth to a babe in a manger on that Silent Night. She or Elizabeth let loose vibrations that loosed a song into the universe calling mercies to mercies, like to like. Nothing after that song would ever be the same. 

Last night, I had a personal Annunciation moment – and I can share that with you at another time as well. It was a personal moment and a transcendent one as well when you realize that yes,  you too have been “overshadowed by spirit” all along and that Spirit has acted on your behalf to bring about a “baby in a manger moment”  in a way that you absolutely know in your bones that your personality, your excellent attributes, your character flaws, your 2 am tossings and turnings,  your 8 am resolves, all of your best efforts simply could never have imagined, much less engineered. It was a moment in which you realized that the whole universe has been conspiring with you, and perhaps even despite you to answer your 2 am groanings, to bring about a moment in which you can say, “Here -- truly by the grace of God -- I am.”  Yes, if this and all generations only knew, they would indeed call me blessed.  Not the blessings of talents or gifts unearned, but the joy of mercies realized, the joy of graces received and graciously recognized.

And now back to Nadia Bolz-Weber to close –

“So, my sweet friends, eat a cookie and receive this blessing: ‘If you find yourself in this familiar time of year, but are seeing and experiencing it with what feel like unfamiliar eyes, may your vision be sharpened to take in what you missed during all those years you saw what you expected to see and felt what you expected to feel. May you experience the unfamiliar as an unfolding and not as an undoing. And may you not take any of it, or yourself, even a tiny bit more seriously than absolutely necessary.’

I’ll try and do the same.  With gentleness and grit, Nadia.”

This morning, dear ones, all this, in humbleness and gratitude, Teri.