Turning heads and hearts

Like many, I began thinking about the New Year a few weeks ago and compiled a list of ways I wanted to change and grow in 2014. In the past, I have had varying degrees of success with resolutions, but I still get excited when looking to the future and imagining what could come from a new start. Each year, my excited heart beats with increased hope, but, with my inevitable stumbles, I often lose faith by March and can’t remember one goal or resolution by June.

This year I’m trying something new. I am being kinder to myself. Yes, I still have a list of things I want to do, or not do, but instead of using the list as a personal ruler to measure and judge, I have decided to think of the list and my hope for change in a new way. 

This year, I have made only one resolution: to turn my head and heart in a different direction.  The items on my list are not the focus, the new direction is.  Like a finger pointing, I am to follow its guidance and not focus on the finger itself. As a result, I may not achieve some or all of the things on my list with perfection, but, if I use them to guide me, I will “stumble in the right direction,” as they say in the rooms of recovery. The stumbling, I believe, is not nearly as important as the right direction.

So, as we begin our journey through a new year, I wonder if it might serve us all well to step back from the this and that’s on our list of resolutions and ask a more fundamental question: In what direction do we wish to head this year? I suspect if we turn our heads and hearts in a new direction, many of the things on our list will be achieved.

Lessons from a Stocking.

In the food chain of stockings, it's nothing special, but something deep within stirred when my mother recently sent this childhood relic. Making her way through some long-ignored Christmas box, no doubt, she found this glimpse of Christmas past and decided to send it to her 54 year-old little boy. Like few other objects, it carried me back to the Dr. Denton mornings of rushing to the fireplace in my parents’ room at first light where my stocking hung, farthest on the right.

View fullsize

 Such time travel can lead to stifling nostalgia, but it can also feed an adult’s soul. To remember when life was not so complicated, when the content of a stocking was a great concern, can renew one’s heart. To feel again the joy and happiness that is uniquely Christmas can awaken one to the years of debris that now clouds our spiritual receptors. 

I was told by a reliable source that if I am to receive the Kingdom of God, I am to become like a child. It was a lesson heard too early, before I could understand it’s meaning, but the stocking now hanging on our mantle teaches the lesson anew. 

So bring on the lights . . . turn up the carols . . . and hold on tight to the people and traditions that speak to your heart! 

Let’s go back, if only for a moment. Let’s stop squinting at the world and open our eyes wide again. Let’s lift our burdened shoulders and dance. Let’s race our children to Christmas morning, where hanging on the mantle is all we need to know.

Practicing Incarnation

Advent I: Practicing Incarnation

A seasonal shift in religious focus is both a good and bad thing. It’s good because changing spiritual gears and traveling in a new way renews our focus. The problem comes when our heightened focus suggests God is active only in particular ways at particular times. The resurrection we celebrate at Easter is not unique to spring. It happens every day, in tombs of all shapes and sizes. So, too, the wonder of incarnation uniquely honored at Christmas happens in all sorts of “stables” throughout the year.

View fullsize

With that in mind, I wonder what it would look like if we did not wait for December 25th to celebrate the incarnation – Emmanuel or God-with-us. What if the gift of Christmas arrived early this year because we called forth the presence of God in our daily lives . . . in the conversations we have with strangers and loved ones . . . in time spent with our children or work colleagues . . . in the gifts made or notes written?

Practicing incarnation could be a wonderful way to prepare for Christmas. I know God does not need us to become present in the world. Actually, I think it’s the other way around.