Formation — Clayfire Curator

An Epiphany

by Jodi-Renee Adams | December 29, 2011

Denver hosts a parade of light-filled floats the first weekend of December to kick off our Christmas season. It’s a rather time-honored tradition and crowds are packed onto the curbs of the parade route every year. A few years back, I took my then three-year-old son to his first Parade of Lights. We stood opposite the historic clock-tower with it’s red-light lined peaks and every window glowing. His eyes and mouth were fixed in a look of perpetual astonishment; but when Santa came around the corner, with the dancing gifts and snowflakes, the animated penguins, and his genuine spirit of joy, every person jammed onto that curbside came alive. Regardless of age, life-journey, class, race, religion, social group, for a few moments everybody believed in something bigger, something beautiful. Everybody could foresee a time of peace, of togetherness, of mystery and magic. And I wept. Not because of Santa or Christmas or my baby boy’s sweet reaction—but because of the overwhelming presence of heaven. The kingdom was there, quiet and hidden, but seeping into every pore and sound and scent on that street.

I think I also cried because it was not too long ago that this kind of experience would never have made it onto my radar as a sacred encounter. My spiritual categories were so entrenched that I lost sight of what it meant to be enchanted. I might have even “prayed for” those lonely, hurting people who were confusing GOD with the experience of Christmas. Because, of course, I knew what they were really looking for. Ouch.

It’s hard to not wonder how many times I still miss GOD-Who-Is-Bigger or settle for GOD-Who-Makes-Me-Feel-Okay or the safe and expected GOD-Who-Fits-Inside-the-Christian-Culture-Box. You know, the one who grows big churches with “hip” worship. One thing I’ve learned is that the GOD-Who-Is-Bigger isn’t really in the business of making me feel better or reconciling the situations of my life, but often meets me in ways that are subtle, disturbing, and gently lifts my chin from gazing at myself and my ideas of what it means to be “spiritual” to a vision of all that could be out there. There’s an invitation by the GOD-Who-Is-Bigger to genuine self-discovery and Divine-discovery and world-discovery and love-discovery that simply can’t happen when we play it safe or “culturally relevant.” In other words, it’s an invitation into Epiphanies.

I certainly came from a Christian culture that said GOD is big enough to heal my wounds (both literal and metaphorical), to come through when everything else is failing, to “defeat my enemies” (whomever and however I interpreted that), to legislate morality (as defined by Christian culture, not necessarily Scripture), or to act in the blatantly-Christian supernatural. But this GOD was still only big enough to fit into my world—instead of inviting me to get lost inside of GOD’s world; and certainly, once I knew The Truth, there was no need for free-thinking openness or looking about the world with curious longing. This was never more evident than in all of my favorite worship songs and defined worship experiences. It was never more evident than in the lack of profound creative revelation and thematic grandeur. And yet, how cool did I think I was with my anti-tradition, pop-Christian music and my normalizing appreciation for Pink Floyd!!

Perhaps a large part of our spiritual crisis in America is due to the smallness of the GOD we profess and reflect in the day to day of our lives, to our lack of curiosity and to our missed Epiphanies. That’s a pretty big accusation. I get it. I’m not asking you to agree with me, I’m simply asking you to think about it.

Here’s what I learned from a bunch of wise guys: I’m learning to let go of my smug insight into what GOD does and doesn’t look like even as I stroll blindly past the manger bearing the Incarnate. I’m learning to confront myself: How open am I, really, to encountering the GOD-Who-Is-Bigger, even if that GOD doesn’t fit into my cultural or pre-defined categories? And am I willing to worship there?

May the GOD of Surprises, the Deep Well of Mystery, the Divine Spark enlarge your world and your experiences this week. May this GOD illuminate you with Epiphany. May we all mirror that light to those we serve. Through Christ Jesus.

Image © iStockphoto

Categories: Formation

Dinativity

by Eric Herron | December 20, 2011

Everyone knows that the advent of Jesus was around the time that we now call AD 1 (Anno Domini, “In the year of the/our lord”). Actually, some (that is, those hoity-toity types that don’t like notating general history with any reference to Jesus as God) now use CE (Christian Era).

Everyone also knows that dinosaurs existed between the Triassic period (245 million years ago) and the Cretaceous period (144 million years ago). Wait, did you know that? Even if you didn’t know that, at least you are familiar with the middle dinosaur period also known as the Jurassic period (approximately 208 million years ago) thanks to Hollywood and Michael Crichton.

Now, because of the wide discrepancy in time between the advent of dinosaurs and the advent of Jesus (give or take 230 million years) no one really ever stops to consider what might have occurred had these two existed at once on earth. I know I never had. Never, that is, until my son Asher started mingling his Fisher Price nativity scene with his growing collection of prehistoric reptiles (see photo above, click to enlarge.)

I know my son is only a pre-schooler, but at first sight of this monstrosity, I felt certain there were deep spiritual truths to be gleaned therein. Call it ‘supernatural inspiration’ or ‘accidental enlightenment,’ this dinativity provides for us a number of insights into the mind of God and additional reasons for which we can be grateful in this season.

First, take note of the ass that sits above the manger. According to Fisher Price, this is the spot upon which the angel Gabriel (currently middle, left) is supposed to reside. Instead, we find the angel helplessly writhing in pain after a swipe from the right claw of the T. Rex. This scene depicts the current disarray existing not just on earth, but also in the heavenly realm. As we long for Jesus’ second coming, we can look forward to the time when the spiritual powers and principalities will once again be in proper balance. Until then, we fight not against flesh and blood, but against all the unseen forces that threaten to tear down all that is good about our lives and our world. Until then, we must trek our addled lives on the back of asses waiting to be eternally buoyed-up on the wings of angels.

Note also, the baby Jesus, upside-down, but still in his crib of hay. I believe this is a profound allusion to the “upside-down” manner in which Jesus chose to save the world. He did not come as a political leader as many Jews assumed he would. He did not come in power and might as many others of the day would have hoped. He came as a tiny, defenseless, frail human baby. He was even subject to the knocking about by monstrous reptiles (had they actually existed in AD 1). The dinativity reminds us once again that in this world, it is not the first, the brightest, the prettiest, or the most successful that will find a similar spot in the kingdom of heaven. Christ came for the lowly, forlorn, down-trodden, sickly, weak and the poor ones. The kingdom that teenage and grown-up Jesus proclaimed is consistent with this dinativity message. For more on this, see Donald Kraybill’s seminal tome, The Upside-Down Kingdom.

Regard Mary’s position. She is on her back, no doubt initially ending up there from startled amazement at the sight of the Brontosaurus. Or perhaps she was knocked down by the wind of a tail-swat from that enormous creature. The point is, she has chosen to remain there. Face to Heaven. Arms upraised. If we were to hear the soundtrack of this grizzly scene—in addition to Queen Latifah’s addictive beat—we might also hear words similar to those recorded in Luke, chapter 1 coming from the mouth of Mary: “His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.” It’s like Mary suddenly realizes that God’s mercy doesn’t just extend as far back as the book of Genesis. It goes further. Upon her recognition of the millions of years that came before and the true breadth of history through which the Trinity sustained, blessed, and acted in His creation, Mary magnifies the Lord.

By now, it ought to be clear why God chose in his infinite wisdom not to allow the advent of dinosaurs to coincide with the advent of Jesus. If you haven’t already finished your daily devotions, take a moment now and thank the Lord for his wisdom and his grace. Thank him for his decision to keep modern humanity and prehistoric reptiles at a healthy, 230 million year distance from each other.

Finally, if you have a 3 year old (or 4, or 5 year old), run out before it’s too late and get them a Fisher Price nativity scene. Why don’t you also pick up a couple prehistoric reptiles. You never know what spiritual lessons might be lurking just around the corner.

Image © Eric Herron

Categories: Formation

Wrestling with Incarnation

by Jodi-Renee Adams | December 15, 2011

I spent a nice chunk of time last night hanging out with my journal and a bottle of red wine while I processed through a deep personal disappointment. Next to me, on the table, was the Christmas Eve liturgy I’d been working on yesterday afternoon. I couldn’t help but notice that so many of the images of incarnation—of GOD encased in the here and now—and it got me wondering… Do I really believe that I see it? Do I really believe that this is happening all around me?

Yes.

The problem is: I don’t believe that the sign-posts that I’ve been given are pointing in the right direction. AND I don’t believe that incarnation is that in-or-out, here-or-not. Therein lies the rub for me.

The deep soul of the incarnation’s story starts with slow waiting bearing down on hopelessness, with an arduous and messy labor, and with questions hanging around the manger even as people bent their knees to worship. Incarnation—at its very core—is never without wrestling.

Here’s what I wrestle with: Where does incarnation “begin”? Who bears it into the world? Tim Burton, the homeless lady I passed on my way to church, Bach, the nameless nun who hands out condoms to sex workers, a song, a caress? That seems more honest to me than the Contemporary Christian Music or church programming. Does it only count if it’s (manipulatively) branded as spiritual or “redemptive”? How do we acknowledge, nay, even celebrate and tremble at mystery without having an apologetic for it? How often can we say “I don’t know” or better yet, “we don’t know” and still practice and grasp onto incarnation? When can beautiful explode beyond “pretty” and also mean “disturbing,” “grotesque,” “honest” when we talk about this birth of the sacred into the world?

…sigh…

I’m not actually looking for answers. In many ways, these are just rhetorical questions to be spun around and acknowledged as I go along. I am looking for wrestlers, for grapplers, for architects, and dreamers. Those who are the midwives of the sacred. This is my Advent star-seeker’s journey. I carry no disillusion that I will wake up one misty morning with any of these questions put to rest. That would be disingenuous to the process. Not all who wander are lost…

Giving up certainty. Giving up compasses. Giving up self-protected interior spaces. Giving up notions that we know GOD. Giving up spiritual arrogance. Giving up career-oriented church callings. Giving up above-averageness. Giving up against-the-worldness. Giving up consolation. Giving up quantity. Giving up old maps. These are incarnational invitations.

I have to admit, I’ve always been suspicious of those who don’t doubt, wrestle with, speculate on the bigger questions or those who make Advent a season of “and now Jesus is here” finality. Would Jacob have been chosen by God if he’d surrendered without the infamous ferocity and suspicion? Would Job have stood the test if he hadn’t worshipped in the midst of his sadness, questions and crying out while the Presence of God, the revelation of God, seemed nowhere to be found? Luther sparked a reformation with one initial, internal question: is GOD merciful? Really? then proceeded to wrestle with himself, with GOD, and with the Church.

If you are brave enough, if you are weary enough, I have something to say to you: Let the match begin.

Image: “Fear Not” © Mandy Smith

Categories: Formation

A Lesson from the Big, Gold Dome

by Jodi-Renee Adams | December 8, 2011

I can’t say the word “tradition” around my house without a slew of the muppets I call my children breaking into song. Trah-dish-ahnnnn… Tradition! And of course, with that quick cultural connection comes the rest of that image: an idea of tradition that looks, feels, and acts more like a cage than a treasure box.

Poor, misunderstood tradition. It gets such a bad rap in all of the metaphors and archetypes of our narratives. Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh, Old Aunt March from Little Women, the townspeople in Footloose (the original. Please, people…), every higher learning institution in a movie starring Robin Williams or Julia Roberts. In fact, most of the heroes of our novels and stories seem to be the ones who buck “the way it ought to be” and go against the flow of, well, tradition.

Gets me thinking that maybe we don’t understand what tradition is really, why it exists, why the idea challenges us so much.

Coming out of the Baptist, Evangelical stream, I was highly suspicious of systems or traditions and chalked them up to lifelessness, souless-ness, even idolatry. Of course, never could I have seen that my free-church experience was rife with habits and values that had haphazardly become tradition; we just didn’t have the guts, um, I mean, language to capture that succinctly. So when I returned to the Church, after my long and winding wilderness adventures, I found that I craved—no, I needed tradition. And interestingly enough, every great spiritual writer from Julian to Rohr talks about the deep and abiding sanctuary that is to be found in the long-standing traditions of faith.

So I went to the big, gold dome. The Orthodox church in Denver. I sat in the circular sanctuary. Bowed my head in silent though befuddled reverence as the icons came in. Stood or sat over the course of two hours and listened to a liturgy I knew not a word of, holding my breath sometimes until I could hear my own heart beat.

The Orthodox have existed for two thousand years on two ideas: a simple faith rooted in Christ, and tradition. Or as they more beautifully put it: her determination to remain loyal to her sense of living continuity with the Church of ancient times.

Sitting there among the Greek Orthodox faithful, even as an “outsider,” was such a life-giving moment. It wasn’t about converting, joining the ranks, abandoning my own stream: but it was an invitation into the River… into this continuity as observed through creeds, sacred texts, silence, Eucharist and (in the Orthodox tradition) Art.

To the Orthodox, to remove these traditions from the life of faith is to impoverish both alike. There’s an embrace of mystery that is essential—not just chic or post-moder—to the smallest tasks of life and to the heart of faith itself.

Lessons I carried away from the big gold dome: I don’t always have to “get it” for it to affect me, even change me; simplicity is beautiful; mystery keeps knocking away at the smaller, seemingly insignificant moments of my life even when I try to ignore her.

Here’s to continuity, simplicity, and beauty… and the life led by tradition’s wholistic wisdom.

Image © iStockphoto

Categories: Formation

Resurrecting Advent

by Anastasia McAteer | December 2, 2011

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, or so the song tells us. I, however, find myself increasingly grumpy. This is my annual affliction as the Christmas season creeps closer and closer to the start of the Christian year (which was this past Sunday, by the way).

The reason I get annoyed with Christians right about now is not because they are celebrating Christmas, but because they are skipping Advent—and thereby missing out on an opportunity to deepen their understanding and experience of God-with-us.

Now I admit, I’m a liturgy geek. A church decorated red during Advent gets my panties in a bunch. A Christian singing “Joy to the World, the Lord has come” in this season makes me /facepalm/. I’ve been called the “liturgy police” and even “Scrooge” (though I might point out that A Christmas Carol takes place on December 24, not November 24… just sayin’). But still, I think there’s something important being missed, something that all Christians need, whether they know a crucifer from a thurible.

Which reminds me: everything I’m saying here applies solely to Christians. I have no beef with a non-Christian celebrating Christmas in her own way, and starting in July if she likes. The cultural Christmas is a different holiday. (And I also participate in it to an extent (going to parties, gifting, watching claymation specials, etc.)

So with all that in mind, allow me a moment on my soapbox.

This year, I kicked off my grumpfest with a status update on Facebook. I remarked that the “Christmas Season” doesn’t actually begin until December 25, and could everyone please hold their decorating, music, and celebration of Christ’s birth just a bit longer?

Well, that got some response! People reacted as if I was trying to take Christmas away from them. Far from it! I’m trying to restore Christmas—to give it some meaning again apart from cutesy décor and overplayed carols. And just like Easter can mean immeasurably more when you have taken all of Lent to prepare for it, I don’t think you can really experience the wonder of Christmas without a season of anticipation and intentional waiting.

A season we in the Christian world call Advent.

I think I get grumpy because, in my heart, I don’t feel like it’s fair that other people are already getting to “do” Christmas, while I am still waiting. They’re enjoying the music I also love, putting up beautiful decorations that I have packed away. They are bringing Christmas into their homes, while I twiddle my thumbs and wait for God’s timing. Sure, I’d love to sing the more familiar carols and put up a tree the day after Thanksgiving. But I have learned that I need the forced rest, the pulling back, the resistance to the desire to get Christmas when I want it.

Here’s the thing: God isn’t about instant gratification. Christ comes when Christ chooses to, not on my timeline, and I can’t make him come. I can’t make it be Christmas. Advent commemorates both Christ’s first coming 2,000 years ago, and his reign that Christians hope will one day be consummated with complete “peace on earth.” We all know that we are nowhere near that day. We are waiting.

Advent teaches us how to wait for God. Waiting is something we are so terrible at. This morning I was behind a slow car on the road, unable to get around him before making my turn. In that moment I had to stop and breathe, allow myself to take all of fifteen seconds longer to get home. Just that little discipline opened me up—the breath was so refreshing, the letting go was so relaxing.

Now imagine making waiting and patience an intentional part of your day all throughout this season. The “Christmas” values of peace on earth and goodwill to all would naturally flow out of this demeanor. You would be countering the stress and hurry of the culture’s Christmas. You would breathe calm into a harried world.

More than this, you would be recognizing that God is in charge, that you trust God’s plan over your own preferences.

I realize asking people to change their holiday traditions is a tall order. But the fact is, Advent and Christmas can’t take place simultaneously. It simply doesn’t work that way, since Advent is anticipating Christmas. If we want to truly experience Advent, Christmas will have to wait, and we have to learn to let it come later.

I will admit I get a “fix” now and then: I’ll put on “winter” music or secular carols, take my kids around to see decorated houses, exchange early gifts with my family and friends. I don’t have a problem with the culture’s version of Christmas. But I think we need to be very clear: as Christians, that is not our season. (For a fascinating study of America’s cultural Christmas and its religious ramifications, see Dell deChant, The Sacred Santa.)

We must provide—for ourselves, our children, and especially our churches—a counter-narrative. Ironically, I think that the “war on Christmas” has largely been waged by the Church itself, through buying into the culture’s timeline and story instead of God’s.

The Christian Christmas season begins December 25, with the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord, and lasts until January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. We spend twelve days celebrating the Incarnation, and it is key to our faith. We prepare ourselves for this miracle through the Advent season. But more-so, we practice it to remind ourselves that it’s not just the baby in Bethlehem for whom we hope—we mindfully seek the ongoing coming of our King.

Let’s learn to love the waiting, living in hope, and treasuring the glimpses of the promise that we are graced to receive in this beautiful season.

Not sure how to get started? Check out Busted Halo’s Advent Calendar for a daily quote from pop culture and an activity to get you in the spirit of the season (the real season, eh hem).

Categories: Formation