About Halloween. . . .

I'll always remember the Halloweens when I was a kid.  Mom decorated the house with cutout witches and bats made with stencils and black or orange construction paper.  We would start planning our costumes, and what faces to put on our pumpkins, weeks in advance.

We lived high in the Rocky Mountains, and the houses in our little community were few and far between.  Every year one of the mothers would volunteer to drive all the kids (there were around ten of us) around to all the houses (about 20 of them). Usually it would be very cold, and often it would be snowing.  Everyone knew everyone else, and at every house we'd be invited in and asked to take off our coats to show off our costumes.  At some houses we'd be offered cocoa.  Often the treats would be homemade popcorn balls or caramel apples.

When I was a little older there was a scare about some people putting razor blades in Halloween treats.  We knew no one in our own neighborhood would do that, but it was a weird thought. According to Snopes there have been a few documented cases of this actually happening, but it's always been very rare.  We didn't worry too much about it.

The real problem with Halloween arose when I became a Christian in the early 1980s.  Committed Christians, I learned, didn't celebrate Halloween-- not if they were truly serious about Christ.  Halloween was an evil, Satanic holiday, a glorification of the occult.  The Christian group I was with in college generally had a prayer meeting on Halloween. With locked doors and lights low to discourage trick-or-treaters, we prayed fervently for God to prevent the devil and his demons from doing any real harm that night. Gullible people, we were told, by celebrating Halloween had "opened a door" in the spiritual realms for demonic forces to dominate during the holiday.  So we did "spiritual warfare" by praying against the powers of darkness, and drew a sigh of relief each year when it was all over.

By the time I had kids (the mid-1990s), attitudes were loosening up a little in our Christian circle. It was conceded that ordinary people who celebrated Halloween were not demonically influenced. The best thing to do was to either use the opportunity to spread the gospel to trick-or-treaters, or to hold our own alternative celebrations. These, instead of focusing on scary things, were designed to thank God for the harvest.  Harvest parties were organized at county fairgrounds and other locations, where church volunteers would lead a variety of games for youngsters.  The kids were even allowed to wear costumes-- as long as they didn't dress up as ghosts, witches, devils, vampires or other occult creatures.

It was nice that things had changed so that our kids didn't have to feel they were missing out. Harvest parties were certainly more entertaining than prayer meetings! I was glad we no longer had to hide in darkened rooms while our neighbors were out enjoying themselves. But I had to admit what the kids suspected-- that the harvest parties just weren't as fun as trick-or-treating.

The year our younger child was two, we gave up on harvest parties and went back to really celebrating Halloween.  It was a pleasure and a relief.  The new church we had recently begun attending, though it helped sponsor the local Christian harvest party every year, believed in letting its members make their own decisions about these things.  This was in fact one of the main reasons we had begun attending!

So the kids began trick-or-treating, both downtown at the local businesses during the afternoon and around the neighborhood in the evening.  They came home with a lot of candy, and we dumped it all out on the carpet and sorted and counted it with them.  We passed out candy to the trick-or-treaters who came to our door and didn't give them any religious tracts.  We relaxed and enjoyed the fun of creepy things, of scary things that never caused real fear because they weren't real.  And I began, finally, to begin to understand Halloween.

Not that my earlier Christian view of Halloween has died out. Sites like Born Again Christian Info still promote the idea that this is an evil, occult celebration that no real Christian would have anything to do with:

It is plain from its roots that Halloween has nothing to do with Christianity, but is simply Satan worship, derived from Babylonian practices. Christians should only ever get involved for one reason: to denounce, expose and destroy it by proclaiming Christ's Victory over all the works of the Devil. . . those who dare to indulge in the occult will not go to heaven. . . You may not be serious, but Satan is. You are being deceived and sucked down a slippery slope. . .  Ignore these warnings and you will lose your children to Satan.

The website cites a number of scriptures against witchcraft and divination.  It cites the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain as a form of sun-worship similar to ancient Babylonian practices, and traces Halloween back to these early pagan rituals.

I understand the religious devotion that gives rise to this viewpoint; after all, I once subscribed to it myself!  But I cannot sanction the practice of listing a set of proof-texts and claiming that they support the one and only clear Christian position on something like Halloween, implying that anyone who disagrees is simply being stupid and rebellious against God.  The modern celebration of Halloween really doesn't include any divination or witchcraft.  It has nothing to do with sun-worship; in fact, it's not about worship at all.

The LiveScience website offers a more objective and accurate overview of the origins of Halloween:

Because ancient records are sparse and fragmentary, the exact nature of Samhain is not fully understood, but it was an annual communal meeting at the end of the harvest year, a time to gather resources for the winter months and bring animals back from the pastures. . . 

[A]ccording to Nicholas Rogers, a history professor at York University in Toronto and author of "Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night" (Oxford University Press, 2003), "there is no hard evidence that Samhain was specifically devoted to the dead or to ancestor worship.

"According to the ancient sagas, Samhain was the time when tribal peoples paid tribute to their conquerors and when the sidh [ancient mounds] might reveal the magnificent palaces of the gods of the underworld," Rogers wrote. Samhain was less about death or evil than about the changing of seasons and preparing for the dormancy (and rebirth) of nature as summer turned to winter, he said. . . 

Some evangelical Christians have expressed concern that Halloween is somehow satanic because of its roots in pagan ritual. However, ancient Celts did not worship anything resembling the Christian devil and had no concept of it. In fact, the Samhain festival had long since vanished by the time the Catholic Church began persecuting witches in its search for satanic cabals.

In any event, the rejection of Halloween by Christians is a fairly recent development.  This archived 2009 post by the late Michael Spencer, the "Internet Monk" laments the change which occurred in the late 1970s and early '80s:

From the late sixties into the early seventies, the churches I attended and worked for–all fundamentalist Baptists– were all over Halloween like ants on jam. It was a major social activity time in every youth group I was part of from elementary school through high school graduation in 1974. 

We had haunted houses. Haunted hikes. Scary movies. (All the old Vincent Price duds.) As a youth minister in the mid to late seventies and early eighties, I created some haunted houses in church education buildings that would win stagecraft awards. 

The kids loved it. The parents loved it. The pastors approved. The church paid for it! . . .

It was fun. Simple, old-fashioned, fun. No one tried to fly a broom or talk to the dead. Everyone tried to have fun. Innocent play in the name of an American custom. 

And then, things changed. 

Mike Warnke convinced evangelicals that participating in Halloween was worshiping the devil. Later, when we learned that Warnke may have been one of the most skillful of evangelical con-artists, lying about his entire Satanic high priest schtick, the faithful still believed his stories.  

Evangelical media began to latch onto Halloween as some form of Satanism or witchcraft, and good Christians were warned that nothing made the other team happier than all those kids going door to door collecting M&Ms. 

Evangelical parents decided that their own harmless and fun Halloween experiences were a fluke, and if their kid dressed up as a vampire, he’d probably try to become one. If there was a pumpkin on the porch, you were inviting demons into your home, just like it says in Hezekiah.

Speaking of Mike Warnke, the website Swallowing the Camel, a fact-checking site similar to Snopes (if a bit snarkier), has archived research on the roots of the whole evangelical Halloween scare.  It's the story of Doreen Irvine, who published an autobiography in 1972:

She was the first of many born again Christians who claimed to be ex-witches and/or ex-Satanists, among them women who claimed to have been high priestesses in destructive Satanic cults, so her testimony provided a sort of blueprint.

Irvine's story of Satanism and Satanic ritual abuse was later determined to be false.  But by far the most popular of such claimants was Mike Warnke.  As a young Christian I listened to Warnke's record albums and read excerpts of his books in which, from his purported expertise as a Satanist high priest of the inner Illuminati, he denounced Halloween as the Satanist high holiday.  It turns out that he was actually capitalizing on Christian enthusiasm for stories like this in order to catapult himself to fame and fortune.

Quite frankly, the stories were lurid and shocking and utterly fascinating.  They showed us that we were not just ordinary people, but heroes in a larger-than-life romanticist saga of good and evil.  We wanted to believe these stories.  And so we did, until in the late 1980s Cornerstone Magazine launched an investigation into the claims of Warnke and others, and discovered that the known facts about their lives utterly contradicted their claims.  Warnke never was a Satanist high priest, but was an ordinary, clean-cut Christian college student during the years he was supposed to have been participating in Satanic ritual abuse.

Discovery of the falsehood of these stories put a real damper on evangelical enthusiasm for them, and probably contributed strongly to the loosening up of taboos that replaced those fearful prayer meetings with harvest festivals that were simply Halloween lite, complete with (friendly-faced) carved pumpkins, costumes and candy.  Evangelical thinktank Christian Research Institute's examination of the 1980's Satanism scare concludes:

There is still no substantial, compelling evidence that SRA [Satanic ritual abuse] stories and conspiracy theories are true. Alternate hypotheses more reasonably explain the social, professional, and personal dynamics reflected in this contemporary satanic panic. The tragedy of broken families, traumatized children, and emotionally incapacitated adults provoked by SRA charges is needless and destructive. Careful investigation of the stories, the alleged victims, and the proponents has given us every reason to reject the satanic conspiracy model in favor of an interpretation consistent with reason and truth.

So what is Halloween really about?

The LiveScience website cited above offers this insight, based on the research of folklorist John Santino:

Halloween provides a safe way to play with the concept of death. . . People dress up as the living dead, and fake gravestones adorn front lawns — activities that wouldn't be tolerated at other times of the year.

Facing our fears by laughing at them or playing with safe versions of them is a very human thing to do, and it seems to be a healthy coping mechanism.  Our English idiom "whistling in the dark" encapsulates the concept, which takes other forms such as jokes about death and dying. The 1970s dark comedic television series M.A.S.H., about a group of field doctors during the Korean War who use humor to deal with daily carnage and chaos, is another prime example.

John Santino was interviewed on the TheoFantastique blog in October 2007, and he shared these further insights:

The study of ritual, festival, and celebration offers concepts for understanding large public events such as Halloween. The idea that there are certain periods when the everyday rules are meant to be broken is one. Also, the idea that during times of transition (in the life cycle or seasonal), all bets are off–the dead can mingle with the living; children are allowed to demand treats from adults, people dress in special costumes; things are turned upside-down and inside-out. These ideas help us to see Halloween for its importance. It is a time when we face our taboos (death being a major one) and playfully accept them as part of life.

I understand people’s objection to Halloween insofar as they believe strongly in the existence of a literal Devil who is engaged in an effort to steal our souls. But I was raised in a religious atmosphere where that simply was not a problem with the celebration. I tend to view it as a healthy occasion for the parading and confronting of aspects of life — symbolically — that we usually pretend don’t exist. Also, Halloween is tied closely to harvest imagery, and I think the lesson is that, as the natural world faces death as a part of ongoing life, so must we. Halloween is many things. It allows us to mock our fears, and to celebrate life. There is room for parody and topical satire in the costumes and displays. But it also deals with deeply important issues involving life and death, nature and culture.

I would go one step further than Santino and say that even Christians who believe Satan is a real being, need not have a problem with this holiday.  Halloween is not about worshiping Satan, and it isn't about glorifying or celebrating evil.  Halloween is about facing our fears through the joint vehicles of pretend and partying.  It's about recognizing that while we live on this earth we are part of the cycles of this earth, and that "seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease (Gen. 8:22)."  To celebrate the harvest is also to accept the dying of the year. Halloween is about both. Christ has taken the sting of death; why not let Halloween help take some of its still-remaining fear?

And I like how Santino points out the way this holiday upends our rules and usual patterns.  The kingdom of God is like that too: the child is the first to enter, the greatest shall be the servant, we save our lives by losing them.  Halloween is the day when we open our doors to whoever knocks and give of our substance to "the least of these" who is standing there with an open bag.  Isn't this a picture of the kingdom?  Why, then, shouldn't we let it teach us its simple lesson?

So this year we'll carve pumpkins again, and we'll pass out candy, and we may even watch a scary old movie about the Wolfman or Frankenstein.  And we will have fun.

I hope you will have some fun too.

Three Years of Blogging

I began this blog on September 27, 2011, with a post called Twelve Good Things I Learned from Being in a Coercive Religious Group.  I have tried to post consistently at least once a week since then (except at Christmas time), and this is my 169th post!

Here are a few things I've learned from my experience of blogging so far:

1.  It's really gratifying to have so many people read something I've written, without having to try to get a publisher!

2.  It's even more gratifying when I can feel that what I've written has helped someone in some way. I started this blog with the purpose of spreading comfort and good news to people (especially my fellow Christians) who have felt constrained, shamed or coerced by religious teachings which don't seem to be the "truth that sets free" that Jesus and Paul both talked about.  (And, incidentally, to just flap my metaphorical gums about whatever interests me, which I love to do too!)

3.  Blogging is like what I've read about newspaper writing:  the blog becomes a beast that has to be fed regularly.  Therefore you constantly surf the blogosphere to see who's talking about something interesting, and you rack your brains for ideas whenever you don't have anything in mind that you particularly want to say that week.

4.  After three years-- well, this starts to get burdensome.  You start a blog to express yourself, and it's fun, but then when your 169th Friday rolls around and you realize that you don't even want to write that week, you start to think about this not actually being a job . . . .

5.  And when you work full time and have kids, there's only so much time you get to take for yourself.  I discovered that writing a blog means I don't have time or energy for other kinds of writing.  And about a year ago, I found a way out of the corner I'd written myself into in the young-adult fantasy novel I'd been working on for years-- but I haven't been able to pick the thing back up again and finish it.

So this blog today is an explanation of why I'm not going to feed the beast every week anymore.  I plan instead to just write whenever I have something I really want to talk about.  This will probably be at least once a month (not counting Christmas time), so if you're subscribing to me, please don't unsubscribe!   And sometimes I'll probably simply post links to other people who are saying things I think are well worth reading.

I've built up a good body of work (see my Topic Index) about walking free of coercive, authoritarian and/or legalistic religious teachings.  I hope people will continue to find those helpful.

To my readers: thanks so much for subscribing, for reading, and for commenting!  You have been more valuable and helpful to me than you know.  Please do stick around; you'll be hearing from me soon!

Reunion

In the early 1980s I was in college, living on fraternity/sorority row.  But it wasn't a sorority house.  It was the local branch of Maranatha Christian Churches/Campus Ministries founded by Bob and Rose Weiner.  As I have described here and here, Maranatha was a Christian group with strong authoritarian control.   We lived in the Maranatha House and went to church in the meeting room of that house, and we slept on the sleeping porches on the third floor and tried to get our homework done or hold down our jobs, despite endless outreach meetings, prayer meetings and other Maranatha obligations.

On Labor Day this year, 29 years after gradating from college, I went to an annual get-together of  a long-standing group of former Maranatha members from my college town.  The ties I have with these people are very strong, indeed practically unbreakable.  As we ate and talked, laughed and took pictures and caught up on one another's lives, I found myself wondering what it is that binds us together so closely, after almost 30 years.

It's certainly not because we still agree on everything the way we did back then, when we had all the right answers to all the right questions and knew how big a part our group of "God's Green Berets" was playing in the advance of God's "dominion mandate."  It's not because we stayed physically close; though some members still live in the same city, some of us have been scattered long distances. And it's not because we spend our time together living in the past; in fact, I don't think the word "Maranatha" or our experiences there came up once in any of the conversations I had at the reunion this year.

No, the bonds run much deeper than that.

It probably helps that all of us in this group of former members somehow managed to stay married to the spouses we met in Maranatha (which seems a miracle in itself!), and that we all had kids and got jobs and watched the kids grow up-- in short, that we have lived basically similar middle-class lives. And we did all remain Christians.  But those are really just general similarities-- and we have met at least once a year since our children were in infant carriers, and now most of those kids are in college or have finished school and moved out-- but we have not grown apart.

The thing is this.  Even if we don't always talk about our shared histories, the fact is that for several intense years we lived together and ate and slept and washed together (though of course boys and girls chastely slept and showered in separated areas).  We rotated the cooking and cleaning, and we played games in the dining/fireside room and helped each other with homework and gave each other Christmas presents.

We held car washes almost every Saturday of every summer to try to pay expenses for the house's upkeep.  We saved as much as we could to buy oil for the ancient furnace.  When school started, and again in the spring, we had six to eight weeks of meetings every night and were required to hand out flyers for these meetings on campus right after dinner.  There were also shorter "outreach" periods (2-4 weeks each, with meetings 3-4 times a week) at other points during the year.  Once a month we piled into cars and drove to Seattle for a "Maranatha Leadership Training Seminar."  I'm really not sure why we didn't all flunk out of school!

Several times a year we fasted and prayed for up to three days, and sometimes we held all-night prayer meetings, joined via satellite to other Maranatha congregations all over the globe.  (I remember one year the central leadership found out that it's better not to expect even young, strong college kids to pray all night and fast at the same time.  After several kids collapsed, fasting and all-night prayer were never observed at the same time again!  The leadership was actually lucky that no serious health problems resulted that they might have been held legally liable for.)

Whenever we could snatch any spare time, we'd go to movies together (if approved by the local leaders) or watch TV.  One of the girls' favorite activities was to listen to me read stories aloud (Winnie the Pooh, or the Chronicles of Narnia), while they did embroidery or cross-stitch.  (I was glad to be the reader because I loved to read aloud and secretly hated cross stitch, though as a woman I was supposed to like such things.)

We shared with each other the details of our lives and our troubles with parents or siblings.  We bundled up together when the furnace broke down from advanced arthritis or stopped for lack of fuel. We swam together in the house's swimming pool when it was hot (I'm sure the car wash money helped pay for pool treatment chemicals too).  We all knew what each of us looked like in the mornings before showers. We all knew what we looked like in the middle of the night without sleep.

All of this stays with us, even when we don't talk about it.  We have talked about it, of course-- at great length, over the years.  We walked with each other on our journeys out of authoritarian, spiritually abusive religion too.  And it turns out that what we have done together is something pretty rare-- the fact that Maranatha Christian Churches voluntarily disbanded in the early 1990s meant that we could leave Maranatha without shunning or estrangement-- that we were able to come out together.

And though we don't necessarily all agree anymore except on foundational Christian doctrines like the Trinity, the Incarnation, Atonement and Resurrection, we have all, I think, learned certain things from that journey out.

What have we learned?  I think it boils down to this:  that ultimately, there is no value in trying to force one another, or ourselves, to conform to some cookie-cutter standard of who or what we're supposed to be.  That each of us, in our own selves, is essentially and foundationally valuable.  And that our relationships with one another are more important than any differences we might have.

If nothing else good came out of being in a spiritually abusive religious group, this did: that in reaction to authoritarian control, we let go, once and for all, of any desire to control one another. Instead, we simply love one another.

And that should last us another 30 years, and beyond.

Fitting In (Or Not)

It seems like I've spent most of my life until recently trying to fit in, and worrying about not fitting in. When I was young, like most kids who aren't into sports, fashion or other aspects of mainstream culture, I looked for alternate groups to belong to-- and found them in high school through band and the speech team, and eventually, in the church.

I remember making fun of the jocks and cheerleaders and student leaders, though never to their faces, of course.  But it made us feel better, as members of the less cool groups, to believe that it was actually the popular kids who were inferior in some way to us.  Human nature, really.

I learned, like many of us did, to adapt myself to the groups I was in, to try to fit in better.  I think that's why, when I joined Maranatha Campus Ministries in college, I ended up going right along with the most of the pressures to conform, even as far as participating in ostracizing former members.  In some ways the real me got lost.  Yet I never could bring myself to be actively unkind or cruel to anyone.  Judgmental, yes.  Passive-aggressive, yes.  But not cruel.

Eventually Maranatha Campus Ministries dissolved, and our church (I was married by this time) became Grace Christian Fellowship.  And Grace Christian really did try to improve in the area of extending grace to all people.  But gradually the expectation reasserted itself that everyone in the group was to have the same vision and be working towards the same overarching purpose, which was to start new churches all over the globe.  And somehow, even though we'd been part of the church for so long, my husband and I just never felt part of that calling.  So we talked to the pastor and moved on, amicably enough.

We had made it through the hard times of authoritarian coercion and spiritual abuse, only to leave when the church finally grew willing to let people leave without hurting them for doing it.  We didn't fit in.  No matter how we'd tried, no matter how much we pretended, we never really had.  Probably that's part of why we married one another!

During the next few years, as my second child grew past toddlerhood and I began to have more time to think and figure out who I was now, I worked on redefining my faith.  We found a new church, an Independent Church of Christ which, while it was involved in missions, focused more on the community we actually lived in.  It attracted us chiefly because the pastors were very up-front about allowing disagreement on all sorts of things, as long as you believed that Jesus was the Christ and had died for your sins and risen from the dead.  Since those were the things we knew we still believed, we were happy to become part of this new group.

Somewhere around 2002 I got really interested in the Internet and online communities.  And though this may seem off-topic (it really isn't), I started reading a graphic novel series called Elfquest, written and drawn by Wendy and Richard Pini.  Elfquest is about a group of woodland elves who manifestly don't fit in to the primitive world of humans where they live.  Though they have found ways to adapt to life as they know it, it becomes gradually clear that they aren't from this place-- and they begin to seek out other lost tribes of elves scattered over the planet, and eventually find the interplanetary vessel they originally arrived in and begin to redefine themselves and their lives in light of that knowledge.

This series somehow got right under my skin and resonated with me like few things ever had.  I joined an Elfquest discussion forum (feeling very odd about doing something so fannish and so outside my Christian comfort zone) and began to interact with people all over the world who, except for their love of this series, simply didn't think the way I did!  I wanted to "do unto them as I would have them do unto me," so I opened my mind and heart to listen and truly hear where they were coming from, to connect with them.  But though I became an integral part of the Elfquest online forum, I never really quite fit in there, either. My monogamous sexual ethics and dislike of erotica were usually looked on as "hang-ups," even though I didn't try to impose them on anyone else.

I think now, looking back on it, that this was my first real foray into doing what Christ said and being "in the world, though not of the world."  Ever since I had become a Christian, I had lived in one insular community or another, rarely (outside of work) ever talking to anyone who wasn't an evangelical Christian.  Now I found there was a lot to learn, a lot of good to be gained, from treating non-Christians as real people and not just targets for evangelizing.

Needless to say, this shoved the redefinition of my faith into high gear as I had to confront issues I'd never really looked at before, talking to people who had strong reasons for being pagan or shamanist or atheist.  Interestingly, as I accepted them for who they were, they accepted me for who I was. They even let me "witness" to them sometimes when I did it respectfully, honoring their right to believe differently than I did.  When their challenges to my beliefs got beyond what I could handle and my faith went into a sort of crisis mode, one of them (an agnostic) kindly directed me to a place that could help me:  the Doxa website and forum.

Doxa helped me find my own way to understand Christianity through the new, more open mindset I had learned to embrace.  I started to look at the Bible differently, as more of a narrative and less of a rule book, as I've already shared extensively on this blog.  However, in many important ways I was, and still am, a child of the evangelical Christianity I first knew.  I'm still an evangelical in the way defined by Jim Wallis over at Sojourner's Online Magazine:

I believe in one God, the centrality and Lordship of God's son Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, the authority of the scriptures, the saving death of the crucified Christ and his bodily resurrection -- not as a metaphor but a historical event. Yep, the whole nine yards.

And yet because I've gradually become more politically liberal and less in line with certain hot-button evangelical ideas like young-earth creation and complementarianism, I don't fit in very well any more with evangelicalism, and I've come to identify myself as a "post-evangelical." Also, because of Maranatha (as I've discussed before), I still tend to shrink back from full involvement in every aspect of my church.  But I have visited more mainstream churches like Lutheran, Methodist and Episcopal, and have found that my lack of enjoyment of liturgy and ritual, and my foundational evangelical mindset, really kept me from fitting in very well in those churches, either.

What it comes down to is that I've had to reconcile myself to the idea that there's pretty much always going to be some way that I don't fit in.  But another thing I've come to understand is that fitting in isn't really what life is all about.

The New Testament talks about Christians being fitted together as "living stones. . . being built into a spiritual house" (1 Peter 2:5).  It says the church is "the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it." 1 Corinthians 12:27.  But at least some of these passages emphasize, not fitting in, not conformity and sameness, but the differences between the individual parts.

Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. 1 Corinthians 12:15-20.

For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly. . .
Romans 12:4-6

 If anything, what I've come to seek in my life isn't to fit in, but simply to be accepted, and to accept others.  As Jenny Lind Schmidt said in Psychology Today, it's quite possible to belong even though you don't fit in-- if your community will accept you as having a valid place among them despite your differences.

I'm grateful for my current church for accepting me, for giving me a place to belong even if I don't fit in.  Though I could look for a place where people tend to think more like I do, I place a huge premium on being in a place where people don't have to think alike.

This is why I identify with Samantha at Defeating the Dragons when she talks about why she stays in a church where she doesn't agree with every policy:

In the church I attend, though, even though I’m a heretic by most Protestant standards (between the universalism-ish and the Pelagianism . . .), and even though I’m a pro-choice Democrat, I can talk about that with the people I go to church with, in my small group and in my theology program, and not face any condemnation or judgment for that. And it’s because, right along with racial diversity, the motto “in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity” is taken pretty doggone seriously. There are Quiverful families in this church, and there are single working mothers, and there are politics of all stripes, and we all go to church together– and we’re led by people who have no patience for self-righteousness and judgment.

A body with many parts, all different, each valuing the others.  That's what the 12th chapters of Romans and 1 Corinthians are both talking about.  Using 1 Peter 2:5's metaphor, it turns out Jesus can somehow miraculously build a house where the bricks can be fitted together even though they don't fit in the way identical bricks do.

So I don't worry so much about not fitting in any more.  It's enough just to enjoy the journey with my fellow travelers.

Of all kinds, in all combinations.  That's what this beautiful and varied thing called humanity is all about.

Christmas Break

Once again this year I'm taking a break from blogging until after the presents are unwrapped and Christmas dinner eaten.  To get all of that ready and still post here would be more than I'm humanly capable of!  So I'll say Merry Christmas to my Christian readers and Season's Greetings to everyone else-- and since I've found that Susan Cooper evokes the holiday mood better than just about anyone else I've ever read, I'll leave you with some paragraphs from The Dark is Rising:

For this was Christmas, which had always been a time of magic, to him and to all the world.  This was a brightness, a shining festival . . . Indoors, the tree glowed and glittered, and the music of Christmas was in the air, and spicy smells came from the kitchen, and in the broad hearth of the living room the great twisted Yule root flickered and flamed as it gently burned down. . . They pounded up to their respective bedrooms and came down with packages to be added to the growing pile beneath the tree. Will had been trying hard not to look at this magical heap ever since they came in from carol-singing, but it was sorely difficult. . . . 

And it was the same as it always was, as he lay curled up happily in his snug wrappings, promising himself that he would stay awake, until, until. . . Until he woke, in the dim morning room with a glimmer of light creeping round the dark square of the curtained window, and saw and heard nothing for an enchanted expectant space. . . And it was Christmas Day.

I believe the church did well, so long ago, when it set this great festival of Christ's birth at this most significant time of year, when the time of darkness has at last ceased lengthening and begun shortening again with each passing day, and the light has begun to grow.  For He is the light of the world, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never overcome it.

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not-- happy holy days!  I'll be back for the New Year.

Turning 50

Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.
    - Bob Dylan, My Back Pages

I turned 50 today.

When I was 10, 20, 30 and even 40, it never really occurred to me that this was going to happen.  Fifty has always been something impossibly remote, something that happened to other people.

Not that I mind, really, waking up and understanding that it has, in fact, happened to me.  Turning 50 isn't like what I thought it would be.  

For one thing, once you're here, it doesn't really seem old anymore.  Not even as old as I felt at 44, when it first seriously entered my mind that I wasn't going to live forever. At 44 I found that my life was more than half over, and what had I accomplished?  What had happened to all the idealized hopes and dreams of 18?  Of 25? Was this all I could expect out of life-- to finish my years in middle-class ordinariness and obscurity?  And then, to actually, really die? 

It seemed kind of tragic at 44.

Now it seems almost comforting.  

I think the main thing about turning 50 is that sometime during the last five or six years, it stopped being about me.  What I accomplish as an individual just isn't what life is all about.  I feel now that I'm part of this whole thing that is God's world, still learning to seek first God's new-creation kingdom, but knowing that the bits that I contribute are just threads in a vast tapestry.  And the weaver is Christ, not me.

I still probably have quite a bit of time left, after all.  I'll finish raising my kids, and maybe someday (I hope!) I'll get some grandchildren to spoil.  I'll keep helping people with the paperwork to fix their legal problems.  I'll keep reading and blogging and learning and going to church, and watching the babies in the church nursery, and I'll keep going for walks in the woods and holding hands with my husband.  And I'll realize more and more as I travel from here how impermanent it all is.  And that will be ok.

I don't have to have all the answers anymore.  I don't even have to understand all the questions.

The book of Ecclesiastes makes more sense to me now than it used to.  For one thing, Gregory Mobley's book The Return of the Chaos Monsters: and Other Backstories of the Bible helped me understand that the word translated "vanity" in that text does not actually mean "meaningless":

[Ecclesiastes] is not saying that everything is without form and void of meaning. Rather, there is meaning and substance, to everything there is a season and a time, but we see through a glass darkly. . . Our apprehension of . . . the Great Plan is ephemeral and elusive. . . We can experience these exuberances, fleeting puffs of insight about, and engagement with, the Real, but we can neither possess nor control them. . . . [Chapter 6]

Mobley translates Ecc. 3:11 like this:

The entire thing [God] has made beautiful according to its time. Furthermore, [God] has given the [ability to comprehend] chronology in their hearts. Yet humans cannot discover what God is enacting from beginning to end. [Ibid]

Turning 50, I have gained enough perspective to know that I lack perspective.  I have felt, and firmly believe, that there is a pattern to it all, but it's enough to know this.  I don't need to see the whole pattern or how my threads fit into it.  I only know that they do.

And because of this, nothing I do is actually in vain.  We are put on this earth to help one another, to live interlocking lives within the pattern, and whether the help I give is visible is not important. What is important is that there's no such thing as an insignificant life.  There's no person, whether they live for an hour or a hundred years, whose thread God doesn't see as part of an entire, beautiful weaving.

This isn't to discount the ugliness of ugliness.  This isn't about pretending that people don't do horrible things to one another, and it isn't saying that God wants these things or that they have anything to do with God's plan (see for instance Jeremiah 19:5).  But in spite of these things, God's plan endures.  In spite of these things, the tapestry-weaving continues until the whole thing is complete.

I used to feel I had to "do great things for God."  Now I understand that doing small things for God can also be great.  I used to think I had to "get a mighty vision."  Now it's enough to "see in a mirror, dimly" and to know only in part (1 Cor. 13:12).  

But I'm also glad that people who are 10, or 20, or 30, don't feel this way.  I'm glad they want to have big visions and high goals and grand adventures.  Because God does call some of us to stand out, to be instigators of whole new sections of the pattern, and if no one would step into those plans, where would the pattern be?

What it comes down to is that we all need each other.  We need one-year-olds and 10-year-olds and 30-year-olds and 80-year-olds.  We need big movers and little shakers.  We need all the perspectives from all the places, in all colors, in all different types of thread.

Because it's not about any one of us.  It's about all of us.  

And that's what I see at age 50.  I wonder what I'll see when I'm 70. . . . 

Why I Can't Go to Christian Conferences

Canadian author and Christian blogger Sarah Bessey wrote on her blog this week a piece called In Which I Have All the Feelings About Conferences.  Here are some of the things she said:

Conferences are the new church planting phenomenon: everyone wants to do it. Everyone thinks theirs is different. Everyone thinks they’ll be the real voice of Jesus or the one to reach their generation. We’ve got a niche for you! conferences for everyone! you get a conference! and you get a conference! and you get a conference! but part of me doesn’t like conferences – not as a model, not as an experience, let alone as a method for real and lasting change. 

****
The real transformations of my life didn’t come about at a conference or on a mountain top; the real transformations in my spirit and my character and my life were born and tended and raised in the daily mundane habits and faithfulness of my life.

***
I see conferences as entertainment and mass commodification of the Gospel. Some of them smell like a machine, like a big hairy complex business to me, and so I am suspicious. Probably it’s in my nature to be suspicious, after all I’m a Gen-Xer and a western Canadian. I guess my bullshit detector is set at a bit too high of a setting. I am wary of Group Think and emotional manipulation and spiritual manipulation because I’ve experienced – and committed the sin of – them all. We know how these things work once we’ve been on the inside, it isn’t rocket science. I have seen behind the curtain. What’s the line between hope and hubris? 

***
But here’s the rub: I still like conferences. 

I do. 

I love the big hairy worship events. I can shout down a preacher for preaching good. I love to take careful notes and cry at the altar and dance in the aisles. I love the bonding experiences of conferences, the friendships I make, the networking connections. I love it. I get it.

 ***

I worry that conferences are fracturing the Body of Christ. That they are making us go from experience to experience, stadium to stadium, round table to panel, think tank to gathering, instead of burrowing down into our real lives. 

I worry that they isolate us from our communities because we have these big gigantic teachings that blow our minds and set our hairs on fire, but we have no one to actually live it out with and so we end up feeling like failures or like “no one gets it” and we vacillate between failure and pride. 

***
The average conference ticket costs between $100-500 but factor in airfare, hotels, food, and you’re looking at nearly $2,000 sometimes.

Now we’re down to the brass tacks: I don’t go to conferences because I cannot afford to go to conferences.

I’m baffled at the sheer number of people who go to conferences, seemingly endless Jesus camps with meet-ups for old friends, and I think who are you people? There must be a lot of money in the world. I guess these things aren’t for people like me. By their nature, they are exclusive, and we’re there because we’re people of privilege.

I get all of this. Everything she said resonates with me-- the love and the suspicion and the worry and the bafflement. I used to feel all these things when I went to conferences. But when I viewed her post, and now as I sit down to write this, tears are gathering at the back of my throat and I'm much more upset than I thought I was going to be. But I'm still going to talk about this because I need to say it. And maybe, maybe it will heal some old sore spots that it turns out are still much sorer and more painful than I thought they would be after all this time.

I can't go to Christian conferences anymore.

I haven't gone to a conference since I was in my twenties-- and I'm turning 50 in a month. Every year my sweet friend who is the leader of the women's ministries in my church sends out a mass invitation to the Jubilee Women's Conference. It's a local conference that costs just $35 and is held right in my own church's sanctuary-- so it really isn't exclusive or just for people of privilege, and somehow I doubt if it's a big complex business machine full of emotional and spiritual manipulation. The webpage for the conference doesn't even mention any glitzy worship band or high-powered team of speakers-- just a local author sharing from her book. This conference seems to avoid all or most of the things that made "Christian conference" into such a negative thing in my mind and heart.

And yet I still can't bring myself to go.

When I was in Maranatha Campus Ministries in my college years and after, every year there was MWLC - the "Maranatha World Leadership Conference." Held in a large city-- usually Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas-- it gathered together all of the members of Maranatha from churches all over the United States and Canada, as well as many from Australia and other church plants overseas. It constituted three days of famous speakers, world-class worship bands, dance teams, light and sound and glory. There were individual classes in the daytime and stadium events in the evening, and people who had moved across the country to start new Maranatha churches would reconnect with their old friends and get a chance to hear Bob Weiner and Joe Smith in person.

Attendance was mandatory.

That's right-- mandatory. Most church members were either in college or married with young children, and yet we were all required to "step out in faith" to raise the money to attend. We were supposed to ask our parents, our aunts and uncles, or our (hopefully) rich grandparents; we were supposed to contact local businessmen and request donations; to participate in car washes, bake sales and other fund-raising events.

It was hard.

What was especially hard that first year is that the young church I attended was brand-new in the city of Eugene, Oregon, and was finding it hard going just to pay for the huge house we were renting (formerly a fraternity house), even with most of us living in the house and paying rent. The car washes and bake sales that were supposed to help members pay for the conference were actually going towards house utilities. And it was 1982, right in the middle of a terrible recession that kept many of us from finding summer jobs.

I tried everything. My parents wouldn't help pay for it and wanted me to find a job. And I tried; I really did, but without success. We were new to the area and I didn't know any businessmen I could ask. I remember in desperation trying to sell my old flute to at least be able to pay the registration fee. The most anyone would offer me was $35, and I needed $100. I was near despair. Most of the other church members had found some way to attend, but I was getting nowhere.

At last the church leaders told me they were giving me permission to miss the conference. They knew my heart was in the right place, they told me, because I had done all I could to try to go, but maybe for some reason it wasn't God's will for me that year.

I knew what they were thinking, though. The problem was my faith. I didn't have enough faith to move mountains, and so God could not or would not bless me. Maybe, I thought in my heart of hearts, God just isn't pleased with me. Maybe God doesn't think I'm a good enough disciple.

So I watched tearfully as everyone else went to the airport, and I stayed behind.

The rejection I'd faced from prospective employers all summer was intensified by what felt like God's abandonment, as I missed what everyone later told me was a fantastic time in the Holy Spirit, a life-changing encounter with God and destiny.

The next year I did manage to get a summer job. My parents had wanted me to put the money I earned towards my living expenses that summer, so they could have a break from supporting me (they paid my way through all four years of college, bless them!), but when they saw how desperately I wanted to go to MWLC, they said I could use the money for that. Excitedly I contacted a travel agent and bought plane tickets, sent in the check for my registration, and when the time came, boarded the plane with my friends and pastors.

And I had a good time. Really, I did.

But. . . .

Well, there was the speaker who used his one-hour slot to give the entire stadium a tongue-lashing about our lax spirituality and our selfishness.

Then there were the intense, hyped-up testimonies about the mission field and how important it was that everyone go on at least one short-term mission during their lifetime-- no exceptions. We were all told to bow our heads in prayer, then take out a card and write down on it what nation we felt God calling us to.

I felt like God was saying, "The United States."

All I could feel was intense gratitude that we weren't required to put our names on the cards and turn them in.

It is true that when the lights were playing over the stadium and the music was rushing, and everyone was shouting and dancing and crying and praying, I felt the presence of God very strongly. I will never forget the emotional and spiritual high.

But then when it was over, it all felt sort of fake and hollow. Was that God's presence I had felt, or merely the frenzy we'd all been whipped into by the speakers and the band?

I think now that it was probably both. I know what God's presence feels like when I'm not emotionally hyped up at all, and I'm sure it's real. But the hype and emotionalism actually made it seem less real.

But the worst thing was the feeling that somehow we weren't just adoring God, but the keynote speakers and the Maranatha leaders and the worship-team stars. It was a celebrity event, and I was sure those people up there were spiritually above the rest of us down in the seats. They were on a higher plane where God's favor and blessing rested on them in ways I would never experience.

Deep down I resented them for being closer to God than I could ever hope to be.

And I felt guilty for it.

The conference came to an end, and we all went home, and somehow the grand and glorious things we knew we would do when we got home, never quite materialized. Our hyped-up faith that can move mountains returned to the normal, gritty faith that finds a way to do the chores, attend the prayer meetings and hand out flyers for the next local meeting while trying to complete two 20-page lit papers and study for three midterms.

There was another conference the next year. And the one after that. And I managed to go to one of them, but the next year I had just graduated from college and needed to get a job, and that was the year the Eugene Maranatha church merged with the Maranatha church in the next town, and somehow no one was requiring us to step out in faith to go that year.

I think, all in all, I went to three MWLC's. The leaders eventually stopped holding them every year, and then finally the entire ministry dissolved, and the local churches were left on their own to sink or swim. Ours swam, but it became a kinder, gentler fellowship, and in the end my family and I left it without acrimony on either side, and we joined the kind, gentle church we attend now.

Where, every year, I get invited to a local women's conference that I can't bring myself to attend.

Too much baggage. Even the thought of paying a registration fee I know I can afford, brings back the old feelings of being coerced and not measuring up.

Even the thought of spending a couple of days with a group of women I enjoy, listening to a calm speaker and (probably) the regular church music group, brings back old feelings of confusion and resentment and guilt, and of being asked to give out of myself beyond what felt comfortable or even safe.

I guess what it boils down to is that those old conferences equate in my mind with a vast array of personal boundary violations that I can't even quite articulate.

So I'm staying home. And I'm writing this, about my love-hate relationship with Christian conferences, which is about confused love and guilty hate, from a past I still have not managed to lay to rest. I think writing this actually has helped a little. . .

I'm glad that people today go to conferences and are blessed by them. I really am.

But until further notice, count me out.

Deep in the Heart of Texas (Family Reunion)

Hot, moist Texas air clung stickily to my arms as I waded into the Gulf of Mexico.  Water warmer than a standard swimming pool swirled around my ankles.  In Oregon, even in summer, we'd gasp with the cold as we tried to wade in deeper than the tops of our feet, shrieking as the freezing waves chased us back to dry sand.     

But here I found myself quickly up to my waist, then my chest, struggling to stand as warm, strong waves tried their benevolent best to knock me over.  "Use a boogie board!" my sister-in-law called from further in.  My kids, aged 14 and 18, laughed with the novel sensation as the waves pushed them around. 

We'd come to Surfside Beach, Texas (a few miles west of Galveston) for the 2013 Rosser Family Reunion, hosted by big-hearted members of the Texas Rosser branch named Steve and Millie.  They'd rented four houses right on the beach, hiked up on stilts against winter storms, but high and dry in the late-June weather for us all to enjoy.  

My husband and I had a beautiful private bedroom with a king-size bed and a balcony overlooking the beach.  The kids had to share bunk-bed rooms, but they soon settled in. 

We had a whole week to swim, visit local attractions, spend time with 80+ family members (some of whom we'd never met) and over-indulge on pot-luck meals served in the biggest house's kitchen and dining room.  I didn't even attempt to compete in the matter of desserts prepared by the best home-cooks you can imagine! -- though I did contribute a salad or two.

One day we visited the Houston Zoo with most of the Wyoming contingent of the family (my husband's sister and one of his brothers).  It was HOT.  

But there were so many animals I'd never seen before, including an albino alligator.  This beautiful creature is carefully washed with scrub-brushes by his attentive keepers on a regular schedule.

I even got to feed a giraffe!

In the evenings we relaxed on the balcony of the beach house while the grackles (which looked like crows with extra-long tails but screeched like jays) waited for us to drop food.  (They were everywhere, like camp robbers at an Oregon campground).  

Gulls with black heads floated overhead, and flocks of brown pelicans winged over the house or, far out to sea, dove into the waves after fish.

The next day we drove a rental car that was far nicer than anything we had at home, into Galveston to visit the Moody Gardens Pyramid Aquarium.    It was an amazing, shiny blue pyramid structure, filled with sea lions, penguins, sea turtles and sharks.  

My husband took a picture of me and the kids in a shark cage.  

Hmm.  I wonder if maybe he was thinking of keeping us there. . . 

  

The Rossers are a musical bunch, and several evenings there was singing and guitar-playing.  The houses were filled with children, from newborns to teenagers.   They all seemed to have fun, especially the ones who were the right age for scavenger hunts and kite-flying.

One little niece  celebrated her first birthday on Friday afternoon.

  

Everyone got along, everyone teased and laughed and reminisced.  And the last night was a huge party with a band, lots of Rosser talent, and dancing.

I danced a little myself in my family reunion red T-shirt...

Here's my husband, his dad and our kids in the T-shirts.  

Aren't they adorable?

The next day we had to fly home-- and we almost missed our flight!  Our GPS unit didn't seem to understand that there was construction on the Sam Houston Parkway, and it kept telling us to take on-ramps that didn't exist.  But we did arrive at the airport with 45 minutes to make our flight, and managed to check in and get in line just as the plane was boarding.  I was so stressed out and relieved to have made it after all, that I fell asleep on the plane-- something I normally never do.  

But the best thing about the trip was the amazing feeling of being surrounded by loved ones -- even  those we'd never met before!  The stress of daily life and our continued struggles in this economy melted away in the warmth and generosity of this wonderful family.  We couldn't seem to stop them blessing us-- and we never could have made the trip without them. 

In fact, one morning as I soaked in the huge garden tub, enjoying the peace and relaxation, I felt the Spirit of God speaking gently in my heart.  "You are always this safe, this taken care of, even when you don't see or feel it," it felt like He said.  And I knew this message was the family's gift to me.

Rossers, you are all amazing.  

Marrying into this family was one of the best things I ever did.

Taking the Week Off

This last week I got a terrible cold and was in bed for four days.  I'm well again, but today is my son's 14th birthday party, and-- well, you know how it is.  I haven't been able to prepare anything for this blog this week, and I'm not going to get a chance today either.

So here's a picture of my cats, for your amusement:

Their names are Trinket (the calico) and Bandit (the gray with the mask).

Have a good week, and I should have something more next Saturday.

Thoughts on 25 Years of Marriage

This weekend my husband and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.  I don't necessarily think that makes us experts on marriage, but I did have a few thoughts, for whatever they're worth.

I think the best way to start a marriage is with friendship.  The best way to keep a marriage strong is with friendship.

Respect is part of love, and both partners need it.  Put-downs and personal attacks have always been off-limits in our marriage.

Passion in a long-term marriage is more like banked coals than like a bonfire.  It glows just as hot deep down, but isn't as showy on the surface.  The way we've kept the fires banked so they never go out, is to never stop flirting.

We tried gender roles.  Then we climbed out of the boxes and tried just being ourselves and supporting one another in being who we are.  That worked much better.

Believing the best of one another helps us be our best to one another.

Trying to see through one another's eyes really helps.  So does really listening.

In case of conflict, a little humility goes a long way.

When in doubt, try 1 Corinthians 13.


That's all I've got this week.  We're leaving today to spend a weekend on the coast!

A Walk in the Wetlands

A great egret has been visiting the wetlands where my husband and I walk every day.

As we walk along the boardwalk that loops through the standing water, we see him from a distance, a splash of white against the dark shrubbery behind him.  He stands in the water, neck curved, watching for tiny green frogs among the drowned grasses.  Or he stalks, head swaying back with each long-legged step forward.

Breathless, we pass the binoculars back and forth between us, standing at the closest point to him that the boardwalk will allow, hoping he won't fly away.  But we gasp with the beauty of it when he does-- when the huge wings open, curving in a great arc as he scoops air beneath them.  As he rises. As he flies.

He is gone, and we walk on, speaking of him in hushed voices, hoping that when we come back again tomorrow, he will have come back too.

Gerard Manley Hopkins said it best:


The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil,
It gathers to a greatness like the ooze of oil
Crushed.

As the sun disappears behind the foothills of the mountains, spreading a glory of pink and gold over the darkening sky behind it, we walk among the cattail stalks, listening to the marsh wren chirring just out of sight.  

In the willows above, red-winged blackbirds call to one another, their bright shoulder-patches ruffling up with every call.   There are so many that they sound like a concert of reed flutes.  They dive from the trees to sway atop the cattails, then flutter up again to perch in the branches.  "Poke your neigh-bor!' my son used to tell us they were saying.  He has grown too old now for such imaginings, but the blackbirds' song does not change.

Mallard ducks are flying in to roost in the cattail beds for the night.  Their short wings make a whistling sound as they beat at the air, losing altitude gradually as they circle.  Below in the shallow water, ducks that have already found resting places quack sleepily, or flap their wings in indignation when the newcomers land too close.

Later we pass through a wooded area where the water merely pools among the trees.  We remember the time a sudden knocking sound made us raise our heads, and a pileated woodpecker eyed us from the trunk above, crest burning bright over a white-striped face.

We never know exactly what we will see in the wetlands.  Pacific tree frogs shout from the puddles, and Oregon red-spotted garter snakes sun themselves on the boards, disappearing with a flick of their black tails when walking humans approach too near.  In the spring and fall, woolly-bear caterpillars trundle along the wooden rails, always seeming to have somewhere very important they need to be.

We notice gnaw-marks on the trunk of a tree and wonder if the beaver we saw last year is back.  In the dusk we would see its wet brown back slicing the water, and once or twice even heard the "smack!" as the flat tail struck the surface.  And though we haven't glimpsed it in some time, still the trees carry "beaver bites," as we overheard a very small human visitor call them once. 

The wetlands.

This is the place where the tension and frazzle of the day drop away from us.  The place where life has been lived just as it is, for centuries before humans ever built houses or drove cars or collected taxes.  This is where it all drops into perspective, where none of the things that worry me are important; where, as Hopkins wrote,

nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things. . . 

Here in the wetlands, the presence of God is palpable.  Here in the wetlands, I find that the things that so concern humanity are only passing, temporary things. Here, the seasons and the cycles change always, but nothing ever changes at all.

Here I can breathe.

Here I can think.

And here is where I like to come alone sometimes, to worship.

I just wanted to share it with you today-- with anyone who comes and wants to walk that boardwalk with me in their thoughts.

I hope you enjoyed it.

In Defense of Santa Claus

I remember going to see Santa Claus when I was a little kid.  Back then, large corporations (like the one my dad worked for) liked to use their money for more than lining their CEOs' pockets.  Santa would land in the company parking lot in a big helicopter, and all the children would be ushered inside to tell him what we wanted for Christmas, as he sat in a big sleigh surrounded with boxes and boxes of presents.  Every child received a very nice toy based on age and gender.  One present in particular I'll never forget: a toy dwarf's cottage from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, complete with seven little toy dwarfs and Snow White herself!  I was thrilled.

As Christmas drew near, our excitement and anticipation increased.  My father had a set of sleigh bells, and on Christmas Eve he'd go outside in the dark and jingle them, yelling "Ho, ho, ho!"  We kids would squeal and run for our beds, where we'd hear the thudding of reindeer hoofs on the ceiling over our heads (it was Dad again, pounding across the deck with a couple of long poles).  One year Dad even made a trail of ashy bootprints from the fireplace to the Christmas tree.  I don't remember whether he actually helped Mom clean that up or not. . .

But the main thing I remember about Christmas in those days was magic and wonder.  The miraculous hung close to our young lives, ready to break out at any moment.  Somewhere out there was a jolly, kind old man who wanted to give us toys just because he loved children.  My parents didn't play up the "you have to be good" thing all that much.  Santa's gifts were gifts of love.  For most of my childhood my parents were not Christians, but as I think back now, I realize that Santa was my first compelling illustration of a benevolent, supernatural father, and his gift-giving showed me my first clear picture of grace.

I didn't write any blog posts this Christmas, but I did read a few.  And there was one I read that I felt I had to respond to now, before we all take down our trees and put our stockings away.

I understood and respected the decision of Jen Hatmaker in her blog post The Christmas Conundrum to turn from consumerism and materialism at Christmas, but I couldn't help feeling a little sad as I read these words:

We've pulled out of the Santa charade. Our newest kids are 5 and 8, preparing for their first Christmas in America, and we're just not doing it, yall. Maybe because we've spent the last four years trying to unravel the mess we've presented to our other kids all these years, but hear me say it: We are giving Christmas back to Jesus. Not a corner of it; all of it.

There is no fake benefactor this year my kids can petition to get more stuff. Because honestly? For a five-year-old, how can Jesus compete with Santa? Our children don't have spiritual perspective; when faced with the choice of allegience, they have a baby in a manger, or they can get a jolly, twinkling, flying character who will bring them presents. This is going to be an easy choice for them. My friend Andrew, who identifies himself as a member of the "non-believer corner" put it this way:

"I always thought it was strange how Christians will tell me they have this giant and awesome truth they know is true deep in their soul and want to share with me, but when 12/25 comes around they lie to their own progeny because, apparently, that giant, liberating, and awesomely simple truth is somehow just not enough. It may be a good narrative, but it needs a little something to give it some panache."

As importantly, it sets this tone for Christmas: Be good and you'll get stuff, which becomes so deeply seeded, undoing that position is almost impossible. When we teach our children to understand Christmas through this lens, then tell them at nine-years-old: "Never mind! It's all fake! Oh, and stop being so selfish because Christmas is about Jesus"...we shouldn't be surprised when our kids stage a mutiny and ask to move in with Grandma. Young parents, this is so much easier to do right the first time rather than try to undo later. Give your kids the gift of a Christmas obsessed with Jesus - and no other - when they are little, and it will be their truth all their lives.

Ms. Hatmaker must do as she believes is best for her own kids, and for all I know this may be what is best for her own kids-- but I cannot take her view.  Though Santa is often equated with materialism and greed, he isn't synonymous with those things.  And I can't imagine Santa as I understood him as a child, ever wanting to usurp Christmas from Jesus or compete with Him for affection.

When I grew old enough to stop believing in Santa, I had already stopped believing in God. My parents began telling us that both were myths.  But when I came to understand that all the jingle bells and reindeer hoofbeats were a show my parents had put on for us, I wasn't angry with them.  I was grateful-- and sad.  Grateful that they'd given me a few glorious years to believe in wonders.  Sad that there was no magic, no miracles; that the world was just a mundane place where nothing ever happened without a reasonable explanation.  That Jesus in the manger was a pretty story Mom had told us when we were little, but he was really just a man like any other man.  That the North Pole was just a magnetic spot in an empty sea of ice.

I still liked getting presents on Christmas, and I liked being with my family.  But after I stopped believing, Christmas was empty.  Sure there was love, and family, and giving-- but lovely as those things were, they were still just part of the mundane world.  The magic was all gone.  I needed to learn to be content with the mundane, because that's all there was or would ever be.

Or so I thought.

When I met Jesus at the age of 15, the miraculous came back.  Christmas was suddenly more than magic-- it was holy.  Christmas Eve became the focal point of remembering, every year, how God drew near, and even nearer, the earth-- so near that all at once God was one of earth's creatures.

God.  With us.  

Emmanuel.

Joy. 

And Santa as a picture of joyous, extravagant giving in celebration of that.

A few years later I became caught up in the new legalism that was sweeping evangelical communities.  Christmas as most people celebrated it was whitewashed paganism. Santa was just a big fat lie parents told their kids-- a lie that encouraged greed and materialism.  If we really loved God, we should focus on Jesus exclusively, and celebrate His birthday alone.

Christian parents should shield their children from Santa.  Santa was the enemy.

But I grew older.  I began to learn to recognize and turn away from legalism in my Christianity.  And then I had kids of my own.

I never exactly told my daughter whether Santa was real or not.  But when she was two years old, she told me that he was.

And remembering magic and wonder and miracle in my own childhood, I just didn't have the heart to tell her no.

So we let our children believe in Santa and Jesus.  And believe me, this was a matter of letting, not making.  Believing was in their nature.  They were born with wonder in their eyes.

Early on my own parents sent their grandchildren a toy Santa Claus house to play with, and at my request, they also sent a toy manger scene.  (My mom had become a Christian again by that point, and I believe my dad eventually did too, though believing was something that never did come easy to him.)  My children played with the two things together.  They liked to have Santa come into the manger scene to say hello to Jesus.  My daughter even had him kiss the Baby in the manger.  It was very sweet.

We didn't turn Santa into an idol of materialism.  The kids believed that Santa filled their stockings and gave them three or four additional presents every year.  The rest of the presents under the tree were from their family and friends.  We told the children that Santa gives children presents because he loves children, and he loves children because Jesus loves them.  That gift-giving-- even extravagant gift-giving-- is appropriate and right as a celebration of God's great, excessively extravagant gift of His Son to us.  That loving generosity and humble gratitude are an honor to the season and the One who is its center.

Santa, too, can be holy.

There was no competition in my children's eyes between Jesus and Santa.  There was no "choice of allegiance."  Every year on Christmas Eve we would read the Bible story and The Night Before Christmas together.  We still do.  Afterwards we light candles and sing carols.  As they have grown older, my kids no longer request songs about Santa.  They want to sing songs about the birth of Christ.

Magic has opened the path to miracle.  Santa has pointed them to the Father, and Christmas to Christ.

You see, I don't agree with Ms. Hatmaker that children have no spiritual perspective.  I don't believe there is, or need be, a dichotomy between the spiritual and material.  The key is simply to love people, use things, and worship God-- and not to get any of those three mixed up. God made the material world and said that it was good.  Children, like adults, are made of matter and spirit.   Both are good, and God desires us to worship Him with our whole selves.  And any good thing in the material world can be of use in spiritual worship, whether it be an altar, a cross, a kneeling bench-- or a tree, twinkling lights and candles.

And a jolly, fat man in a red suit can give us a glimpse into the father heart of God.

We only have to let Christmas work its miracle within us.

Taking a Break for Christmas

To all my readers:  A very merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and I hope any other celebration you undertake will be joyous and fun!

Last December I had just started blogging and still had a number of previously completed essays that I could put up.  This year that reserve is depleted, and I must compose a new piece every week.  I'm loving blogging--  but I'm also a mom of two and a full-time paralegal, and I need every spare minute between now and the holiday to get ready for it!

So I'm taking some time off.  But I'd like to leave you with these beautiful words about Mary, mother of Christ, from Rachel Held Evans' book A Year of Biblical Womanhood:

She is what made Jesus both fully God and fully man, her womb the place where heaven and earth meld into one.  At the heart of Mary's worthiness is her obedience, not to a man, not to a culture, not even to a cause or a religion, but to the creative work of God who lifts up the humble and fills the hungry with good things. . . 

One need not be a saint, or even a mother, to become a bearer of God.  One needs only to obey.  The divine resides in all of us, but it is our choice to magnify it or diminish it, to ignore it or to surrender to its lead.  p. 72


I wish you, in this holiday season-- so appropriately set at winter solstice, when in the midst of darkness the light comes-- an encounter with the living God.

Thank you all for reading.  I'll be back when the presents are opened!