We are living in the season of darkness: more than sixteen hours of it per day, fewer than eight hours of daylight. You go to bed and awaken in the dark, and squint your eyes when I take you near the cold window and show you the sun-reflecting snow beyond. You are familiar with the rhythmic flashing lights of plows working on the street and sidewalks of the park across the way, and with the rumble of trucks carrying loads of snow to the snow dump.
I promise you, child, I did not grow up ever imagining there was such a thing as a snow dump.
Just days ago, the solstice blanketed us with the darkest day of the year, and now things begin to turn. Nearly three months into your life, the crumpled-up days begin to stretch themselves out again, unfurling ever so slowly like the leaves of seeds planted and then almost--but not quite--forgotten. We cannot really tend the soil of this advent, this coming of the light: it comes of its own volition, year after year, reminding us that light is stronger than darkness, love stronger than death.
This is what I tell you, grasping words to explain the irrational foundation of my belief: love is stronger than death. The words come from ancient erotic poetry, long interpreted by the church to mean something divine. Or this, from another esoteric poet-theologian: the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Child, Advent is the time when Christians live into the hope of a Coming--a coming of justice and peace, of rightness in the world. We admit our longing for light in the darkness, warmth in the cold, relief in the struggle. We admit our desperate need for help, because the world is war-torn and divided and full of arguments and abuses, and because we participate in those wars and divisions and arguments and abuses. Our hearts are torn, as well. We inherit the mess, and we contribute to it.
My precious baby, Advent is the season when we sit on the edges of our seats waiting to celebrate another Baby: a Jesus baby, whom our wildest dreams, and deepest convictions, take to be God-with-us, Immanuel. Breathing your sweet scent, feeling your soft hair tickling my nose, watching your bright eyes wide and delighted mirroring my own, or shushing the cries that sometimes surge up from the core of you through your wide-open, deep red mouth, I feel the mystery of this God-baby more profoundly than ever. Do I really believe what we claim to celebrate at Christmas--that the Word was made flesh, that the Infinite suckled at Mary's breast and soiled diapers, that the Most High came to us to bring us salvation, a perfect and impossible and true gift of grace through faith?
Do I believe that our hope for the righting of all the wrongs, in some glorious future, is founded in that tiny person, as well, who grew as you grow, learning the world all over again by clutching its bits and pieces and putting them in his mouth? (Taste and see that the Lord is good, I think, as I often do, and then imagine that Lord tasting and seeing the good of what was made, aeons past, through the endless curiosity of an infant's senses of touch and taste. Taste and see that the world is good, Lord. And he did, ages after first declaring it so. And he also tasted how it had soured, and later drank the dregs of its bitterness.)
Do I believe that Jesus is the Way, Truth, Life?
I do. And sometimes it causes me to tremble.
Miriam, you are growing up in a world where those who call themselves Christians are often distinguished by their penchant for argumentation and wall-building. We are more often known for rhetoric than for any sort of love. We would often rather fuss about television and our rights than serve anyone.
But Jesus came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Miri, Jesus came so that we could have life. I want you to know the difference between good and evil, between right and wrong, between hope and despair. But I want you to know these things with your whole self, not just with your mind. As much as I love words, I want you to know them, also, in the flesh. And I want you to know compassion.
I do not know how to teach you these things, especially when the world feels so oppressively dark and cold, especially when I myself am so prone to self-centredness instead of healthy self-regard, so prone to impatience rather than gentleness, so prone to shrinking away from opportunities to stretch myself in hospitality. I do not know how to teach you these things, except to pray for the strength to model them in my own life, and to regale you with tales of them, and to expose you to moments that shine with them.
An example that I want you to remember in years to come: you spent last Friday night in a church basement with a collection of middle-aged couples and senior citizens. We pulled into the parking lot in the bitter cold and saw a glow through curtained windows level with the snow. You were warmed by many pairs of hands, cuddled and coddled. You slept some, nursed in a quiet corner, grinned at other children's grandpas.
It was a game night, hosted by the younger folks for the older ones: a spread of appetizers for supper, a deep tureen of coffee. Once the plates were cleared, the games came out--board games and card games and dominoes. Generations gathered, laughing, around those games, and you were there.
I want you to remember Friday night, Miri. It wasn't grandly subversive or sacrificial. It was a small thing: those in the flush of life's busyness putting on an evening for a generation whose life is slowing down, quieting down. There will be time for you to see the more risky moments of love in action, for you to learn to love across thicker borders and boundaries. But this night had its own beauty, in the hands that gave and the hands that received, in the stories and the laughter. This night had warmth instead of subzero winds, conversation instead of quiet. It was a tender glimpse of goodness, and you basked in it.
I want you to know this, Miriam, in every layer of your being: God's love is stronger than death. Christ's light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.
Those glimpses, like the candles we light on these long, dark nights, shine small in a sea of darkness, but they ignite a spark of hope in our hearts. And this, sweet child, is why I sing on these last nights of Advent, Come, Lord Jesus, come.
love,
mama
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