Saint Nicholas Day / Advent Day 5

Today is Saint Nicholas’ day. He was a third century Greek who is said to have rescued a poor man with three eligible daughters, who would probably have had to become women of the night without his aid, by surrepticiously dropping bundles of money into his home, three times, which could serve as dowry for their lives as wives and mothers. Yaay to gift-giving! Boo to the commodification of women.

Caroline Schlossberg, a.k.a., Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the killed president, was on the radio this morning talking about a book she’s authored about Christmas traditions. She talked about peace, about how Isaiah and Luke used their stories to inveigh against war. And talked about how important it is for her to pass on traditions she had as a little girl (like oranges with spikes of spice in them – come on, Mom, what’s this doing in my stocking?).

This is along the lines of my next talk at UUFF. What disciplines do we take upon ourselves as a community, what practices do we hold and work on together which define us? Can we say that what we do together (Sunday mornings and other times) is our best effort at sharing our treasure gratefully with one another and the world beyond, or are we just rehearsing an identity together to keep from feeling lonely and afraid?

Last week, my first talk in this three-fer, was about our children – one, how we "call" them into a relationship with the deepest things in life that we ourselves have discovered. Two, what "stories" we serve up, over and over, so that they (and we!) can learn them and trust them and begin to find their way with their help. And finally, three, what "journey" they will be empowered to take as they grow in confidence and wisdom, how their journey will parallel ours (as childrens’ journeys always do, somehow), and supercede ours (or fall painfully short) on that profound march of humanity toward kindness, compassion, justice, gratitude.

Last night at Chalice Circle, Marilyn spoke again about Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village. Spending several weeks in this meditation community in France has been a way for her to measure everything which comes her way. When they eat in the community there, each person fills their bowl at the buffet, and then goes to sit somewhere quiet to consider their food. For fifteen minutes, each person thinks about everyone and everything involved in providing sustenance to them. The sun brings energy to leaves, the clouds bring rain to the earth, the earth composed of rock broken by roots and ice, of organic material laid down by millenia of plants growing and dying, surrounds roots with rich soil, there are the hands that pick food, there are the many local traditions which combine to prepare food in certain ways – to sit and let all which is contained in that bowl fill your heart with amazement and gratitude.

I was thinking, ah, Eastern spirituality, the place where individual effort, striving, and proud accomplishment lie gently sleeping, while community, wisdom, and gratitude are explored in profound depth. What would Advent look like if it were, as designed by the early church, a time of hungering for what is not yet, of fasting, of longing for presence, of waiting and not anxiously, of saying our brokenness and hope in words and prayers, of letting that empty feeling fill us.

Today I’ll try again to get Matteo’s Advent Calendar to happen, a simple A B C of Advent and Christmas themes, four line poems, whimsical and suggestive, each the tip of an iceberg of meaning that might be explored, or not. It would be nice to leave a child (soon, for us, children) with a rich, robust family tradition, of dates and actions that are undertaken no matter what. Bonfires on the 21st, even if it’s minus-thirty. A cabin trip on Thanksgiving, even if we’ve just gotten home from a funeral. A quiet time before supper, with candles lit in gratitude, even if the children are just back from solitary confinement for ganging up on the kitty with frisbies.