I promise that I didn’t forget about the last three.  But everybody started posting stuff and I didn’t want to overwhelm all you readers.  So here are the final three Propositions, mostly more reflections on the Christian calendar, which I have been meditating on a lot lately.

#10)  Advent and Pentecost are both perpetual seasons that in some form or another can and should frame or inform our celebrations and fasts for the other seasons.

#11)  The Calendar is a living Catechism both on the text of the Gospels and on the Christian life

#12)  Sufjan Stevens is the second greatest artist of the last decade and a paradigm shifter on how music will be made and performed in the future

The Seasons of Advent and Christmas are different, they have different emphasis, one is penitential the other a feast. Hymns, Readings, Collects, Antiphons etc… should reflect this.

Recently, I’ve been digging around for resources to help me live the Church Calendar more fully.  Here are few nice little gems from that search:

1. Our friend over at Haligweorc (besides getting awesomeness points for knowing Anglo-Saxon: Eala earendel     engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard      monnum sended) has created a truly wonderful resource for praying the Daily Office according to the rubrics of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.  He calls it St. Bede’s Breviary, and its in a beta version, but it’s a really great resource.  You can spend hours playing with all the different options; there is some serious liturgical & devotional variety here.  You will especially enjoy this if you have an Anglo-Catholic bent to you. 

2. There seems to be some controversy over the fact that TEC recently voted to make the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) its official Sunday lectionary (the daily office cycle of readings remains unchanged).  It seems the more conservative elements in the church prefer the lectionary of the 1979 BCP (if they didn’t they couldn’t be called conservative, could they?).  In any event, the Episcopal Office for Liturgy and Music has a brochure about the RCL which to my left-leaning mind makes some pretty good points, one of the best points to consider is that the RCL does not neglect the OT & NT stories that include women as heroines.  The readings might even suggest that God can use women, too (which of course is dangerous liberal ideology). 

The Office for Liturgy and Music has the Episcopal version of the RCL (which differs slightly from the Ecumenical version found here) in a PDF format, and its all done up in the same font and format as the BCP so you can razor out the old lectionary and glue the new one in.   :+]

3. Lastly, some advent prayers, and more; some advent recipes (watch out for the pop-ups on this one), more, and glogg (food and drink  figure into my prayer life, how about yours?); an advent poem.

Continue to look for our Saviour’s Coming, happy Advent.

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

- Rowan Williams

*picture – Tom Graves*

In the penetential spirit of Advent, I offer this confession…

I am Seething Lump of Paradox

I have long been fixated on a particular paradox that in many ways defines me, and explains many of the things that I do.  One way of articulating this paradox is to say that I am at once a hippie and an wanna-be aristocrat.  That is to say that I am simultaneously driven by a desire to see social and economic justice done on earth, and by the lure of ivory towers, fine living, and of all the “gentlemanly” things one would expect a landed, well-bred, roman-nosed, trust-funded English baron might be interested in and driven by: wine, falconry (don’t laugh you bastards), heraldry, the “classics,” architecture, fox-hunting, mahogany furniture, etc., etc., etc. 

One look inside my closet provides an example of the near schizophrenic behavior this paradox has pushed me to.  Over the past 5 years my wardrobe buying patterns have oscillated between garb befitting an English country gentleman (replete with bow ties, hunting and smoking jackets [God forbid you wear your hunting jacket in the smoking parlor, or your smoking jacket whilst hunting harts in Her Majesties' Forests]), and all fair-trade, eco-friendly, anti-sweatshop attire (No Sweat Shoes, shirts made of organic cotton by a women-run co-op in Nepal).

By confessing my confusion, I hope to put my turning to Anglicanism/Episcopalianism into perspective.  In Anglicanism have found an entire Communion of Christians who are living the very same paradox that is me.  Torn between justice and tradition; landed and monied, serving fair trade coffee and running day centers for the homeless; mixing gothic architecture with radical hospitality; this is what being Anglican is about.  Two rows behind me at church, a retired international investment banker sits next to a homeless woman whose grocery cart full of tin cans is parked next to the big red doors which proclaim to the city “this is a sanctuary for all.”  Anglicanism is a way for me to live in tension with myself and not be consumed by guilt on the one hand (that hand which is elegantly gloved in black calf-skin), or self-righteousness on the other (that hand which offers a warm meal to a stranger in the park). 

Nostalgia and Advent

Nostalgia is the best word for what drives my wanna-be aristocratic side.  And–since I grew up in a trailer park and have no land, nor title, nor bank accounts brimming with neither old or new money–it is really a nostalgic longing for a time and place that I have never experienced first hand.  I am nostalgic for some idealized version Edwardian British Imperial domesticity that neither I nor my family had any part in whatsoever.   Simultaneously, I am revolted by the oppression, and the economic, environmental, and cultural destruction that such imperialism has wreaked on our planet and on my fellow human beings in places like Africa and the Indian sub-continent.  Interestingly,  in this huge colonial morass I come again to Anglicanism, which was, at different points in history and sometimes simultaneously, an endorser, a restraint, and a healer of this imperial carnage.

Where does this nostalgia come from?  Obviously, the answer is the books I’ve read, the TV shows and movies I’ve watched.  As a boy, Tolkien and Lewis colonized my imagination (they might as well have raised a British flag over it), and turned me into an insufferable Anglophile. 

Whereas my nostalgia (which extends far beyond my Anglophilism) can and does get me in trouble, it is also one of the reasons Advent is my favorite season of the Church calendar.  Advent is about having a nostalgia for the Kingdom Reality that one has not yet fully experienced.  It is an intense longing for a time and place both in the past and the future, which drives one to work for that Reality in the present.

A form of nostalgia is also at work in the active colonization of a sacred Christian feast by the demonic forces of materialism and consumption (and so my hippie side once again raises its dreadlocked head).  A highly manipulated nostalgia for the idealized Platonic Form of Christmas Past is at the very heart of the advertising frenzy which causes shoppers to literally kill each other in the race to buy things that they have been convinced will allow them to relive those glory days of Christmases gone by: when everything was perfect, everyone was happy, and the big fuzzy horses trotted by pulling a sleigh down the gas-lamplit street as snow began to fall on the head of Tiny Tim as he uttered the immortal words, “Walt Disney bless us, bless us every one.” 

I don’t know anyone who has ever lived this Hallmark Channel Christmas, and yet we are all willing to sell our souls to corporate America on the promise that if we just put up the decorations early enough, and open a few more credit cards this Christmas will be the Christmas.  Nostalgia is a dangerous thing.   

That is why Advent is so important to me.  Through Advent Christ offers me the chance to have my nostalgic imagination colonized by the Kingdom of God, rather than by the Kingdom of the World.  Advent is a tool to keep my out-of-control selfishness at bay and to paradoxically allow me to live in the moment that God has given me, while lifting my head in nostalgic anticipation for the Future that brings about our collective redemption.  

                This Advent season, I will have been an Episcopalian for one year.  For those of you with the patience, fortitude, or whatever else it may take, I offer the story of my Christmas miracle.  Hopefully, many of you will read this soon enough to invest serious, personal introspection into your celebration of Advent.  It has literally changed my life.  Like Scrooge, I was rescued from damnation by supernatural intervention – Like the Wise Men, I was led to the Truth by celestial signs – Like the shepherds, I learned to sing about joy to the world.

                When I was twelve, my family’s move to a trailer park in a rural town just south of Albuquerque meant an increase in living standards.  We had been living in the city’s only definable ghetto – affectionately referred to as the “warzone” by townies.  Honestly, my broken family did their best to insulate me and my siblings from the gangs, drugs, and societal ills that seem to accompany poverty.  I was a married adult with children before I really appreciated just how destitute my family was when I was growing up.  In fact, I never knew it was odd for someone’s parents to raid their piggy bank for money in order to buy a can of soup so that the family could eat dinner until I was at a private college, rubbing elbows with students fretting about maintaining a 2.0 GPA so that their parents wouldn’t take away their Lexus and $1,000.00 per month spending allowance. 

                I feel like this is necessary background for appreciating the fact that I have always loved Christmas, always.  My family’s inability to lavish me with gifts, vacations, and parties didn’t seem to lessen my appreciation for the cultural juggernaut that is Christmas.  The sights, sounds, and spirit of Christmas have always captivated me in spite of poverty (- perhaps, because of poverty?).  I am literally like the father played by Matthew Broderick in “Deck the Halls.”  I have two Christmas trees, 100 wall feet of lighted garland, 5 wreaths, 48 hours of Christmas music on iTunes, a partridge in a pear tree, etc, etc that I cannot wait to dive into every year (it goes up on Thanksgiving day and stays up until well past January 1 – a fact that drives my brother absolutely insane).  I am obnoxiously cheery for 6 weeks before and all the way through Christmas, and then obnoxiously depressed for all of January and February because it’s over.  I think it bears repeating, I LOVE CHRISTMAS.

“There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.”
~ Erma Bombeck (1927-1996), American author and humorist.

               You can probably imagine, then, the disquietude I felt over something that happened three years ago.  Christmas had always been symbolic to me of the good that could still come out of humanity.  Being around people who are tying to be the best they can be is intoxicating.  I have always loved Christmas, in part, because it represents what humanity can accomplish under the right circumstances.  My wife and I had just moved into a new house, had our second child, and I had turned our entire home into a wintery wonderland.  Coming from a broken home, I was seriously under the impression that my father’s neglect would be some how atoned for by my own careful fathering.  So, one night, late in December of ’06, I was struck by the onset of a harrowing realization that I had lived my life up to that point as an attempt to right my parents’ wrongs, but that such a thing could never be accomplished.  Everything was about fixing my broken childhood and, therefore, counterfeit: my love of Christmas, my desire to have a healthy family, my pursuit of education, hell, even my faith seemed counterfeit.  There, in my upstairs living room in front of an immaculately decorated Noble Fir that could have been in a display case at Macy’s, I began to sob uncontrollably.

“The earth has grown old with its burden of care
But at Christmas it always is young,
The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair
And its soul full of music breaks the air,
When the song of angels is sung.”
~ Phillips Brooks (1835-93), American Episcopal bishop, wrote ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’.

               My wife came in to check on me and we shared one of those tender moments in a marriage that galvanizes the union between two people (it was far too emotionally intimate and spiritually significant to share here – I hope, though, that anyone reading this knows what  I mean from experience).  She prayed with and for me, and I began a slow recovery from the shock that I experienced.  However, when a year had passed, I found myself manically celebrating Christmas, desperately hoping to revive the wonder and joy that it had given me all of my life.  I was pathetic.  It was like watching a small child cling to the lifeless body of a parent that was murdered before their innocent eyes.  Christmas was dead, and try as I might, it could not be revived in my heart.  I put on the right face, I smiled and laughed at the right times, but I spent that entire holiday season in sheer terror that I had forever lost something very special to me.

“Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man. Advent’s intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church’s year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart’s memory so that it can discern the star of hope.…It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope.”
~ Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), Seek That Which Is Above, 1986.

                This all happened to coincide with a bevy of church and professional issues that were serving to clarify that God was calling me out of the Assemblies of God.  Consequently, in the fall of 2008 I began to brainstorm with my brother-in-law (who was having the same kind of church and professional quandaries) how we were going to rescue Christmas (and our own spirituality) from the clutches of the oblivion known as American consumerism.  Then it happened,  I latched on to the idea of attending the Episcopal cathedral for Advent services.  Having only ever known Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, I thought I would have recognized the leading of the Spirit a little sooner – how’s that for irony, huh?  We knew that not only our ideas of Christmas, but also our ideas of “Church” needed a drastic overhaul; and we were searching for something to fill the void.  The Advent liturgy seemed like the perfect way to test whether the Church could rescue Christmas.  [Allow me to make a quick aside here: the time I spent trying to resuscitate my joy for Christmas was also spent chronically attending church services, church musicals, church pageants, and every other obnoxious derivation thereof.  The trite and shallow "Jesus is the reason for the season" mentality that most of those I came in contact with displayed was just as repulsive as the blatant consumerism of the secular crowd.  I thought, "My God, this is our freakin' holiday - it's THE CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY and these people can't even do it with any kind of meaningful ceremony or substance.  We're all screwed!"]  I am pleased to announce that Christ and His Church can indeed rescue Christmas even from the clutches of consumerism.

“The liturgy of Advent…helps us to understand fully the value and meaning of the mystery of Christmas. It is not just about commemorating the historical event, which occurred some 2,000 years ago in a little village of Judea. Instead, it is necessary to understand that the whole of our life must be an ‘advent,’ a vigilant awaiting of the final coming of Christ. To predispose our mind to welcome the Lord who, as we say in the Creed, one day will come to judge the living and the dead, we must learn to recognize him as present in the events of daily life. Therefore, Advent is, so to speak, an intense training that directs us decisively toward him who already came, who will come, and who comes continuously.”
~Pope John Paul II, address delivered December 18, 2002.

                Hopefully, you have caught on to the fact that I am a person moved by beauty, ceremony, symbolism, and the like.  Thus, I knew it would be necessary for me to attend the high liturgy at the diocesan cathedral (which, luckily, is in Albuquerque).  My wife and I chose to attend St. John’s 11:00 am service which uses a full choir, the organ, and the rite II liturgy from the BCP.  The choir and congregation sang “O’ Come, O’ Come, Emmanuel” during the procession, and it was the most beautiful service I have ever attended.  I still have a hard time explaining the meaning that the Anglican liturgy has for me – my language is still thoroughly charismatic, so I can only tell you that in that Advent service I experienced a “move of the Holy Spirit.”  I sobbed, just like I had in my living room when I knew Christmas was dying in my heart – when I knew that my Christian walk had reached one of those pivotal points of change.  I sobbed, because I knew that I had found home, because I knew that I had a meaningful way to worship again, because I knew that my family had a place to foster the joy and wonder of Christmas.  The Lord, Christ, blessed me with a Christmas miracle.

But there it is in Matthew and Luke and the Creeds.

On the one hand I could resort to the back-up plan provided by oh so many RC and EO friends…”It’s a mystery” That surely is true if the doctrine is true, but for your part, it is a mystery legitimized by the authority inherent in the Church, and I am not convinced of that infallable authority.

But on the other hand there is the skepticism which says I myself have all knowledge, I know what is scientific, and I know what happens in the world. In doing so I not only proclaim my pure objectivity, but I sit in judgment on my Church, both past and present.

How many billions have been baptized and/or confirmed to the Creeds?

No, it is not for me to debunk something which is said every week in worship and prayer. The creed, after all, says “WE Believe” So if it changes, it will also say “WE believe” One of the most powerful truths I have learned from contemplating the Catholicity of the Church, is that this whole thing is a lot bigger than ME, and what I think that I know. I say this, not to hold on to an out of date belief, the classic “thoughtful conservative” who finds proof under a rock to justify an incredible belief. I have my doubts.. But I also am part of the One, Catholic, Holy and Apostolic church, and to it I am captive.

In true Advent style, I await the revealing of our coming Lord.