the cut and thrust of national politics

Ok, so I haven't been blogging because I'm obsessed with politics. Really....Obsessed.....

So obsessed that I stayed up till 1am watching the Iowa Caucus returns and then Got Up Early to read the spin. To put it another way, I suffered a bad bad week of school because of my constant attention to the news and spin cycle.

I've never really been obsessed with anything. I mean, of course, when I fell in love with Matt I thought about him a lot and wanted to be with him all the time. And when you have a new baby you kind of think about that a lot. But politics. Wow. SO Exciting.

I say this even sort of resigned to a horrible Romney win and an Obama reelection (blech). Its the process and spin that utterly fascinate me. So. I'm going to try to blog more this week, but I can't make any promises. I HAVE to pull off a full week of school. But I'll probably be up late Tuesday night which will make Wednesday, Thursday and Friday really awful. And then the next week, and then the week after that. I guess I could break my cardinal rule of not blogging about politics. hmmm. Anyway, check you later! I'm looking to watch this morning's debate one way or another!

PS. I'm coming up on writing post number one thousand. How crazy is that! I missed my five year blogging anniversary. I feel like I should organize some kind of party. Suggestions?

my sermon from this morning: luke 2

Good Morning! Happy New Year! Today is a big day in the church. Besides being the first day of the new year, it is also the Second Sunday of Christmas AND Holy Name Day. Christmas, you might now, goes on for 12 days before Epiphany and we're only on Day 8 so I hope you'll rush home from here and eat some more pie or whatever your decadent food of choice might be. Because really, the feast and joy of the Incarnation is so big and so wonderful, that an ongoing party is in order. I now feel guilty for already taking my tree down.

A few of you were here last Sunday, Christmas Day,

when we looked at verses 1 through 7 of Luke chapter 2.  

This week we're in verses 8 through 21. 

Turn there with me. 

If we were to look carefully back through chapters one and two of Luke, 

which, don't worry, 

we won't really do, we would notice a pattern. 

Luke describes three announcements 

(and, if we were to jump over to Matthew we would see a fourth). 

In the first, Zechariah is visited by an Angel, 

told by the angel not to be afraid, 

and given the news of an impending miracle. 

He and his wife, who are both very old, 

will have a son. 

The name of the child is given--John--

and his purpose and mission is declared. 

Zechariah is given a chance to respond,

 which he does badly--

he asks for a sign--

and is struck dumb. 

In the same chapter  

Mary is visited by an Angel, 

admonished not to be afraid 

and told of an impending miracle,

 that she, 

though very young and unmarried, and having never known a man,

 will have a son. 

She is given the name of the child  

and his purpose and mission. 

She is given a chance to respond, 

which she does properly, 

by not asking for a sign but by asking for clarifying information, 

"how will this be?'. 

Now in chapter two, we have a third announcement. 

Shepherds are visited by an Angel, 

told not to be afraid, 

and given the news of a miracle. 

Shepherds, whom, you know, 

are such a fitting recipient of this particular news, 

what with David having been a shepherd before he was a king, 

what with us being likened all the time to sheep 

who go astray

and need to be brought back to safety and home,

 what with the person we're all here to think about this morning 

being called The Good Shepherd.

Shepherds, 

Luke tells us, 

these shepherds were in the field, 

keeping watch over their flock by night. 

They live out there, 

in the field, taking care of the sheep. 

They are as uncomfortable as Mary and Joseph

have probably been on their whole long journey. 

They are some of the most marginal of society. 

These are probably paid steward, these shepherds, 

paid to live with the animals and keep them safe. 

They had to be with the sheep all the time. 

They were probably pretty isolated.

They wouldn't be able to drop everything

and go to feasts and holy days at the temple. 

They wouldn't have had networks of family and friends

they could be with in town. 

But they had to be near by Jerusalem, 

because many many of their sheep were destined for the temple 

where the sacrificing went on every day, morning and evening. 

There they are, out in the field, keeping their sheep safe. 

The Angel appears to them

but instead of telling them about something that is going to happen, 

he tells them what has happened Right Now, Today. 

Not an impending miracle,

 a miracle that is this moment alive and well.

 And he doesn't give the name of this miracle, 

he gives three titles and a sign--

A Savior who is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign--a baby.

but the sign is itself the miracle.

 This is Good News for all people. 

And then,

before the shepherds have a chance to respond to the announcement, 

as in the previous two times, 

the angel is joined by a "heavenly host". 

The angels of heaven are there, in the darkness,

singing and singing and singing. 

Then the shepherds respond. 

They pack everything up and go looking for the sign the angel has given. 

Do they take their sheep? 

For what Shepherd, looking for a lost sheep, 

does he not leave the 99 in the field 

and go looking for the one, 

and when he has found it, 

gather it up and bring it home and call to all his neighbors, 

'rejoice for me, for that which was lost has been found!' 

They go, 

they get up and go and its the middle of the night so who knows, 

maybe they wake some people up and ask around, 

or maybe they wander around looking for the only people who are up 

and those people happen to be Mary and Joseph.

Now, new babies do sort of belong to everyone, don't they? 

There's something about a baby that calls out to the center of everyone--

hardened steely eyed make up masked skinny jean clad

teenage girls in Target,

 weary laboring middle aged men at Shepherd's Bowl, 

little children, 

grandmotherly types who wish they were holding a grand baby--

a baby is for everyone. 

But usually a baby is not for everyone right after its born 

right in the middle of the night 

in some cruddy feeding trough. 

But this is a new sign that will be for all the people. 

This new holy family is not Mary and Joseph and a Baby.

This new holy family is Mary, Joseph, a baby, Zechariah, Elizabeth, John, 

a crowd of marginalized shepherds, 

Simeon, Anna,

some wise men, 

Peter, James, John, Mary and Martha, Paul, Stephen, Titus--

it will take me a while to name all those in the new holy family. 

We are in this new holy family. 

This baby is the first born of creation. 

If you are found in him and know him and love him, 

then he is your brother 

and everyone else who believes in him 

and is found in him is your brother or sister. 

You may be isolated, 

on the margin, 

not in a very comfortable or good space, 

not surrounded by human family you are close to or who love you, 

so this good news is for you today. 

I was always sort of worried about  Mary, 

invaded by all these shepherds in the middle of the night, 

but to be visited by family, 

who know who your baby is and are prepared to love him? 

That kind of visitor is welcome. 

And the Shepherds go and tell everyone what they've seen, 

and Mary gathers all the things she has seen 

and "ponders them in her heart". 

All these things bear thinking about,

they invite deeper thought and consideration, 

they are worth sitting down at your kitchen table for a few minutes of quiet 

and not cluttering up all your internal emotional and intellectual space 

with another to-do list 

or a re-visitation of how someone has hurt you 

or what on earth to do about your difficult and wayward child 

but instead sitting and reading these familiar lines over 

and thinking about the strangeness of humility, 

the counter-intuitiveness of humility--

that God, who has everything 

and knows everything 

and sees everything 

and can do all his holy will,

 that all his holy will would include coming down to us.

God, since the beginning, has always been coming down. 

We look up at the night sky and think about how we can go up, 

brick by brick of good work and intellectual acumen, 

building little towers to the sky, 

making names for ourselves, 

showing ourselves to ourselves to be worthy of God by our care for others, 

our being on top of our careers, 

or whatever it is that we think will get us into the good graces of whatever cosmic thing there is out there.

 We build a tower and rejoice in the strength of our own arm. 

And God, in response to our pride and self sufficiency,

 when he could just speak a word and blow it all to smithereens, 

instead he comes down. 

He comes down into the garden in the cool of the day

to talk to Adam and Eve. 

He comes down the ladder to show Jacob himself. 

He comes down in a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud. 

He comes down and settles on the mountain and speaks with Moses--

for 40 days and 40 nights  he speaks with Moses. 

He gives instructions for building the Ark of the Covenant--

a rectangular box overlaid with gold with angel wings on top--

and says it is his throne, his footstool, 

that he will sit on it and be present with his people.

And then the temple is built and while everyone is singing

and playing all their instruments 

he comes down and fills the whole temple with his glory.

He comes down into the furnace of fire

and walks back and forth with his servants in exile. 

He comes down to live in Mary and be born

and live his first few days in a barn

to be with a world that isn't looking for him,

doesn't know or care who he is--

so busy we are with building and building and building and building

a tower of corruption up to heaven.

I've left over talking about the name of this baby, 

the titles given by the angel, the description of this person, 

the name God gives to Moses on the mountain. 

The Lord who is steadfast love and mercy.

The Lord who gives mercy to a thousand generations.

It is an ancient name, born in the heart of the Old Testament.

Given to the one who brought the people of God

into the safety and security of the promised land.

Given to babies over centuries.

And finally, given by God himself,

to this new sign,

this fountainhead of redemption.

His name is a holy name, 

there is no other name under heaven by which men—

you and me—

might be saved. 

The name is itself the miraculous purpose and mission of God. 

The name given is Jesus

and it means Yahweh Saves. 

The Lord Saves. 

The Lord, the promised one, the Christ, is the who Saves.

The idea of a savior is lately worn out and tired. 

It is out of fashion to say that who God is in himself is a savior. 

 And the church likes to keep up with the times. 

And so we adjust things to cater to a culture

that would rather attend to its own salvation itself.

Like an everlasting toddler--

I do it myself, 

we say, adding another brick of shoddy inadequate work

to our tower of self made salvation.

I spent a couple hours of my week off watching youtube clips

of technology announcements. 

I watched the Kindle Fire announcement a few times,

and then the little demo where they scroll through all the stuff 

and you discover that you can read books but 

Also be on facebook and everything else we all love. 

Its such a cool little device.

 And then Matt bought me an awesome phone

and so I watched a lot of clips about that. 

But really,

we all know the Good News of Great Joy which shall be for All the People 

was Steve Jobs standing there in his jeans and black turtleneck, 

gaunt,

 talking about the iphone and ipad and icloud. 

Technology saves, for a few minutes. 

Food saves, for an evening. 

A grudge can save you from having to forgive. 

Not coping with the complexities of this life can save you from reality. 

Failure can save you from responsibility. 

Responsibility can save you from failure.

 Anything can save you,

for a few minutes for a day or maybe even a while. 

But its not very long

before you have to cast about for a new savior

to keep together your crumbling wall. 

The Lord Saves. 

From before time, 

from before sin, 

from before all things, 

the name of the Lord was Salvation. 

And in the work of his saving he came down here. 

And in the saving of you he will go into the depths, 

the blackness of your heart. 

Do you think the manger wasn't that great? 

It was cleaner and more lovely than your heart. 

Do you think the night around the shepherds was black? 

It was not so black as the sin you guard and keep so jealously against the light of Jesus' saving name. 

Do you think you are too low? 

That God would have to go too far down? 

He has already left the 99,

 standing in the field, 

rejoicing with the host of the heavenly angels, 

and has gone out to find you. 

He will seek and seek until he finds you.

This is good news for you.

How will you respond?

You don't need to ask for a sign. 

The sign has already been given. 

You can ask for clarifying information but all that you need is in here.

Better to throw yourself in with the shepherds.

Get up and go worship with the one who came down to be with you, 

the one who saves.

for your reading pleasure

The house is awash in toys and puzzle pieces, the laundry is piled up, the cool remote control helicopter doesn't work, so I've retreated to the internet for some sanity.

Mark Steyn, as usual, is brilliant.

And on a similar subject, here's Tim Challies. I would add to his interesting and astute cultural observation that this same principle is very much at work in All the clothes women are expected to wear today. Fashions of the past were generous and suited to the motherly life giving figure. It was possible to give birth to children and wear clothes afterwards that were flattering and suited to the physical impact pregnancy and childbirth have on the human body. Now the expectation is to return to the clothes and body of yourself before children. I am constantly struggling to return to myself Before children so that I can wear clothes--any clothes and also clothes that might be lovely and make me look like a normal person. And by normal, we all know that means a young (not aged in any way) rail thin woman who hasn't had six children. And so far I've swam in that pool unthoughtfully. But I read this post recently and found it to be really helpful.

Anyway, its the second day of Christmas, I'm going to go put my fat pants on and eat another piece of white bread. Happy cultural criticism!

Merry Christmas!

I'm watching a cool documentary about earthquakes on Matt's new Kindle Fire while he snores loudly. He outdid himself in the way of goose, Brussels sprouts (that can't be right, is that really how you spell that?), Cornish game hens, mashed potatoes, gravy, and the sermon in church. Its the first time I managed to get to church on Christmas day. The girls thought they would come but then changed their minds and ran back home to keep playing. Everyone really played wildly and devotedly for the whole day. Well, I say everyone, but I obviously mean the children. I didn't play. I made bread and Yorkshire pudding and weirdly, decided to flame my persimmon pudding. It didn't flame very much but it was really delicious, if I say so myself. And the table, which I neglected to take pictures of, was beautiful thanks to Matt's mom and aunt.

So obviously I'm just being stupid now. Being that its 12:14 and everyone will wake up shortly and want to know what my problem is and why I'm not rising with a song on my lips and joy in my heart. Merry Christmas! May all 11 days remaining be beautiful for you.

a little gift to you

maniacal laughter

Feel led to blog....can't think of anything to blog about today.
HAHAHAHA
Sorry, I just have Adrian Plass stuck in my head all the time.
I do have lots of things to blog about but more pressing is the fact that Matt's parents are coming in four days and there are a myriad of ways in which I am not a tiny bit ready for this occurrence, among them being my intention to pull off a full week of school, get my laundry room into sparkly order, do a little more painting, finish a bunch of presents, move the girls out of the guestroom into some other bedrooms, and just generally be on top of everything in my life. In other words, it would be deeply irresponsible of me to blog this week, And Yet, I probably will because that's what I do when I am trying to avoid reality. I think I've had it in my mind that this coming weekend is Christmas. Found it a great relief when I looked at the calender yesterday and found this to not be the case.

7 quick takes

one

The four oldest have been invited to a birthday party this evening. May the Almighty help me not to scream at the next child who comes in and asks, again, if its time to go yet. Not for another 9 hours, Buster, NINE HOURS.

two

Tomorrow is the Christmas bake sale at church. May the Almighty help me not to scream at the next child who comes in and asks, again, if its time for the bake sale.....

three

I'm pretty sure today is the final push to paint the last rooms upstairs. And start moving all the girls into one room. We'll see if the intervening months have caused Marigold to become a better, less violent person. I doubt it. I took three cheerios out of her bowl just now to give to the baby and she tried to hit me. Almost every day I praise God that toddlers have no power whatsoever. Can you imagine the level of devastation upon the face of the earth? I can and it makes me shudder.

four

It seems that lots and lots of people at Good Shepherd are very sick--bronchitis, pneumonia, a throwing up bug, various infections. Rather than worrying, which is what I've been doing all week, going to try spending big portions of the day praying for healing for them all and that we continue not to get it.

five

All my kitchen cabinets close. For the first time since we moved here All The Kitchen Cabinets Close! Thank you John! (And also, thank you so so much for removing that horrible toy knight from our lou. All the day long we go on being so grateful.)

six

It snowed enough yesterday for the children to go out in it. Took FORTY MINUTES to get everyone dressed, and that didn't include the baby who stayed in. Completely exhausted after all the struggle but had to immediately begin making vast amounts of food and hot chocolate against the moment they all came back in. Didn't start school until 10:30 and then forgot to do noon prayer and so had to do part of Matt's office hours. Rushed home in the afternoon to force the children to do history and geography before the magical hour of World Girl. Went to bed feeling like one of those washed up people who work really hard but never achieve anything.

seven

And now its Tomorrow!
Poor Romulus. Day after day he would ask if it was Tomorrow and I would always say "No, its Today" and he would weep. Finally had the presence of mind to say, "Yes, its Tomorrow." So difficult to long for a day and never see it arrive--like the Day of the Lord.

Have a great weekend and go check out Jen!

a broken body: or why I'm very sad about the church today

What seems like a lifetime ago Matt and I took the astounding and miraculous opportunity to go to Jerusalem to participate in the GAFCON meeting. I'm still living off that brief stunning visual landscape--off just standing on the Mount of Olives looking at the Dome of the Rock, off our one day driving around the Sea of Galilee and hungrily sucking down every word of our guide as he unfolded the Scriptures before us, off sitting in front of the huge great stones of the temple, flung down.

But there was a great and shocking grief for me, when we visited the Holy Sepulcher which I wrote about here and here. I know others who visit are generally overwhelmed by holiness and love for Jesus and other wonderful things. And its not that I didn't get a little of that as we walked through the cavernous structure. But my over-abiding thoughts and emotions were of shock at the decay, at the blackness of the whole thing, at the weird gaudy ornate gold around the place of the cross, the pale and bizarre representation of Mary in some sort of glass box. Which Narnia book is it where they find the Stone Table and it doesn't resemble itself at all?

Looking back, part of the reason I was so struck by this particular visual, I think, is because of what was going on in the GAFCON meeting itself. Not being important at all, I was not privy to any politicking or anything. I attended the general lectures and seminars and my small group--all of which were excellent--but it felt like something was in the air and it filtered down to my dim consciousness in a phrase that stuck in my head as a freaky little irritating refrain

"when sin enters in."

And I came home with it in my head. And as ACNA became a thing, and AMiA became a thing and we lost our lawsuit and engaged on varying levels with Anglican politics the refrain and the broken decaying sepulcher joined to be the filter through which I have always been seeing the Anglican Church in America.

Its so broken. And it goes on being broken.
And there's not really any thing we can do about it. The church in every age and at every time is full to the brim of sin. When you stand on something and say 'you can go over there but I'm not going to go with you' its easy to imagine that all the sin has gone on over there and you are standing in a pool of purifying and holy light. It may be that sometimes ACNA and other leaving bodies have tried to say that, or not. Its possible any of us say it at any moment. But the key is to stop saying it. We are in the light, and it does purify and make us holy. But it does that because we're standing in a dark cavernous ruin of a church, a church that the moment Jesus ascended to the Father started crowding itself into the darkness, breaking things and sinning. And its going to go on doing this for the foreseeable future. And it will be Jesus, really and finally, who comes and says Enough! to the weird Mary in the glass box and the broken pavement and the black walls, and Enough! to all of us who can't pull it together to do his will in all that we do and say. Until then,
Lord have Mercy
Christ have Mercy
Lord have Mercy.

st. nicholas

St Nicholas visited Good Shepherd this Sunday (does ANYONE have a picture?) and then circled back through town Monday night bringing the four girls very pretty tea spoons (which he got online from a really fabulous place in Canada) and the boys camping knife/fork/spoon pocket implements in their own little cases. St. Nicholas, as usual, fretted very much about everybody being happy and went to bed at midnight the night before thinking that someone would maybe have rather had an actual toy.

And, of course, he fretted very much that he had bought stupid Santa chocolate lollypops instead of  buying a St. Nicholas' bishops mold and making his own chocolates. Also, he was foolish enough to put handfuls of chocolate coins in each shoe instead of carefully counting to make sure each child had the same number of chocolates.

Fortunately for him, after the initial screaming and shouting, everybody was able to settle down and make it fair. And the spoons turned out to be good for eating soft boiled eggs, drinking tea, and having relationships with each other as they appeared to take on the personalities of dolls. And the pocket implements were AWESOME and were good for eating both breakfast and supper, for cutting a small wooden dowel into bits of sawdust and for becoming a more cool person. Eventually, though, some people were just too exhausted to keep eating chocolate, and eating with the special spoons, much as they would have liked to.

 

Anyway the house was well prepared for his visited. Monday we managed to dig some things out of boxes. (WRETCHED baby finger prints on camera lenses.)

 

And snapped our very clever fake pre-lit tree together. As I have shouted to anyone who will listen over the past few weeks, When All The Children Can Walk and Buckle Themselves In The Car And Cut the Tree and Drag It To The Car And Drive the Car then we'll get a real tree. Until then, the magic of Christmas is a fake pre-lit tree. Tuesday morning as I groped my way towards the light, deeply regretting having any children at all, much less six, I said to Matt, "Wouldn't it be great if this was it? If now we went back to our normal lives and there was no insanity in three + weeks?"

He looked at me in abject horror. "Oh, I guess not," I said. But if I was in charge of everything......its probably too horrible to even say out loud.

In conversation with children

Romulus gagging and trying to get through his dinner.
You know this black stuff on top of the potato? Well, that stuff makes some people throw up.
(Nobody is allowed to say they don't like something at dinner, and nobody is allowed to throw up.)

Romulus putting a little world on the Jesse Tree.
God created the world?! Seriously?!
(Like we haven't mentioned this over and over in the last four months! What!)

Alouicious flirting with logic.
You know why I believe Santa is real? Because people don't go outside at night and so it must be Santa that brings presents all at once. He's the only one that's out late.
(He's right. We Don't Ever go outside after dark. Congratulated him on his astute reasoning.)

7 quick takes

one

Baby took a step one day this week. And then the next day took another step. And then we panicked and stopped coaxing her.

two

As a result of doing a tiny bit of Christmas shopping online, I have been followed around by the things I was looking at on every single other website I normally attend to. Well, I was until yesterday when I deliberately went to a series of websites I like very much but from which I have no intention of ever buying anything. Now I see all their nice things all over instead of the weird stuff I had to look at for Christmas. Take that Google.

three

Alouicious and I are trying to learn this song. We have it half done and we're pretty good. I like how testy he (the Jesuit, not Alouicious, that I wouldn't abide) is, and irritable.

four

We finished all of Alice in Wonderland and in the Looking Glass on Tuesday. On Wednesday we started another book and Alouicious looked up and said, "What? Why aren't we reading Alice?"
"We finished it," I said.
"What? All of it? Every single page there is?"
As if I would have taken pages away and hidden them or something.

five

Carrol's attitude towards poetry is so brilliant. First of all, its everywhere. You can't read more than three pages without reading some kind of poem. Second, its so tiresome. The deep resignation of Alice every time she's about to be subjected to some excessively long poem is my own every day as Elphine accosts me, "Want to hear a poem?"
"Do I have to?"

six

It's time for my annual reading of The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass. Have most of it memorized but read it carefully and devotedly anyway...every year...and its still desperately funny.

seven

We've got to decorate for Christmas. And all I can say about that is...ugh.
Here's where Matt starts wildly dispensing eggnog to children and listening to Il Divo's Christmas album and I start yelling at everyone because of the wretched mess. It will be such a glorious relief in January to pack it all away and sit in that first profound moment of clean, calm quiet when the house is its usual plain rational self. And I will thank my providential God that we only have to celebrate his birthday once a year. In the meantime, I will just try to remember that the glory of the cross would not have been revealed had he not actually been born and a little tinsel and pine needles is a small price to pay for celebrating the salvation of all the world. But honestly, wouldn't it be great if he came back in the single moment before I cracked open that first Christmas bin?

Have a great weekend and go check out Jen!

overheard this morning

I'm trying to avoid reality by not getting out of bed, but everybody is up and arguing and it looks like I'm going to have to give up and arise.
Alouicious and Elphine fighting in the other room:
A: I am doing it because I love Jesus. But I like chocolate too and Daddy said we could have chocolate.
E: But you shouldn't do it for the chocolate. You should do it because you love Jesus.
A: I AM. But I also get chocolate.
E: I don't think you're doing it for the right reasons.
Me (shouting from my bed): Stop questioning his motivation. Leave him alone!
At which point Gladys twirls in and says to Matt
G: I want to ask Jesus to come into my heart.
M: That's so great. Can you tell me where Jesus is now?
G: He is in heaven.
M: That's right. Can you tell me what he did for you and why you want him to live in your heart?
G: Yeah, but I'm not going to.
Twirls out as Romulus comes in
R: I did not just tell a lie.
That's my cue to go interfere.