Traveling in Place

All Things New

Before the Mayan calendar famously ended, our lawns in Central New York were green.  What little measurable snow we got in November was quickly melted by unseasonably warm temperatures.  On December 21, we were approximately 25 inches below our average snowfall total for this time of year.  Then, as if on cosmic cue, on the first day after the end of the Mayan calendar, we were walloped with a foot of snow.  Four days later, we got another foot.  Saturday, more heavy snow kept the plows busy.  So, for us in Central New York, the end of the Mayan calendar meant . . . a return to normal.

What will be the next apocalyptic craze?  They seem more frequent than ever.  Logic would suggest that the more these predictions of the end of the world prove wrong, the less compelling they would be.  Yet, amazingly, they breed more fervor – more certainty, even, that the orbits holding our solar system together will fall apart, or a meteor will strike earth with catastrophic force, or God will command the angels to commence the battle of Armegeddon.

All the prophets of doom ignore the most obvious apocalyptic truth, which is simply that every end marks a new beginning.  That’s what the actual Mayans down in Mexico have been trying to tell the world ever since their vaunted system for marking time has received so much attention.  The end of one era is the beginning of a new era, filled with hope and possibility.  The apocalyptic texts of the Bible (not just the Revelation, but also the second half of Daniel, much of Ezekiel, a short section in Isaiah, and Jesus’ “Olivet discourse”) concern actual historical events in which God’s people were persecuted for their faith.  The Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and forced most Jews into exile; the Seleucid King Antiochus IV sought to obliterate Judaism and force Jews to accept Hellenistic culture; and the Romans, determined to excise the cancer of Christianity from the Empire, rounded up Christians, threw them into prison, and killed them by burning them alive, crucifying them, or publicly feeding them to ravenous lions.

Merry Christmas!

All young children who anticipate Santa Claus visiting their homes on Christmas Eve eventually reach an age when they ask, “How can one man possibly deliver so many presents to so many children around the world in one night?”  It is important for these young people to understand that, back in the day, Santa’s responsibility was not so incredible.  The parents of today’s children were happy to get one big present – like an Easy Bake oven or a Lionel Train set – and perhaps two smaller gifts on Christmas morning.  Their grandparents would have been happy with an orange and a new pair of socks.  And their great-grandparents, well, they might only receive one sock, and hope that their feet didn’t grow too much before receiving the matching sock the following Christmas.

It was when television became a common household appliance that everything changed.  Children quickly became media savvy.  Seeing all those TV commercials for the latest toys, they no longer wished only for one special present.  They began making lists of things they hoped Santa would bring them.  Overwhelmed by the volume of requests, Santa realized he had to fundamentally change his operation.  The staff of full-time elves at the North Pole would have to be supplemented by an army of volunteer elves around the world.  So Santa began recruiting seasonal elves whose only responsibility would be to help deliver presents and place them in stockings and under Christmas trees.  They would also be responsible for putting together toys that were delivered unassembled.  At least one, and often two elves were recruited for each household where at least one child lived.

This elf work is not for the faint-hearted.  Not only does it require staying awake and focused until the wee hours of the morning; it also requires the ability to appear fresh and rested when the children in the household awake with excitement approximately two hours later.

It is the wisdom of Santa that, at just about the time these volunteer elves get too old to stay up until two or three a.m. putting together toys with millions of tiny parts and complicated directions written by elves who don’t speak English, the children in the household quit asking for such toys and instead begin requesting tens and twenties. 

As a retired volunteer elf, I can honestly say that I don’t miss the nearly sleepless Christmas Eve nights, but I cherish the memories of those mornings after.  So to those elves still young and healthy enough to help Santa create a magical Christmas morning scene, and to the children still young enough to marvel at Santa’s handiwork: Enjoy the magic of this day.  Merry Christmas!

Copyright 2012 by J. Mark Lawson

Why We Don't Want to Leave Newtown

“The story is over.  The families are burying their loved ones.  Please leave our towns.”

These words, delivered tearfully by Connecticut state representative Debralee Hovey during a memorial service for the victims of the Newtown massacre, spoke for most of the residents of that grieving community.  She was addressing the national media.  Newtown’s economy is actually suffering because media trucks are blocking traffic around Sandy Hook Elementary School.  But more importantly, the presence of aggressive reporters sticking microphones in the faces of shell-shocked residents stunts the process of healing.

Whenever tragedies occur in any part of our country, whether the violent rampage that took 26 lives in Newtown or the devastation caused by natural storms like hurricane Sandy, the initial outpouring of sympathy from across the country is impressive and heartwarming.  And certainly, broadcast, cable, and digital media facilitate these national support efforts.  But in cases like Newtown, where carnage strikes down innocent people, that initial compassion gives way to national voyeurism; even unhealthy obsession.

Rather than go on with life, we linger in disbelief. All the on-the-spot reporting feeds the futile hope that some morsel of information will emerge to make the tragedy, if not more palatable, at least explainable.   We frantically search for some hidden truth that, when revealed, will reconcile Adam Lanza’s senseless killing spree with our ordered view of the world.  But we search in vain.  In the end, the media obsession that obstructs both the economy and the healing process in Newtown is rooted in a basic denial of life’s tragic element. 

The Message in the Music

Yesterday, five choirs in our church’s music program led our worship in a service of “Lessons and Carols.”  Normally, this would be an occasion of unfettered seasonal joy.  But people gathered for worship still dazed about the news of the Newtown tragedy, in which a troubled young man murdered his mother, then gathered up her collection of guns, blasted his way into the school building where she once taught kindergarten, and went on a killing spree that took 26 lives, including twenty five- and six-year-old children.

As a pastor, I felt torn.  If ever there was a time for me to speak a word of hope, shouldn’t the Sunday after an unspeakable tragedy be such a time?  Though it was a day for our music program to shine, should I not insert into our worship service at least a brief reflection, some theological response that would provide a modicum of comfort?

I resolved to address the matter during the pastoral prayer, after the music program and before we shared communion.

The morning seemed particularly stressful.  Before the early service, singers from the different groups straggled in slowly, making warm-ups difficult.  The sanctuary’s sound system was badly hampered by a radio signal intruding into the speaker wires.  Not even the heaviest shielded cable we could find was able to mitigate the problem.  All the frantic efforts of our tech people were for naught as time ran out before the beginning of the service.

As we began, the microphones were turned on.  But as the first readers came forward, the radio signal seemed to get louder.  The scriptures were competing with a rude interruption of commercials and AM radio banter.  I felt like I was in the middle of a preacher’s nightmare.

Wailing and Lamentation in Newtown

“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled because they are no more.” – Matthew 2:18, quoting Jeremiah 31:15

Today, many Rachels are weeping for their children.  Newtown, Connecticut, and by extension, the whole country, is grief-stricken over the slaughter of innocents in a picturesque New England community.  Families were basking in the glow of the previous night’s 4^th grade holiday concert when a deranged man who had just killed his mother managed to find his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School, where his mother once taught kindergarten, and opened fire, killing six adults and 20 children, then himself.

The wailing and lamentation in Newtown is of a piece with the wailing and lamentation in Bethlehem when the swords of Herod’s soldiers slew the young children of that small shepherding community soon after the birth of Christ.  The slaughters in Newtown and Bethlehem bare little resemblance, I know.  In the biblical story, a jealous king was targeting one child for murder, willing to sacrifice every male child under two in order to remove him.  In Newtown, Adam Lanzer had no target.  He came to commit random violence for no rational reason.  All of Newtown lived in what now seems a dreamy innocence, safeguarded from the world’s worst terror.  Bethlehem two millenia ago lived with no such illusions.  It was a place turned upside down by Roman occupation and the cruel tactics of the Empire’s puppet king.

But the wailing is the same.  The cries of inconsolable grief are the same.  And while the Christ child escaped Herod’s slaughter under heaven’s protection, he did not ultimately escape.  He grew to become a Messiah, to redeem the world from the self-induced tragedy felt in the cries of mothers everywhere whose children are lost to violence and injustice.  He gave himself up to the cross so that resurrection hope would prevail over death and despair.  There is no Christmas without Easter.

In the wake of this unspeakable tragedy so close to our celebration of Christ’s birth, let us not forget Christ’s death – not just a death; not just an execution – but a full entering into the depths of human sin and tragedy.  Let us not fail to proclaim the promise of our faith that the wailing of Rachel in Newtown is also God’s grief; that through Christ, God has embraced every innocent victim of the gunman’s rampage; and that neither the sting of death nor the injustice that rips children from their parents’ embrace will have the last word.  The final word belongs to God, who came to us as one of us, suffered with us and for us, and is present with us until the reign of peace is fulfilled.

Copyright 2012 by J. Mark Lawson

Remembering the "Back Forty"

Today, I took time away from work to go cut down a Christmas tree.  This is a first – not the first time I cut my own Christmas tree, but the first time I was alone when I did so.

When our kids were little, the trip to the Christmas tree farm in the country was a major event involving coats, gloves, hats, boots, hot chocolate in a thermos, rope for tying the tree to the top of the van, a saw, and a camera for the annual tree-cutting portrait.  In the early years, it seemed like we wandered for hours.  Martha and I weren’t just looking for a tree; we were trying to keep all five of us together.  When the boys got a little older, they cared less about finding a tree than about throwing snowballs.  We were satisfied as long as they stayed within earshot.

In the last few years, the size of the tree-cutting party has dwindled, first from five to four, then four to three, and last year, it was just me and Martha.  We were probably on the premises of the tree farm for a total of twenty minutes.  There was no photograph and no hot chocolate.

It seems that both of us suddenly got the Christmas spirit over this last weekend.  All at once, I felt the urgent need to decorate.  In the midst of our festively lighted neighborhood, our dark house looked like it might be inhabited by the Grinch.  So on Sunday afternoon, I bought 500 white outdoor lights.  I strung them in the shrubbery and wove them with garland around the lamppost.  I fastened a red bow just beneath the lamplight and hung a wreath on the front door.  It then became obvious to both of us that we needed a tree.  But when we compared our calendars, it was clear that we could not go together to get one any time soon. 

Hence, my solitary journey to the tree farm. 

I didn’t mind it, really.  It made me think of my maternal grandfather “Pop,” who

The Saint Behind Santa

December 6 is “The Feast of St. Nicholas” or, less formally, “St. Nicholas Day,” a day to honor a real historical figure whose memory has been obscured by layers upon layers of legend.  He is the inspiration for Father Christmas, Sinter Klaas, Kris Kringle, Pére Noel, and Santa Claus, but he’s worth remembering in his own right.  Adam English, Associate Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Campbell University in North Carolina, has peeled away the legends to reveal the true Nicholas in a delightful book entitled The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus.  Though it is impossible to verify any but the most basic facts about his life, English manages to construct a credible biography of this unique character in Christian history.

Nicholas was born in the mid-3^rd century in Patara, a Lycian city on the northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.  His parents, both devout Christians, died when Nicholas was young, likely victims of a terrible plague that spread through Lycia.  In his nearly inconsolable grief, Nicholas was surprised to learn that they had left him a great fortune in both gold and property.  He determined to use this wealth in a way worthy of his parents’ memory – and not simply to satisfy his own material desires.

The most famous story of Nicholas concerns an unlucky widower who fell into deep poverty.  He had no means of feeding his daughters, and since he lacked money for dowries, he could not find husbands for them.  Overcome with despair, the man made the awful decision to offer his daughters as prostitutes, a choice allowed by Roman law.  Upon hearing this story, Nicholas determined both to rescue the girls from sexual slavery and save their father from eternal condemnation for his unthinkable sin.  He placed a few gold coins in a money

We Need More Lincolnesque Humility

I have rarely been as moved by any film as I was by “Lincoln,” Steven Spielberg’s masterful re-enactment of the last four months of the iconic President’s life.  It left me speechless and filled with emotion.  The dialogue, the scenery, the costumes, and the inspired acting transported me to 1865.  I wasn’t watching a movie so much as entering another time.  I felt like I was truly in the presence of greatness. 

Spielberg’s script is based on a portion of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s A Team of Rivals.  Among other things, the movie captures well Lincoln’s struggle between moral imperative and political reality.  Our culture reveres Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.  We haven’t really appreciated his pragmatic political genius.

In order to abolish slavery by passing the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, Lincoln had to overcome more than outright opposition.  He had to convince the radical anti-slavery representatives in Congress to tone down their rhetoric – even compromise their ideals in the short run in order to achieve their long-term aims.  Uncompromising idealists in his own political party were a threat to legislative success. 

Lincoln’s greatness lay in his keen sense of how to achieve what is ultimately most desirable through what is presently most possible.  This was not just cold political calculation.  He brooded over the moral implications of his decisions, even though he was convinced of the rightness of his cause.  In his second inaugural address – which I consider to be one of the most important theological documents of American history – he wrestled mightily and honestly with the horror of war in light of divine providence.  After admitting that both parties to the Civil War “read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other,” he concluded that “the prayers of both could not be answered,” and urged that Americans on both sides “judge not that we be not judged.”