Holiday Travels

Two days before Thanksgiving I began my holiday travels by boarding the Texas Eagle for a trip to the Midwest to visit my daughters for Thanksgiving. I have been longing to make this train trip for many years and was thankful for the opportunity to finally do it. Austin to Chicago takes about 28 hours each way; that is ample time for visiting, snoozing, reading, and thinking. At the end of this journey I  have lots of stories, ideas, reflections, and observations to share so beginning today, and continuing through New Year's Day I plan to share them with shorter, and more frequent posts.  All aboard - let's take a trip!

The first thing that struck me was the complete absence of responsibility I had on this trip. I wasn't in charge of the schedule, the meals, the stops along the way, fueling the engines, or making sure the staff got along. This was a very new experience for me, and seemed an exceptionally great way to start the holidays. All I had to do was board the train and the rest was up to them. I had some non-critical decisions to make: I could eat what I brought, go to the snack car, or splurge on a full meal in the dining car; I could read this book or that magazine or play games on my computer; I could talk to the person next to me, someone in the observation car, or no one at all. None of these decisions was worthy of worry.

This got me to thinking about all the things we fret about around the holidays: where to go, what to eat, whether to order it or make it, who to invite, to have a real or fake tree, to attend this or that or the other event or party. We can work ourselves into a frenzy over a lot of things that don't have watershed consequences during the holidays. We want to create Christmas memories for our kids, but much of what we remember most happily from Christmas past was not orchestrated by anyone. Maybe it was the ice storm that shut down travel in all directions and left us huddled around the fireplace with nothing but candlelight and cookies for our Christmas supper. Perhaps it was the gift we didn't even know we wanted until we received it, or the way the Christmas story flooded our hearts at the annual Christmas pageant.

I know it's counter-intuitive, but I want to suggest that you may make the best Christmas memories for your children by letting go of some control and making a few spontaneous decisions. It seems scary but the One whose birth we celebrate is the Engineer on this train. A scrap of scripture comes to mind. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. (I Peter 5:7) Let the Lord know your fears and anxieties as you go into the holiday season, and then let go and enjoy the ride!

Crossroads

It has been said that the church is a crossroads - a place of intersections. It is the place where daily life and eternal life overlap. The place where fear and faith and doubt and dreams all meet.  It is the cross road - the place where we  pick up our crosses and follow Jesus, and where we lay them down. The place where we are reminded that there is One who makes the load lighter; One who gives hope and light and love. 

All the of following are taking place at my church this week:

• Confirmation 
• Pre-school graduation 
• Job interviews
• A wedding 
• Celebration of a retirement 
• An end of school picnic 
• A funeral 
• A last day of work 
• Meetings to plan for summer
• A special Eucharist 
• Teacher appreciation
• Last day of regular Sunday School

At the same time, people are experiencing:

• High school and college graduations
• Traveling relatives
• Surgery or health issues
• Babies being born
• Applying for summer jobs
• Houses being sold or renovated
• Kids coming home from college
• End of school year events
• Vacation and camp preparations
• News of great sadness or great joy

Weeks like this can overwhelm families. Come to the crossroad and rest with your baptismal brothers and sisters. Come and refresh at the font, soak in the familiar and the family, float in forgiveness and love - if only for an hour. It will put everything in perspective.

Equipped

Human children are born knowing how to swim. Well, kind of. . . Babies have something called a "dive reflex" that  causes them to hold their breath and open their eyes under water. They have another thing called the "swim reflex" that lasts for about six months after they are born.  It causes them to move their arms and legs in a swimming motion when placed on their tummies in water. While you can't depend on these reflexes to keep children safe, getting them in the water early helps them remember what they already know how to do.

Today I revisited the story of David and Goliath for the first time in a long time. I was reviewing some curriculum for our Summer Sunday School program and the sample lesson used this familiar story. As I looked over the material I remembered how this story had inspired me as a kid - one young boy doing what a whole army of soldiers couldn't! I loved it, and was convinced by those who shared the story with me that God could use me to do big things too! My daughters, and their church friends from elementary school still like to reminisce about the summer they knocked Goliath down at Vacation Bible School.  They too felt much empowered by the story and the experience.

The material I looked at today approached the story with a different twist - it depicted David recognizing that Goliath was a big predator, just like the lions and wolves and bears that threatened his sheep.  From this perspective, David went into the situation already equipped for it, and did what he already knew how to do: brought down a predator twice his size!

Sometimes we need to be reminded that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" by the creator. We are equipped for far more than we can imagine. No one can imagine herself giving birth - but she does it. We can't imagine caring for a  child with physical or cognitive limitations but people do it with compassion and love and even joy, every day.  We rarely imagine ourselves as single parents or unemployed breadwinners or having bodies wracked by pain or disease, yet, when those circumstances arise, we often find that we were already issued some extra capacity of stamina, patience, faith, ingenuity, love, humor, or courage which is exactly what is needed to carry us through the circumstance.

Adults and children alike often wonder why they have to face a particular trial. Adults have the advantage of looking back over past trials and seeing how they worked out;  children don't have that perspective. Help your children see what they are able to do when challenged and marvel at how God has equipped them. Give thanks together for the extra helping of humor or inch of ingenuity that they may never have found without this particular trial. Perhaps one of the ways God equipped your child for trials was putting you with each other; after all, you were equipped to be this child's parent long before he or she was conceived.

A Child is Born

For unto us a child is born , unto us a son is given : and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor , The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6 KJV

Even as I read these words I hum various parts of Handel's For Unto Us a Child is Born and the Hallelujah Chorus. Thank you George Frederich Handel. You have corralled the overwhelming news of God come down from heaven into a measured yet full response. You give voice to the magnitude of this event.

For unto us a child is born. . . those of us who are parents recognize the depth and beauty of this statement. Yet Isaiah's "us" refers not to parents, but to a people. "The people who walked in darkness", that is, all of us, were all blessed by the arrival of this child. I believe in the Child. I also believe that every child among us is heaven sent. And, like Handel's Messiah, raising this child is not a work that can be performed alone. One lone rock star is not sufficient. It takes a large number of people doing their part: parents, yes, and teachers and preachers, and politicians and pundits, and farmers and grocers, and neighbors and friends to give full measure to this life. If one group doesn't show up, the show may go on, but the magnificence of the work will be diminished.

It takes a village, a chorus, an orchestra, to raise a child. It takes all of these doing their utmost, to make an environment that will allow this child to be all that he or she was created to be. It is necessary that we show up. That we perform our part in the work of this life. That we, the us to whom the children are born, make sure that they have clean water and food and shelter and education and loving, caring adults around them. That we continually strive to make the world safe and hospitable for them.

I've heard it every day since Thanksgiving: "Christmas is for children". Let it be so! And let's show up AFTER Christmas day for the children, in whatever ways we can.