Bigger Table Theologian. Aspiring Writer. Recovering Self-Doubter.
Happy New Year, friends! It’s a new year AND a new decade! What will you do with your life over the next ten years? (No pressure) It hasn’t even been a month and already the life lessons are taking some cheap shots as well as giving me a high five. Here are a few things I have learn in just a few weeks into this new decade:
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“I feel so overwhelmed!” may have been on repeat during the best part of the last few months in 2019. I’m sure my husband, actually, I know my husband was quite sick of hearing it and yet would always express his concerns and listen empathically despite his annoyance. I just had too many irons in the fire, I confessed. I knew I shouldn’t have started all these things at once, I would admit but I just couldn’t let any of them go.
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“But to you who are listening I say: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” The topic of “enemies” doesn’t feel very Christmasy this time of year. Many of us would rather talk about the three kinds of love that are found in the Greek or what it means to love your spouse better, or antidotes on parenting. But nobody wants to learn how to love and serve your Mormon neighbors or…
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Our vision is far too short-sighted and our Jesus far too small. So we wallow. We pity ourselves and our circumstances. We shut our lives off from the rest of the world to cope leaving the hungry unfed and the conversations left unsaid. We are stopping-short instead of conflict instead of leaning in. We avoid aisles and streets and people to keep from those uncomfortable moments. We veer our eyes away so as not to feel guilt. But we are all guilty. Guilty of foreboding joy…
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I know, I know, cream and sugar are pretty great but let’s face it, they aren’t all that great for us. Yes, you could buy organic cream but why not try to branch out and make your morning coffee do some heavy lifting for you! Here’s the thing, not many of us are consistent with taking our vitamins or getting all our fruits and vegetables but we never, NEVER seem to forgot our coffee. Am I right?
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In our current political climate, we are in desperate need of peace. Even more so, we are in desperate need of those who embody peace, who are bearers of peace. It’s a real mess out there and the turbulence has everyone up in arms, ready for battle. At this point, peace feels like some fantasy wish dream that will come and go as quickly as our Christmas decorations and we will be back at it in January.
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May we not be consumed by our consumption this season. Let us focus on what we cannot buy with money more and let our wallets collect a little dust…
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Hope often comes to us not as we expect. It doesn’t come crashing through our despair as many of us wish it would, armored for battle, fighting by our side. It comes to us small and fragile and quiet. So we tend to doubt it. I myself have a complicated relationship with hope. After battling with infertility for over seven years, I have come to resent hope in its smallness and quiet, as if it’s taunting me to believe in something I haven’t experienced any victory in.
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Jesus takes on human form to make visible hope, peace, joy, and love. With a human face, name and a story, God in the flesh makes truth palpable enough to eat and drink. This truth brings both healing and division because not everyone can swallow the message he brings. This truth also brings questioning when we experience a severe lack of hope, peace, joy, and love or when we experience these things outside our Christian tradition.
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As I found myself running through our neighbors yard in my teal bathroom and fluffy socks at 5:40 AM this morning yelling at our almost one year old German Shepherd puppy to “come!”, it occurred to me as she gleefully ran away: I have become that crazy neighbor. Luckily my husband and I have developed good relationships with those around us that our plight may gain me a little sympathy for my crack-of-dawn screaming. But still, no one wants to be THAT neighbor!
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