The Irreverent Reverend

Better late than never. This week I switched to one of my winter handbags. Transferring things from one bag to another, I mused on the junk we women carry around with us: wallet, lipstick, Chapstick, business cards, pens and pencils, used tissues, a couple of Epi-pens just in case, and keys to this and that. (I’ve always had all my keys on one ring because I’m not organized enough to keep track of more than one key ring) It’s a mish-mash of stuff that ends up in a pack-your-clothes-for-a -week handbag. When most of the stuff is moved from one bag to another, I turn the summer bag upside down and shake it. A few coins fall out: pennies, nickels and dimes with a couple quarters bringing up the rear.

It occurred to me that life is paid out in pennies, nickels and sometimes dimes or quarters. Sometimes we choose how much we spend and where. With as much wisdom and intention as we can muster, we decide where to pay out the coins of our life and time. Other times those decisions seem to be made for us by the eclipse of time, changing relationships or just plain chance. Life can change in a heartbeat, and where we dribble out the coins of our life changes in response.

Years of working for Hospice taught me a lot about how people dribble out the coins of their lives. Sometimes the coin supply is running low and won’t be replenished because the show is just about over. Some people want a rewind so they can go back and do it all over again because it was so much fun. Some people want a refund because it wasn’t so hot, and they’d like a chance to fix it. Either way, we only get one chance to dribble our coins away in this life.

And if we do it mostly kind of right, it is enough.

I gathered up the change that fell out on the bedroom floor and took it downstairs to my coin jar, a gallon mayonnaise jar. I probably haven’t used a gallon of mayonnaise in all my 65 years, so I have no idea from whence the jar came. It is about a third full, with a combination of pennies, nickels dimes and quarters. I keep it beside my desk to remind me that this is how life unfolds, a few coins here and a few coins there. I never fill it all the way up, in part because I couldn’t lift it. But it also reminds me that there is always more where that came from. I think that if I were to hoard them I would grow stingy of spirit and this is not how I want to spend the coins of my jar or my life and time. I want to spend them freely and trust they will be replaced, and that somehow the rhythm and balance of it all will continue.

Rolling the coins in preparation for depositing them in the bank, the quarters are the big things to which I give my time– friends, family, and tending my inner garden. Dimes and nickels go to more mundane yet necessary parts of life like cleaning the house and grocery shopping. Pennies are reserved for the things I would never do if given the choice, but I’m not.

This sounds simple, but I’m never quite sure what value to assign to what. I used to think of the larger amounts were things that were hard, but as time goes on I see them as the things that bring the most joy. I spend a few more minutes pondering what costs what. I wrap the last of the coins and the process starts all over again. The jar is never empty and it is never quite full.  And that’s okay with me.

There were no Christmas carols. No “glorias” bounced off the rafters. No loud and wonderful organ rattled the windows. The Christmas Gospel was heard only in my head. There was no Christmas Eve church service with candle lighting. Christmas dinner was also non-existent. We exchanged no gifts. All the usual trappings of Christmas were replaced by the small ICU room with all its beeps and buzzes and tubes and wires. We, my sister and I, spent hours by our father’s side as he struggled to breathe through the blood clots in his lungs. Neither of us had much of an appetite so not having Christmas dinner was no loss. It would all be there next year.

When the cultural trappings of Christmas were ripped out from under me, I was left to seek Christmas in places not usually associated with the season. And my looking was not in vain. Christmas came in that dark ICU room again and again with each nurse, aide and doctor who came in to tend to my father. They were the embodiment of the promise of Christmas–Emmanuel, God with us. I felt the presence of God through them.

An aide came in with two large glasses of ice water for us. Her warm smile and caring eyes blessed the water and made it as holy as any water I have ever had. As we ate baked chicken from a bag, it was a kind of communion. We shared a common meal, and I felt the mystery and power of food to unite and comfort.

Christmas was everywhere. I didn’t have to look hard or far. Every moment was testimony to the promise that comes true in the Christmas season. The One who comes into the world shows us the way to God, counsels us to look for God in every time and place and reveals the boundless love of the One in whose image we are all created.

Christmas did not arrive in the noise, hustle and bustle. Christmas did not come in the boxes of beautifully decorated cookies. Christmas did not come with a fat guy in a red suit and a mythic story that has all but eclipsed the manger and the child.

Instead, Christmas came in quiet whispers, gentle touches and professional care by everyone who entered his room. Christmas came on the wings of uncertainty with the message, “Do not be afraid. I am with you.” Christmas slid in the back door and gently tapped me on the shoulder with a reminder of all that comes to pass in this blessed season.

Christmas is not an event. It is a way of life. Christmas is living with the conviction that God is indeed with us, within us and around us in every person, every living thing, in all creation. Incarnate means God is embodied in human flesh, not just Jesus, but all of us. Emmanuel– God with us– makes all of life and living holy.

These days are uncertain for my family. Then again, the times are uncertain for all of us. There is much that is broken in the world.  There are many places that need the indwelling presence of God to make them bearable. Christmas comes when we are given manifestations of Holy Presence in the midst of the life we are living. It is not a time set apart that begins and ends. It is time reshaped and given new meaning in every moment.

My prayer for you all is that you will know the quiet Christmas that slips in the back door and gently taps you on the shoulder. This Christmas comes in whispers of Presence, Peace, Joy and Love. You will have to look in unexpected places; but if you look, you will surely find.