Everyone knows an
author is the person or being who writes the book.
A narrator tells the story.
An author exerts considerable control in a story unless…
Unless her creations rebel. Or his.
If that happens all heck can break loose. And by heck I mean hell and by hell I mean it. Burning fire and all.
Narrator is cush. Cush as in cushion. Friendly. Not friendly, third, second, first person. Narrator doesn’t care about perspective. Narrator just says real quiet-like, let’s move this along.
I say all this about shoes and burgers because I wish she had a Clarence.
Don’t get me wrong. The girl ain’t no George Bailey. She is more of a pain in the badunkadunk, but that is the point.
Now, from a safe-ish distance I watch her chew people up and spit them out and I can’t help thinking of the pre-k teacher I never met in person who told me that Honey Bunch seemed to be focused mostly on the snacks, less on playing well with others and eye contact.
Sounds like Honey B.
Clarence, where are you for a girl like Honey? What would you tell her about the missed opportunities? Broken relationships? Bite marks on the hands that fed her?
George Bailey needed to see how important his life was to others. Honey needs to see that all the friends, family and kind strangers she has kicked to the curb were the angels.
Poor Clarence. If Honey’s favorite word for “mom” is b!+ch, what’s she gonna call you?
Today I saw her trash a kind woman who was the victim of abuse.
And I was ashamed. Ashamed, angry distraught.
I thought, honey, I know a piece of you is still that scared angry little girl, lost in your own skin.
But there ain’t no excuse whatsoever for that kinda cruel.
Put your big ol’ pants on
Woman up
And face the cold hard fact
Of you.
Honey Bunch once wailed in the car for the greater part of a 5 hour trip because she was required to stop howling in order to get a burger. Talk about un-happy meals.
Honey Bunch once climbed on the roof yelling obscenities because she did not want to go….to the tennis court.
She actually did that more than once.
She once flipped out at a children’s park over shoes. Shoes are an extremely big deal for Honey Bunch. They are technically more important than mother. More important than love, you could say.
Being cool.
It was the first illusion I left behind 14 years ago when I became a foster parent. There is no way to be cool when a small irate child is freaking out in your direction.
Now that she is older my adopted daughter’s preferred term for women is b!t?h. When she was mad at me as a child it was bad mommy.
No way to look cool when a small red-faced human is screaming that atcha.
But the truth is: cool is an illusion. Sure you can look great in skinny jeans. Sure you can own a hot tub. Sure you can buy a car, house, watch that defines you.
But make no mistake. Cool is an illusion.
There are no cool ICU patients. No cool nursing home residents. No cool corpses.
We humans are frail, helpless and bound to our mortal ends.
Cool is an illusion.
So if you love cool, if you crave cool, remember this:
There was a guy once who was cool. He was that Guy, the one who said–
Matthew 5:5-7 (NIV)
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. [6] Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. [7] Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Nothing cooler than Jesus.
Because let’s face it. It is easy to say,
greater love has no man than he lay down his life for his friend
Easy to say it. But if you can do it? If you did do it? If you did it for me?
Freakin’ cool.
Because it cost Him everything
And He didn’t even blink
So. Being an army brat; homesickness was a big issue. Nothing in the routine ordering of life’s calendar evokes greater nostalgia, more intense pathos than the hoopla of American Christmas.
It can make us feel homesick.
But none of it is real. All the flashy lights, saccharine music, bubbly party dresses in the world cannot begin to fill the void of the solitary manger.
We need that baby.
We need Him because He is hope. He is the inexplicable star in an inky dark sky. He is our Ransom.
And all we do to “celebrate Christmas” can make us feel that much more shipwrecked if we don’t cut through all the noise and plastic.
And push toward the quiet winter manger. What God in His right mind puts His Son in the arms of a girl in the smelly dark of a stable?
Jesus was born homeless
Because He is our home
And we are sick without him
Imaging a group of shepherds, young, poor, smelling a bit gamey.
They are discussing something in a rushed, exhilarated way
S1: so it was night and things were quiet and then there was a….
S2: no, no, no…it was night and things were quiet and then…then there was a
S3: an explosion!
S4, s1, s2: yeah!!! An explosion!
S5: freaky man!
S2: yeah…and then there was a…
S1: an angel!!!!
Tomorrow–the chick flick version:-)
I am stealing this conversation from my daughter.
She was at a youth camp and she overheard a conversation among some boys about her age. It went something like this:
B1: so then the car hit the…and there was an explosion….
B2: no, no, no, no…then there was an…explosion!!!!!
Overlapping with the other 2 boys–
B3, B4, etc…
No!
No!
No!
Then there was an….
Explosion.
End of part one.
Yesterday was the first day of advent and I am catching up.
When I was in China I remember the lights. Many little (delicious) restaurants adorned their awnings with Christmas lights. These lights, like the ones that adorned the outdoor dance floors or the western-style clubs were festive but unconnected to Christmas.
And there were tons of Christmas cards, hundreds of images of Santa Claus. The imagery of a de-Jesused December holiday coexisted benignly with a government anxious to attract foreign money and commerce.
Without our mad rush for slankets and computerized ear warmers, where would China be?
But that story? The strange one about the God-king’s infant son born in a barn?
Never heard of it.
I truly believe Christmas is the hardest season of the year. It is a characteristic of humans–our ability to make the most joyful event in human history into a frenetic, stressful, lonely race for the trappings of glee without the core of joy.
So this month I am giving myself the gift of stories.
My favorite storyteller was my paternal grandfather whom we called Papaw. My favorite thing about Christmas was his stories, his kitchen. For a nomadic military brat, his house, his kitchen was home.
Flawed, aging, ordinary home. But something about the combination of warm food aromas–coffee, pinto beans, brisket, pies–still comes back to me through all these years.
Home. The very place Jesus left to save us.
Carrying Light 