Sifting

I'm sitting in my living room on Christmas morning. It's almost 6am. Santa has come and my whole household is asleep except for me. I went to bed at 10:30 so I'm not still up from last night dealing with tiny screwdrivers and AAA batteries. I'm awake in the stillness, in the tension of great household anticipation because the quiet calls to me. Drawn out of bed around 4:30 for no other reason than I just want to soak up the magic. It was funny when I pulled up my browser to write because I was processing the value and existence magic in my last post. My feeling was that because there is so much darkness in the world, magic can no longer be truly pure, but lived alongside the dark and though that's more real, it's kinda sad too. And yet why am I awake? I want to soak up the magic.

I'm drinking the instant Peruvian coffee my incredible brother-in-law Sol brought to share. It's sweetened with the homemade (allergen-free!) caramel one of my best friends made me for Christmas. The tree is lit. I can hear the clock ticking behind me, the morn of Christmas just waiting to dawn. It's glorious. This tension. This wonder. The thrill of waiting to see my children experience the magic I was grieving the loss of just a few weeks ago. Maybe that's why parents cling so hard to giving their children magic. It's a way to revisit childhood and carry forward the beauty of a perfect day.

I love anticipation. I always have. I love surprises. I love waiting (remind me of this next time I'm driving). There's something so beautiful about the tension in creates, like the giving of the gift is more savored when anticipated. Maybe I'm turned off by things that are cheap. If it's worthy, it can wait until the proper time. When something is rushed, it feels squandered, like some sort of distraction from the true value and meaning of things worth waiting for, working for. Maybe this is just my purity culture baggage talking.

I remember a house full of people on Christmas Eve growing up. My parents house is currently full to the brim. But I got to have them here for Thanksgiving so this holiday is about my little family and my sister-in-laws. It's so sweet and simple and fun. Three little girls are currently dreaming of toys and candy canes and the thrill of not knowing but hoping for something wonderful to happen. Maybe that's what's so appealing about this holiday. Hope. I'm obsessed with it (maybe this is a truly appropriate time to say "thanks Obama.") As a child, nothing comes close to the gift haul of the year and time holed up with your extended family. You hope; you wish; you dream. And I know this is speaking from a position of privilege because I have no memories of being disappointed on Christmas and that is a very special gift I was given as a child. But as we grow older, experience Advent and the beauty of counting down, waiting and wonder, that hope becomes something more. Hope in the relief that the birth of Jesus brought. Not in that moment, necessarily. There was so much chaos surrounding Jesus' life from fleeing Egypt all the way to his eventual death. But on a global scale, for all time, this baby brings eternal peace. And I believe not only that He died for all but that all were saved. I don't believe in eternal teams. I believe in peace. Restoration. Grace. I believe all things will be made new, put right, tied up in the end. And because of that, I can look at my little glass baby Jesus figure while I wait for little racing footsteps and truly say THANKS BE TO GOD.

It's been a busy last few weeks with hosting my family for Thanksgiving and cramming in as many possible holiday activities in since then. I've written in the past about how my perfectionism comes out during holidays and I'd venture to say I'm not alone in that. It's not that I tell myself "I want everything to be perfect" but I think the massive amount of effort perfectionists put into the holidays has to do with wanting to feel something. I could be wrong. Perfectionism is most definitely about being in control and having things your way. But I think perhaps the obsessive level of activity and wanting everything to be "just so" also relates to our desperate desire for the holidays to make us feel a certain way. For me, I feel a sense of anxiety as the days race towards December 25th because I want to make sure that at some point before it's all over, it actually "feels" like Christmas. If you're too busy, it's not fun. It's stressful and even if the activities seem festive, your heart is hard as a rock. And if you're not busy enough, it doesn't feel magical, like it's any other busy time, but not Christmas. But the streets are crowded and sometimes annual activities are different than last year and suddenly you wake up and just can't do one more thing. And so you stay home and another day passes on the Advent calendar. Tick. Tock.

I want to feel magic. I want my faith to be rekindled in a way that makes everything right and clear and good. I want to be a child again where you could hear a tale woven from fables and it made sense in a way that unicorns and glitter and rainbows just work. I want something to be pure. Compromise is so overrated. I want hope, desperately. I want to believe we are good and can work together and heal this world. I could use some joy. But most of all, I seek peace. The world needs peace in a big way right now. But my adult brain isn't able to get lost from reality, not really. While I was warm in my car this morning with my kids getting our tree, I was thinking about the freezing cold people at Standing Rock. And when I was in a church surrounded by at least a thousand Christians singing about Jesus, I realized there were exactly 3 black people in the room. THREE. Last week my Reverend reminded us that things weren't so tidy in the world when Jesus came either. The Jews were living in occupied territory. Their king was born in a barn to a teenage girl (who is a total bad ass, BTW). There is something glorious about this time of year for sure (the white people Christmas still made me tear up a few times) but there is alongside it a darkness, a reality that refuses to be glossed over. That people are hurting. Some of us are cold and hungry. And a lot of the joy isn't being passed out freely but with strings attached to belief systems and color and class systems. I know that sounds terrible, like I've become a cynic and the magic has died within me. I don't think that's the case. I think the more we become socially aware (and I know I have a long, long road ahead of me - I was still shocked Trump won so that says something for sure), the more we live in the duality of light alongside dark not light against dark. The world is not the binary system we were raised to live in - clear, tidy, with battle lines drawn. The lines are within me and you and everyone around. We are the light and the dark, not just on the outside but on the inside, deep within. Yes there is beauty and glory and life. But there is greed and darkness and pain as well.

I think my black and white brain has been wrestling with the gray ever since we lost our ministry work 5 years ago. Now I live in the gray all the time. I think I might be better for it. Maybe magic is overrated. I've had magic sneak in the nooks and crannies of heartbreak. I see it in the beautiful music and my crazy children and in a killer conversation I had with my dad last week (more to come). I see it and feel it around me and within me. But if magic seeks to have us sit on our laurels while others aren't given the same level of escape, maybe it's not really the goal. Perhaps the holiday goal isn't to have the perfect table, but to have a full one, a bigger one, with more diversity, fewer rules and a whole lot of grace.