Christmas 2008

This will not be finished before Christmas is officially over, but I can live with that.

Christmas 2008 was the first in many years, perhaps ever, that I can remember being scared of. How lame is that? Is there a surer sign of character bankruptcy than fear of a holiday when I have no losses of loved ones or other personal traumas to make facing it an actual hardship?

What was I so scared of? Not having plans for this year, and being alone. Being left out of that incomparable knitting together of people that only happens this time of year. Be it friends, family, or both, this season is unsurpassed at rekindling all manner of relationships. Even here in snarly, aloof, hypertensive New England, people at work and out in public acknowledge each other's innate human worth and dignity for at least these few precious weeks, and it becomes possible to believe that they really want to carry it on through the rest of the year. Hell, I know I do, and yet do I succeed any better than most? No.

I'm not alone. God has always been with me, and He has placed His Spirit in me, and He has promised never to leave or forsake me. That's what Christmas is all about, right, Charlie Brown? I have a treasure of a wife, and I will never be able to fathom her impact on me, or how worth living life is when I consider that she's part of mine. Most of my immediate family is far away, but the love's still there, getting better and stronger as time goes on and what really matters becomes more plain. That's more than can be said for many families I've seen, which makes me appreciate mine all the more. I have a loving church family, among whom are some of the most incalculably steadfast friends anyone could dare hope for - intimate allies, shield-siblings, the kind of friends the mere thought of whom inspires an aching, longing, pathetic sort of joy that can blow away the thickest drapes of depression with one memory of an embrace or a kind word. The kind of joy that hurts as much as it soothes, and all at once, a bizarre conundrum of wounding and healing, because as beautiful as it is to be ambushed and overpowered by it, it hurts to face the knowing that it can't last in this life, that the embrace will be broken and those beautiful words will fade in my ears no matter how hard I try to brand them into my soul. There will be other times, to be sure, but they aren't now, and the ache is. They are intermittent breaks in the constant throb of longing for deep connection, for proof that I can - and do - belong with good people. It is amazing how hard it is not to delete that last part as I type.

That was another fear - that I need them too much. I have always been afraid of wearing out people. I have always taken for granted that I would, eventually and inevitably, because I'm just exactly that kind of exasperating, unendurable creature. I no longer accept that belief as true, and any sober application of logic will cut it off at the knees, but huge tracts of my thinking are wired to believe it and nothing else. That is changing as I partner with God to renew my mind, but the change is slow and painful, and the progress I make often seems trivial and inconsequential.

I initially faced this Christmas with a great deal of hope. I pushed through a great deal of job stress and internal struggles to lay hold on a renewed determination to honour God in this holiday. I arrived at that point with my wife and my friends, and that made it all the better. Our church had an early Christmas service and potluck as some would be out of town for the holiday proper. It was beautiful. "Knitting together" is a perfect description. My lack of plans for the big day didn't trouble me at all.

The next weekend we had a major snowstorm that kept us at home for two days. That was when not having any place to go on Christmas struck a nerve. It was too late to plan anything elaborate for ourselves, we had very limited funds in any event, and everyone we knew had family in the area that they would be spending the day with. Our own families were either traveling or too distant.

Asking our friends to let us break into their family's holiday gathering felt a bit like asking to borrow their three-year-old for a radiation experiment. It shouldn't have, but it did. I felt slimy and intrusive. When I didn't hear anything the next day, those feelings intensified, until the fear of being alone, and worse, of wearing out yet another welcome, finally broke me down. I tried so hard to hold the tears back that I burst the capillaries around my eyes. They came anyway, and I felt a little better until I awoke the next morning and remembered.

I called one of the friends I had asked about spending Christmas with only when I had hit the wall. I had no other option but to face the terror of finding out whether or not I was right about overstepping my bounds and needing them too much. She reminded me of the truth I had allowed myself to lose my grip on, that these fears are based on lies and that the love I had been afraid of wearing out was as unassailable as ever. Again.

Her parents had been thinking to invite us all along, as they had heard that we had no plans of our own. So much for the radiation experiment. We had a splendid time at their house. We ate Middle Eastern food and watched the two youngest children go insane and try their level best to take their parents with them. We talked about movies and people we know and anything that would make each other laugh. We listened to them reminisce about our host's mother, who died earlier that morning, which was not only Christmas but her eightieth birthday, and watched them love and support each other in their grief which was tempered by the knowing that her suffering was finally over and she was waiting for us all on the other side. You can read about that sort of thing or watch it in a movie or even experience it yourself, but there is a unique beauty in being able to stand just outside it and watch people you cherish like your own family pull together and face their loss as one closed fist of love, and when they let you add your love and concern to the huddle, even if it is from the outside, you feel humbled and honoured all at once.

I would feel pretty damned stupid about the fear that was choking the life out of me not seventy-two hours ago, except that I'm too busy being grateful for this Christmas. I cannot believe how good I have it here. I am hugely grateful to God for redeeming His creation, from ransoming humanity on the cross all the way down to salvaging a holiday for one of His more misshapen children. He has exposed the fear and the certainty of my depravity for the sham that they are. His coming changes everything, and He shows up right on schedule every year to invade this fallen Earth and remind us of bigger things than ourselves. And that is liberating. The aforementioned throb of longing for intimacy and connection and belonging is constant, but it is not eternal. It has an end. His name is Jesus, and these people I love are the gloves He wears to touch my life.

Merry Christmas, clan. Thank you. I love you. I can't say it enough.

the holiest idol of all

A couple of months ago I thumbed through a book by J. C. Ryle about the infallibility and inspiration of Scripture. He summed it up by calling believers to determine to love the Bible more, to cherish it as the very Word of God that it is. Good call. What else makes sense? Do we believe Him, or not? Do we or do we not want - need - objective truth, a standard by which to measure everything we do, say, think and feel? How the hell does anyone expect to live by faith without knowing what transcends experience and human frailty? If we've got everything so sussed that we don't need it, why aren't we running the universe instead of reacting to it?
Ryle made a very unambiguous point in his concluding exhortation. He claimed that man cannot make an idol out of the Bible. Dunno if I buy that one. I think I've seen it done; worst of all, I think I did it at least once. More to the point, and more to the end of evaluating experience via Scripture instead of vice versa, I think at least one verse in John's gospel seems to hint that it can happen.
The Bible is without a doubt God's word, but it isn't the only way He speaks to us, and it's not the same as Him any more than these writings are the same as me. You can't have a relationship with the Bible, only with the God Who wrote it through the humans who penned and compiled it. Make no mistake, if you live in a culture that has the Bible you will find it indispensable to any real relationship with Him, but He is not summed up or contained in it. He will never do or be anything contradictory to it, but that is not the same as saying that it's all we need. The Bible means nothing apart from relationship with Him. It has been used to justify the vilest of satanic atrocities. People have studied it enough to shame any Christian scholar only to mock and deride it and those who believe it. In John 5:39-40 Jesus chides the Jewish religious authorities - the only people on Earth at the time entrusted by God Himself with His written word - for searching the Scriptures trying to find eternal life in them, all the while using them to justify their rejection of God Himself in the person of Jesus. Sounds like an idol to me.
I don't know how else to explain the myriad of conflicting, often mutually exclusive, stances which those who call themselves followers of Christ embrace and propagate while claiming the authority of the same Scripture. Whatever God may be, I am certain He is not schizophrenic, bipolar, or afflicted with MPD. That seems to be the point of Deuteronomy 6:4. Except that differences and imbalances are bound to occur when divine revelation of any sort falls into the hands of fallen humanity. Oddly enough, God seems content to let many of these divisions lie, at least up to a point. I have found in my own life that if I am steeped in any such thing beyond a certain level, He will divert me out of it and bring me back to balance if I am willing to cooperate with Him.
That would seem to be a critical factor - a believer's willingness to listen to and obey God. Again, the Bible is indispensable to that in any life with access to it, but it does not stand alone. It helps us to discern the voice of God, but that is not the same as being His voice in its totality. I have stood firmly and rock-solid on all manner of errors in interpreting Scripture, and I am afraid God would have let me continue doing so had I chose to ignore His voice telling me where I (or whoever had been leading me) went wrong. To quote Johnny Cash, "I believe what I say, but that don't necessarily make me right."
I am in no way willing to compromise or dilute the authority or infallibility of God's written Word, but I am equally unwilling to tell Him that it's the only way He will get to me. He has spoken loudly and clearly through all manner of writings, music, relationships, and circumstances. I need to evaluate all such things in light of His Word, but only His Spirit can assure me that my evaluation is accurate, or correct me if it isn't.