Category Archives: church

Keeping More than Sanity

Advent, Christmas, church

I was very blessed by reading a column from the “Living Faith” page of an Orthodox Church’s parish website, about how to keep Christmas in a way that is more in keeping with an Orthodox Christian way of life than that of the dominant culture. I can’t bear to leave out any of its very practical and refreshing advice, so I am passing it on in its entirety. If any one of us could implement even one new tradition from these suggestions, the Holy Spirit might enrich us through it.

Dear Baba,

We’re going to begin Nativity Lent [Advent] in just a couple of days. My kids are already bouncing off the walls with excitement about Christmas, the stores are already getting decorated and I’m feeling lost in the holiday madness and we haven’t even started Lent yet. How do we make it to Christmas and keep our sanity? – Overwhelmed

Dear Overwhelmed friend; First of all, come sit down and have a restorative cup of tea and we’ll talk about some of the wonderful ideas that are out there. And please consider chatting with friends from church and see what other ideas they have for keeping things in their proper perspective. Remember as we approach the Nativity of Our Lord, that He was born in a simple cave and laid in a manger. I think it is not by chance that the first gospel reading during Nativity Lent is about the man who built bigger barns for all his possessions. It is a rather sobering start to the Lenten journey don’t you think? We all have started putting such expectations on ourselves for over-the-top extravagance, so let’s see where we lost the message in all that.

  • I have heard it often said that Nativity Lent is a time for us to prepare the cave within us for the coming of the Christ Child. As such, our lives should be simpler, quieter and focused on prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The season has become so very noisy that it is harder and harder to prepare. And yet haven’t you noticed how more and more people crave something besides the chaos? I think the most frustrating is the silliness of people deciding the 12 days of Christmas start December 13. Where on earth did that come from? We celebrate the 12 days of Christmas between the Nativity and Theophany. So here are some ideas to prepare for and then enjoy the 12 days of celebrations:
  • Be warned with children that anything can happen despite our best intentions. I know one mom who worked very hard through all of Nativity Lent to keep the focus on Christ. There was none of the craziness and none of the consumerism. On Christmas Eve when her 4 year old balked at going to church, she thought the lesson surely had taken so she asked him why he thought they were going to church. In all seriousness he replied “so we can pray to Santa for more presents.” Nothing quite like children to keep us humble.
  • So please take all these ideas with a grain of salt remembering to not allow “simplifying” to become a huge, exhausting task. For starters, try to break Nativity preparations into smaller bites. There are many milestones along the journey that will make the Lenten journey meaningful and perhaps not so overwhelming. There are incredible saints commemorated along this journey to the Nativity like St. Andrew, St. Barbara, St. Nicholas, St Herman of Alaska, St. Ignatius and others. These are great stories indeed. Celebrate their feast days. It isn’t a distraction and the focus won’t be lost as their lives point to Christ.
  • Celebrate St. Nicholas Day on December 6. I know many families who have their children put out their shoes on the December 5. In the morning there are apples, raisins and various treats in their shoes and maybe a small gift. It is simple but a great milestone on the way to the Nativity. Some will do something in honor of St. Nicholas for a charity, perhaps volunteering at a soup kitchen or shelter. This is especially viable with older children.
  • At the beginning of Nativity Lent, I know a family that would set a basket by their icon corner. Pieces of yarn a couple of inches long were piled next to the basket. Over the course of Nativity Lent after evening prayers, the children would put a piece of yarn in the basket for every good deed they did on that particular day. They did so quietly and without fanfare. On Christmas Eve, the family would take the baby Jesus from their manger scene and lay him in the basket – a soft, warm place filled with good deeds for him to lay his head.
  • Pick a family secret pal; I’ve seen it called a Krist Kindl (Christ child). At the beginning of Nativity Lent every member of the family picks a name and it is kept secret. Little ones will need a parent’s help of course. Throughout Nativity Lent they will leave messages of love and support in all sorts of places like in pajama pockets, lunches, in their socks. Getting creative is half the fun. Reacting jubilantly to getting “Krist Kindled” is equally fun. The rule was that even if you figured out who your Krist Kindl was, you wouldn’t let on. On Christmas Eve the Krist Kindl’s were all revealed.
  • You may also consider decorating your house closer to the Nativity and then leave the decorations up and the lights on through the 12 days of Christmas. In the old country, many decorate the house on Christmas Eve day and not before. That may not be feasible but definitely celebrate the full feast not just one blitz of opening packages on Christmas morning. You don’t want to be sick of it all when the 12 days of feasting are just beginning.
  • Speaking of packages. There is almost a nauseating dizziness to ripping open the packages in a single frenzied rush don’t you think? No one lingers over the gifts carefully and lovingly chosen, and then within minutes, they sit back exhausted and Christmas is over. Tragic I think. I know some families who open maybe a gift or so on Christmas Eve, a few more Christmas morning after liturgy and maybe another few Christmas Day night. For those with big hauls, I’ve seen parents spread it out to a gift a day over the 12 days of Christmas or at least a few days. Now granted, the obviously squishy package with socks or a sweater from Aunt Bertha will probably get relegated to last but still, each gift should be lingered over and enjoyed.
  • And absolutely critical to all of this: be in church. You should be there as much as possible throughout Nativity Lent and especially for the vigil on Christmas Eve and for Liturgy on Christmas morning. Put it in perspective and don’t look at it as another thing on your to do list. The services are there to strengthen us, calm our souls and to give us the time to lay aside earthly cares. And best of all, we can commune with Our God. The gifts can wait a bit longer don’t you think? It isn’t all about Santa despite the opinion of a certain 4 year old. It is about the incarnation of Our Lord and Savior when He took on flesh and came and dwelt among us. We can be there. The last Gospel reading before the Sunday of the Genealogy of Our Lord (also known more humorously as the Sunday of the Begets), is about the King who has a banquet and invites many but they all have excuses. Let’s not make shopping, parties and over the top consumerism our excuse to turn down the invitation to the banquet.

I love the words of the Nativity hymn. Nothing else need be said of the nature of the gifts all of creation offers:

What shall we offer Thee, O Christ, Who for our sakes hast appeared on earth as man?

Every creature made by Thee offers Thee thanks;

The angels offer a hymn; The heavens a star; The wise men gifts;

The shepherds, their wonder; The earth, its cave; The wilderness, a manger.

And we offer Thee a virgin mother.

O pre-eternal God, have mercy on us!

With enveloping hugs;

Baba

St. Mary of Egypt Orthodox Church

Written by Brantley Hobbs, 2008

Waiting and Weakness – Christmas

children's books, church, feasts, other gardens, , , , ,
Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco

The greatest pleasure and thrill of Christmas can’t be had without a little waiting, something like children of yore had to do, when their Christmas trees weren’t even ready for viewing until Christmas Day.

That thought is on my mind as I say Hello! to all the friends I see here at Pom Pom’s Childlike Christmas (blog) Party, a party for which we can show up four times over the next month! I had barely noticed the open invitation, with no time even to lay a finger aside of my nose, when she added me to the published guest list — I was signed up! I am happy to attend, Lord willing, by posting a blog each Wednesday.

It seems to me that the way we Eastern Orthodox Christians get into the Christmas spirit can be combined with the theme of children and simple pleasures that Pom Pom describes:

“Yesterday I asked my students, ‘Why the big greed festival over the holidays? Aren’t we fine right now? Don’t we have enough?’ …Here at Pom Pom’s Ponderings, we are going to think about the simple pleasures of the holidays, the childlike wonder that doesn’t involve the ka-ching ka-ching of the cash register….four holiday Wednesdays of posts that attend to the simple childlike thrills of Christmas. ….that babe in a manger and the children He loves and cherishes.”

The modern world likes to jump into Christmas immediately after Halloween or Thanksgiving, but the more traditional way to celebrate involves some Anticipation and Preparation. Children might think of it as Waiting and Getting Ready. Some of us have been in Advent, which we call the Nativity Fast, since November 15th.

I’m not experienced in helping children to forgo the treats that are pressed upon them in every shop and neighbor’s house at this time of year, but even before I found the Church and its traditions I tried to keep the family thinking ahead to a special Holy Day, and not just because of the presents.

We need some weeks to sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!” and for it to register in our minds that God’s people had to wait many generations and thousands of years for the coming of the Savior. A little bit of suffering in the form of doing without the usual quantity of food, or rich foods, (in the Orthodox Church we eat less, and almost vegan, when fasting) can make it more real for us that the world before Christ was suffering under the curse of sin. We feel our own weakness, too, when eating less, and that can soften our hearts.

Why the photo of Holy Trinity Cathedral above? My church and sister churches sponsor Advent retreats every year, usually a day or half a day when we can hear a lecture and attend services together to help us focus on the coming feast in a fruitful way. Last year I went to one at Holy Trinity and took the picture. (By the way, I saw the same flowering plant at a winery last week and still don’t know what it is.)

One children’s book that might contribute to a child’s understanding of time and the processes that are necessary preliminaries to accomplishing a goal, in particular a few points on the timeline of our salvation history, is The Tale of Three Trees, “a traditional folktale retold by Angela Elwell Hunt with illustrations by Tim Jonke.”

Three small trees stand on a hilltop and dream about what they might do when they are grown. One wants to be a treasure chest, one a sailing ship that carries kings, and one just wants to stay where it is and point to God.

It takes many years for them to get big enough to be cut for lumber and fashioned into items that play a part in the earthly life of our Lord. The first tree is made into a manger — and this first creation of wood that the Christ Child came in contact with establishes the story as one for Christmas.

All the trees feel initial disappointment and humiliation, none more so than the one that is made into a rude cross and used for violent purposes: “She felt ugly and harsh and cruel.” But in the end all of the trees realize the blessedness of being used for the glory of God, and the young reader is reminded of the reason a Baby was born at Bethlehem.

Even our Lord Jesus went through a period of preparation, growing up as a man for 30 years before He began His ministry, but He surely wasn’t idle during that time. As we wait for Christmas we can prepare our hearts by prayer and fasting and acts of love.

Those of us with families are blessed to have many possibilities under what might be the Acts of Love category. (They might even include some noise of cash registers, but I won’t say any more about that at this party.) I know I have cookie-baking, doll-clothes-sewing, decorating and menu-planning and making up beds on my list.

The truth is, I’m not very good at being child-like before Christmas. I feel so many responsibilities that children don’t have to concern themselves with, and I get pretty busy with all the fun type of preparations.

Somehow, though, all of that, when combined with participation in the church traditions and services, adds up to make me feel some of the longing and the weakness that are appropriate right now.

I’ll post on Wednesdays more about some of the simple pleasures that our family has enjoyed over the years, even while remembering that the fullness of joy, the acting like a child, will start on December 25th. And won’t it be wonderful!

Two to Remember

church, family, history, love, quotes, saints, , , , , , ,

Today is the birthday of C.S. Lewis, and that’s a good reason to post a thought-provoking quote from him. Lewis was born in 1898 and died on Nov. 22, 1963, the same date as President John F. Kennedy and author Aldous Huxley. Peter Kreeft wrote a book based on his imagination of what a conversation among these three people might sound like if they met after death; it is titled Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley.

I don’t think I’ve read that book yet, but today is Lewis’s birthday. Maybe I’ll read the book prompted by the date of his death before next November 22 and have some thoughts on it then. For now, I’d like to think on this:

  Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.

The first clause describes what characterized our family’s Thanksgiving celebration so recently. The second describes what I have daily to turn from, to put off from my thoughts just as I might drop an icky thing from my hands, so that I can freely touch and hold, really be present with, what and who is right here now.

While I’m remembering people who inspire, let me not forget to mention St. Andrew The First Called, whose feast day is tomorrow. I learned last year about how he is the patron saint of Scotland. We don’t have our priest-intern Fr. Andrew any longer but we are having Vespers tonight and Liturgy tomorrow for Saint Andrew all the same, which makes me happy right now.

In thinking about Lewis’s quote above, I realized that one reason we plan for the future is just so we will be able to love and serve when the future has become the present. It’s the way we can look ahead in love and faith and not in those other ways. But what a lot of Love I have to live in today.