Advent.

A season of looking forward to the Earth鈥檚 restoration through the remembrance of Jesus鈥� birth –
that moment of divine interruption. That moment when the Heavenly realms and the Earth met in a beautiful collision only previously known in the Garden of Eden, the innermost room of the tabernacle and temple.

And as we remember that moment, we enter a season of anticipation. Hopeful anticipation in the midst of cold days and long nights. While every year has its fair share of each season – reminding us of the life, death and new birth cycle that our Creator invites us into – this year seems to be presenting us with a particularly long winter. I鈥檓 not sure what a hundred year long winter without Christmas feels like, as the Narnians experienced in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, but it might be safe to say it feels like this: ongoing despair and more than enough reasons for hopelessness.

It鈥檚 so much easier to anticipate in hope when we know that winter will cease and the cold sting of death will subside to make room for an empty tomb. It鈥檚 exciting to plant trees when we know they will bear fruit. Calming to pray when we know there is relief ahead. But oh, how difficult it is to hope when winter has taken over and our Advent season continues without respite. When the White Witch has a hold over the land and we find ourselves in constant states of confusion and pain, we wonder where Aslan is… the battle rages on but… where is our King? So many hearts have been turned to stone. How can we keep fighting when our world seems to be solidifying into emptiness and hatred and fear? How do we journey onward in hope?

It is here that I am reminded of my Breath. Our collective Breath.

This year has revealed to more Americans than ever before the preciousness of the inhale and exhale sustaining our lives. Finally, the cries of suffocating Black and Brown image-bearers are reaching past the ears of many White Christians to penetrate the Soul. We are realizing that any asphyxiation is an atrocity. Such a disregard of the Breath of Life鈥檚 sanctity is sacrilege, ruthless, and heartless. Eyes that did not wish to see this are opening. Ears that did not wish to hear are listening. And the whole Earth, both oppressed and oppressor, seems to be howling out: 鈥淟ord, save us!鈥� This lament, this cry, this 鈥渕oaning too deep for words,鈥� seems to fall on deaf divine ears.

But it is not so. YHWH has breathed into our lungs the Breath of Life. And so in the harshness of winter, when the sun has hidden herself from us and the land is bare, we recall that there is a healing power, a 鈥渄eep magic,鈥� flowing through us: for the reviving breath that Aslan breathes onto lifeless statues is the same breath in you and me.

Yes, like Lucy with her cordial, except that our power does not come from something outside of us and in small quantities. Bestowed on us from our Creator, it comes from within – that which sustains us and permeates our entire being. We are intrinsically co-healers with the divine, able to reclaim our hearts of stone and bring our seemingly dead world back to life. No, we cannot do it alone: we need one another. But all of us can go out, trusting that our work is good. Our work is holy. Our work is bringing about that 鈥淏eloved Kingdom.鈥�

Work that is far from being over – for winter is still fighting back the forces of spring – but the ground we tread is thawing. The White Witch鈥檚 control is slipping, the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve have awakened to their own life-giving power and Aslan is on the move. So we journey onward鈥� with renewed hope, knowing that the hold of Winter is weakening.

Behold, spring has come.

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When I was about six years old, I can remember sitting on the front row of Holy Trinity Baptist Church in Philadelphia next to my father. He was a deacon in the Church and it was his usual place to be seated up front. However, for some reason I was seated with him. I normally sat with my sister and mother on the second row, off to the right of the pulpit, underneath the stain glass windows. But on this Sunday, I was on the front row, slightly fidgety and playing with toys and drawing to hold my attention.

At some point during the service I looked up from my play, the way kids do to check on their parents, and I saw his face. My father was crying. Something in the service moved him and he began to weep quietly. I was fixed on his face, I had never seen him cry like this. I could tell these were not just joyful tears, but a sorrow released. I remember wanting him to compose himself, but at the same time I had never seen this deeply into who he was. He seemed so willing to let tears come, to reveal how much he needed G-d in that moment.

I 诲颈诲苍鈥檛 ask anything, but I remember moving away from him, the way you move to avoid an awkward situation. I鈥檇 never seen him cry and the vulnerability made me feel a bit unsure. Eventually, he took out his white handkerchief, wiped his eyes and nose and returned to being the man I knew. I don鈥檛 remember the rest of the service, but I will never forget this moment with him. In no other spaces of our life together had I seen him this open. I knew of his sense of duty, but not of his devotion. G-d was important to him and he felt safe enough that he could bring his humanness to G-d and know he would not be shamed.

At times this is the way I hold G-d, much in the way I reacted to my father鈥檚 vulnerability. I desire to experience the love of G-d in the humanity of Jesus, but I still at times resist the accessibility of the incarnation. G-d enters the world through Jesus as a child, vulnerable and quite human. The idea that Jesus was 鈥渂orn of a woman鈥� speaks to His humanity, and in this embodied form, differed from us only in that he knew no sin. It has become easy to dismiss the humanity of Jesus for His divine attributes, but this only serves to put G-d out of reach psychologically and emotionally; to make Him an outsider to our experience. You see, it is in this accessibility of weakness that G-d reveals the invitation to belong, not just to Him, but to each other. G-d discards omnipotence to dwell in human flesh, to be touched and touch, to be held and known. G-d is not here fully human as a threat, not here as the Son to condemn, but to join, and to make us family anew.

Advent is an invitation to move towards G-d and to be moved by a G-d who is with us, who is active in human affairs. I first learned of G-d through the vulnerability and devotion of my father. It was not something I understood at this early age, nor accepted as my own until years later, but I saw in him what it meant to belong to Jesus.

In this season, may we find the safety to accept the proximity of G-d and the courage to embrace the healing intimacy of belonging鈥攖o G-d and to each other.

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Our staff and faculty participated in the second annual Office Decorating Competition, decking the halls of the school in festive colors and twinkling lights. From a 天美视频 spin on It鈥檚 a Charlie Brown Christmas to an interactive scavenger hunt, departments had a blast putting their heads together to come up with fun, creative displays. Scroll through the photos below to take a tour through all the contest submissions.

From our family to yours, Merry Christmas!

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No new news and nothing notable to think on beyond your song, Mary. The angel Gabriel visited you to announce a birth and I am sure you could have handled any announcement, but it wasn鈥檛 any announcement, and it would require you to walk in love and not fear.

I see fear everywhere, Mary. I see it on the faces of my neighbors, the political poster boards I drive by, the TV news headlines, my coworkers who face racism and classism, clients struggling to be free of pimps, and undisguised violence. If I focus here for too long, I forget you sang.

I don鈥檛 have a song this morning. The leftover night-lights of Seattle glitter. A future clear sky is lit by a pre-wakening sun in red, orange, and pink tones against the darkness still covering our Northwest morning. There are rows of vinyl bench seats covered in dirt from early morning commuters. Faces look down at books, screens, or the floor. People make subtle efforts to avoid the gaze of one another on the 6:20 a.m. ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle.

An hour earlier I was inside my frigid home, beneath warm covers, next to the regular breathing my husband of 17 years. We lay in silence. I felt hot tears spring to my eyes at the thought of leaving his presence and commencing the normal Monday routine. His breathing grumbles in protest of our coming separation. Supposedly, we are used to my graduate school routine. I am not. Sure, I look forward to classes, enjoy clients, and the adrenaline of the unknown; however, I don鈥檛 look forward to breaking this communion on Monday mornings.

So, instead of rising with the first round of alarm beeps, I lie still, suspending myself somewhere between his breathing and rising from bed.

Mary, How did you glorify a Lord who would put you in line to lose the most precious gift a mother could have 鈥� to use your first pregnancy to be something you would watch come to be a magnet of hate, terror, fear, and war-mongering? I scream as no one can hear me. I yell at systems contrived to keep some out and some in. Power鈥檚 greedy appetite does not hide in pretense, it does not need to.

I heard you say;
鈥淥h, how my soul praises the Lord.
47 How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!
48 For he took notice of his lowly servant girl,
and from now on all generations will call me blessed.
49 For the Mighty One is holy,
and he has done great things for me.
50 He shows mercy from generation to generation
to all who fear him.鈥�
(Luke 1:47-50)

And, you were chosen. You were humble. You said yes. You woke that morning and needed to be with someone, and so you went. You sang sweet tones of hope to your cousin, Elizabeth. You knew fear lurked at your door, with the political, social, religious and fledgling violence around you 鈥� someone needed to be willing to push back the darkness. You 诲颈诲苍鈥檛 push it back because anyone doubted you. No, Mary, I see your belief, casting out fear, through the song and warrior resistance to every doubter who would soon come your way.

You spoke truth to your cousin 鈥� to the heavens 鈥� a truth that lingers in 2019.

I remember who and what lives inside of me.

鈥淛esus, Jesus, you make the darkness tremble. Jesus, you silence fear鈥esus, you make the darkness tremble鈥our name is alive, forever lifted high鈥�. your name cannot be overcome鈥�.鈥�

The Seattle skyline cannot overcome the bold beauty of majestic mountains and red skies on any winter morning, and especially not this one. Red and orange tones deepen behind the mountains announcing hope and proclaiming freedom. Beauty resonates in brilliance this morning, pushing back the cranes and furious construction continuing to shape the financial future of many on this early ferry. So, Mary, I find my song between brokenness and beauty, in the margins, in the pain. Your song hovers over deep waters, echoes in the trees, lifting my heart, increasing the anticipation of your son鈥檚 return.

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We are grateful for the words of Dr. J.P. Kang, who provides us a renewed lens through which to see our relationship to the Advent story and the divine鈥攖he familiar in the unfamiliar, and the known in the unknown.

When I visit a home for the first time, the space that typically feels the most unfamiliar is the kitchen, because so much is concealed. I must ask or learn by trial and error where things are. This experience of discovering things in kitchens is pervasive because there is no universal standard for organizing such spaces, but that, of course, is also precisely what makes one鈥檚 kitchen (or, by extension, home) distinctly personal.

The discipline of User Experience (UX) studies human-object interactions (e.g., doorknobs, dashboards, appliances, etc.) in order to improve reliability and to reduce frustration. These interactions generate a language which describes the form and function of the objects within a context. Learning to read, write, and speak this language鈥攊ts vocabulary, grammar, and syntax鈥攊s challenging, and inevitably, some things will get lost in translation.

These examples of seeking the familiar in the unfamiliar, the known in the unknown, may provide us a fresh way to think about the Christian tradition and our relationship to it.

How do you experience unfamiliar 鈥渞ooms鈥� and 鈥渇loors鈥� of the Bible? If you are only familiar with one house, what happens when you venture out and spend time in an unfamiliar space? Sebastian Moore (OSB) memorably observed that 鈥淕od behaves in the Psalms in ways that [God] is not allowed to behave in systematic theology.鈥� Is it possible that the good news is not 鈥渙ne size fits all鈥� but is irreducibly rich, relational, and contextual? And what is lost in the translation of the Scriptures from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek into modern languages?

And how then can we be certain that our experiences of the divine鈥攂oth familiar and unfamiliar鈥攁re authentic? How do we recognize God鈥檚 form and function, especially when we are afraid? The Psalmist offers one answer:

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff鈥�
they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4)

Comfort comes from recognizing the protective presence of the divine Shepherd. Jesus adds that sheep follow the shepherd 鈥渂ecause they know his voice鈥� (John 10:3). What is the most consistent mark of Jesus鈥檚 voice and presence that help us recognize him in the new and unfamiliar? I believe the answer is love.

God鈥檚 alphabet specifies a DNA of faithful creativity, including such bases as the power of the spoken word (e.g., 鈥渓et there be light鈥� as well as 鈥渢hus says the LORD鈥�) and the relationship binding the divine community. God鈥檚 vocabulary is comprised of the persons and families that are expressions of that DNA, every one created in the 鈥渋mage of God鈥� (Genesis 1:27). God鈥檚 syntax governs the coordination of those vocables into phrases, clauses, and sentences. For example, the drama of the exodus from Egypt and the spectacle of the cross both realize divine compassion in surprising ways. The unexpected return from Babylonian exile and the resurrection show that God鈥檚 grammar describes a living language, one that can still
communicate effectively today.

If God is love (so 1 John 4:8), God鈥檚 form and function may be discerned whenever we humans love one another (1 John 4:12). If we keep our senses tuned to the divine frequency of love that resonates in all living creatures, we will be able to discern God in unexpected persons and places, including a newborn in a feed trough.

Christmas is less about presents being unwrapped or answers being revealed than it is about this mind-bending idea that God became one of us, in carne, in the flesh.

Why would God so empty and humble himself (Philippians 2:5鈥�8)? Why would the Creator voluntarily subject the self to creaturehood with all its limitations and difficulties? Why else but to enter and fully know our lives, and therefore to love us as we are?

God in Christ knows the dysfunctions of our families (Matthew 20:20鈥�24), the anguishes of chronic illnesses (Mark 1:34), the shadows of terminal diagnoses (John 4:49), and even the unspeakable sadness of the death of beloved children (Matthew 9:18; Luke 7:12). Mary, too, would one day experience the death of her beloved son.

Advent is a season of light and shadows (Matthew 2:16鈥�18). The light of the world shines in our darkness (John 1:5), a light seen most fully in the face of Jesus, who is said to be 鈥渢he image (Greek eikon) of the invisible God鈥� (Colossians 1:15). May we, like Mary, contemplate and treasure even the things we do not understand (Luke 2:19).

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Immanuel

God with us,

Where are you now?

Immanuel

Our God with us,

Be here somehow

This is the chorus to Jason Morant鈥檚 contribution to the Liturgists鈥� Advent album, A Light, and every year when I listen to it I am reminded of this feeling to which I am intimately familiar. I know I am not the only one who has felt God鈥檚 profound distance, reaching out in prayer or pleading and receiving nothing but silence in return. No matter what I did, God felt far from my grasp. Perhaps you鈥檝e felt that too.

Advent is a season of waiting. Have you noticed that as a culture, we tend to skip over this waiting and go straight to Christmas? And honestly, why wouldn鈥檛 we? Christmas is where the good stuff is: food, family, shiny new presents.

We spend enough time waiting for this most delightful of days to arrive, so why should we do even more?

I find myself wondering what it means to wait, not for the arrival of Christmas Day but for the birth of Christ on Earth. On the one hand, Christ has already been born; He has also died and risen again. On the other hand, what do I make of this silence I receive in return for my attempts
to cry out to God? When will Christ鈥檚 consistent presence be born into my life? How much more waiting can I bear?

Perhaps that consistent presence will never come, and perhaps the truth is that faith is in the waiting. We wait in hope and get let down and then pick up hope again, and sometimes our waiting is satisfied by the brightness and beauty of God Herself touching our hearts and making
Herself known. We keep watch not knowing when She will come, but it is in the practice of watching and waiting that we learn what the stuff of faith really is.

If you, like me, have a hard time hearing God when you need Her assurance most, then let this Advent be for us a lesson in waiting well. Let us prepare our hearts however we can to be able to receive the Divine when She makes herself known and let us be kind to ourselves on the days when the table is set and the lamps are lit and yet no one comes. Most of all, let us seek the ways in which we can be bearers of God in our own time and culture, birthing Christ through our actions of mercy and justice toward our neighbors.

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Here, , reflects on the divine challenge of Jesus to love radically and how, even though we are in a season of waiting, we can be part of this holy transformation, the impossible possible, in the here and now.

You can sign up for our sixth annual Advent series, delivered via email every Sunday of Advent, here.

Advent is a transformational countdown to transformation itself. A paradoxical time, Advent is a time of expectation and anticipation for something that hasn鈥檛 happened yet and which can鈥檛 fully be imagined. In our corner of the world, Advent shows up on the landscape of our grey and (usually) rainy winter. Bundled up in our coats and sweaters, we wrap hands around our peppermint mochas and hunker down until the first light of spring when robins join us with their knowing 鈥渟ee-诲颈诲苍鈥檛-I-tell-you-it was-coming,鈥� tweet tweet tweets. And so we wait and trust that spring will come and we鈥檒l one day see the sun again.

Similarly, advent is a time of impending hopeful change and transformation鈥搒omething is coming but it鈥檚 not here yet. It鈥檚 a time when we turn our attention to the impossible possible鈥� the coming of what we can only imagine. Theologically we are waiting for the transformational presence of God in our time. We are waiting and counting the days for the breaking-in of a radical spirit of transcendent immanence.

In Christian tradition, God breaks into our time, disrupts time, displaces time, disorients time and all we can do is wait. And trust. Trust that that transformation will come, that divine love and peace is coming just like the spring blossoms. It鈥檚 a theology of radical rupture where the impossible becomes possible. This is a theology of hope.

Liturgically Advent marks the time of waiting til Jesus鈥� birth, but it鈥檚 so much more than that鈥�it鈥檚 a countdown for the message Jesus would bring into this broken world鈥搕hat of the kingdom of God where society would live in love, peace, and equality. Advent therefore is a time of waiting for the divine message, the promise, the hope for something righteous and holy.

Early 20th-century theologian Walter Rauschenbusch taught that the kingdom was not an apocalyptic vision of what was to come, but rather, a prophetic call for social transformation in the here and now. This radical message would become central to the visionary movement known as the social gospel. We live in a time where we desperately need to be reminded of this transformational vision for what could be, right here and now as we鈥檙e not just in the season when nights are long and days are grey, quite literally and figuratively our days are grey. Our political climate is dire, to say little of the state of the climate itself. There鈥檚 xenophobia, nationalism, gender inequality, economic instability, food insecurity鈥� these are but words pointing to deep hurts and pains inflicted on us and by us. We feel it in our bones when we see families separated at borders, when white supremacists spew hate, when gun violence and toxic systemic oppression abound鈥搕hese are dark times indeed.

Advent though is a time of waiting for the transformational in-breaking of radical, vibrant, spirit incarnate. A divine presence in fleshly form come to tell us that there is a different way to live and be. While we often wrap Jesus in platitudes about love, grace, generosity, and equality, Jesus also posed a divine challenge to systems and structures by flipping tables in the temple and challenging the narrative of empire calling truth to power with divine love and righteous anger. The divine challenge Jesus brought is to love so radically, so boldly, that you question the very structures that seek to rob people of divine love, acceptance, peace, and abundance. In fact, the very narrative of Jesus鈥� birth and death defies all reason, it flips the script on what the world tells us is possible!

Our theology of hope therefore is not one that should rest on hope alone without informed action, or without conscientious response to systemic and structural inequality. Rather, the summons offered to us through Jesus鈥� divine in-breaking, is one that challenges us to love one another so much that we create the impossible through structural and systemic transformation鈥搕hrough our interrogation of political and economic institutions (those which Rauschenbusch called 鈥渟uper-personal entities of evil鈥�).

Rauschenbusch argued that these institutions perpetuate social sin drawing us away from one another and binding us in individualistic thinking, that which moves us further away from collective thriving. We may feel that the kingdom is too far from our own reality, too ephemeral to capture. And yet the work of persistent hopeful imaginative radical love is the very task we are given. Theological descendent of Rauschenbusch, Dr. Cornel West reminds us that, 鈥淲e鈥檝e forgotten that a rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it. We need the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, and just hoping to land on something. But that鈥檚 the struggle. To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.鈥�

This Advent, as in the past, we鈥檒l participate in liturgy commemorating the incarnational in- breaking of the divine. We鈥檒l buy Christmas trees and put up decorations, attend a Christmas pageant or Advent festival. But as we live in liminal time aware of the days that pass, might we imagine ourselves as part of the impossible possible? St. Teresa of Avila wrote that 鈥淐hrist has no body now but yours/No hands, no feet on earth but yours/Yours are the eyes with which he looks/compassion on this world/Christ has no body now on earth but yours.鈥� Might we remember to live into a love so potent, so present that it shatters the landscape of what is and reveals through our very hands and feet social justice and divine transformation of the here and now? Let us embrace this Advent, a divine challenge to be bold lovers who imagine and who question, who resist forces that seek to separate us from neighbor, and who believe that divine love binds us to one another and to the future that we create together.

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Here, MA in Counseling Psychology student Rebekah Vickery writes about the tension between our hope for peace and our chaotic, divided world鈥攁nd about what the birth and life of Jesus reveals about holy anger, living amidst trauma, and hoping for a new world.

One of the core words of Advent, peace, feels like a jarring antithesis of this city鈥檚 transitional trauma. In the 15 months that I have lived in this place, I have seen buildings rise, streets become more crowded, and financial burdens grow greater. I am still in the liminal space of learning to call this place home, and yet I can feel the sorrow, panic, and angst at the ways in which neighborhoods are changing at a breathless pace. If I am affected by the chaos of the rapid transitions, then how much more are those individuals who have called this place home for years, decades, or generations? And then there is the ongoing grief of indigenous generations who called this ground home long before the city set its roots, forever changing the landscape. It seems that the words of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah still resonate in these streets: 鈥淭hey have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying 鈥楶eace, peace,鈥� when there is no peace鈥� (Jer. 6:14, ESV). And so the prayer of Advent lingers with me still:

Oh come, oh come Emmanuel.

While I sense the chaos in this city and the ways that it is placated by those in power, I am also increasingly aware of the ways that I have spoken those words over myself: 鈥榩eace, peace.鈥� It is, in a way, similar to the false prophets who attempted to bind wounds lightly and minimize anger in the name of a dismissive peace. I have anger in the midst of the chaos, because my body instinctively knows that this is not how it was meant to be. City streets were meant to be paths leading home. Communities were meant to be rooted together. Growth is meant to happen slowly, in a nurturing and safe process. I was meant to live in peace. And yet, I am finding that anger is not the antithesis to peace. I have recently and surprisingly found comfort in Jesus鈥� fury as he throws tables in the temple. I am learning that His actions are not out of an uncontrolled rage, but instead are a way of proclaiming with just and holy anger that this is not how it is meant to be. The temple is not meant to be a place of commerce, but instead a place of prayer. Cities are not meant to be places of chaos, but instead places of refuge. Families are not meant to be places of harm, but instead places of nurture. My body is not meant to be a place of trauma, but instead a place that experiences the goodness of love.

鈥淚 have anger in the midst of the chaos, because my body instinctively knows that this is not how it was meant to be.鈥�

Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel.

I love C.S. Lewis鈥� depiction of the wild lion, Aslan.

鈥淭hen…after a pause..the deep voice said, 鈥楽usan.鈥� Susan made no answer but the others thought she was crying. 鈥淵ou have listened to fears, child,鈥� said Aslan. 鈥淐ome, let me breathe on you…Are you brave again?鈥�
鈥淎 little, Aslan,鈥� said Susan. (Prince Caspian, 1951, HarperCollins Publishers)

I find my own heart responding similarly when I encounter Jesus in the midst of the broken places. I find a little peace. It is not the violent attempt at peace that places a hand over the mouth of a crying child to stifle the cries, or the minimizing peace that says, 鈥淪top crying, you’re fine.鈥� The peace of Emmanuel is the peace of being held tightly by the person who is also crying. The suffering is not ended, but it is joined. And there is the hope that this God-with-us who rages and grieves on our behalf, has come once, is coming now, and will come again to make all things new.

Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel.

I breathe. I grieve. I rejoice in the disruption of God entering a world of trauma, becoming vulnerable to it in his humanity. And I also mourn the way that it seems to have only made it a little better. All things are not yet made new. I am living in the And Now and the Not Yet.

Emmanuel is here in the sorrow, and Emmanuel will come again with joy.

So we journey on, with tear-stained faces and hopeful hearts. Let us not grow weary, but instead continue hoping and moving toward the day when steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other (Psalm 85:10).

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote 鈥淚 Heard The Bells on Christmas Day,鈥� in 1863; a time in which his country was fragmented with violence. Over a century later, as I find myself in a city and country in which chaos seems to be the final word, and as I learn to listen to the chaos in my own body, I find comfort and resonance in the words.

And in despair I bowed my head;
鈥淭here is no peace on earth,鈥� I said; 鈥淔or hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men,鈥�
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: 鈥淕od is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!鈥�

Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel.

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鈥溾�楧o You Hear What I Hear?鈥� was written by a married couple in October 1962, as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis,鈥� says Brooke. 鈥淪o again today I sing it for our country. For we could all use a little peace, goodness, and light.鈥�

(Click below to see the full images.)

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鈥淢ary, Did You Know?鈥� is a song that will never end up on my list of favorite Christmas carols. When I was younger, I remember hearing people from my faith community rave about how the lyrical content held a spirit of anticipation for a Messiah who will come to save all creation. I, however, do not share in this same appreciation. As a songwriter, I listen to this song鈥攃omposed by a male Christian songwriter in Texas鈥攁nd all I hear is how it repetitively suggested that Mary 诲颈诲苍鈥檛 know who her son was, or that we, 21st century people, have better insight about the extent of his healing and grace.

A part of me is convinced that not only did Mary know鈥攕he was sure about what she had been invited into. Otherwise, she would not have gathered the receptivity and courage to respond: 鈥溾�業 am the Lord鈥檚 servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.鈥�

I have lately been talking with friends about the theme of suffering. A question that came up was, 鈥淲hen were the times we were open to suffering, instead of trying to avoid it?鈥�

My answer was immediate.

As an advocate and therapist-in-training for victims of racial trauma and marginalization, this type of work often leaves me susceptible to a wide variety of social shame and harm, especially with our currently aggravated political climate. I鈥檝e had experiences when people responded negatively to my work, claiming that racism ended after the Civil Rights act, or that there鈥檚 no such thing as white privilege. This cause has also cost me friendships, my sense of safety and belonging in many Christian communities, and vocational opportunities that guaranteed a more secure future. But I choose to persist, motivated by awareness of an enduring Jim Crow in the form of mass incarceration, or the news about a person of color experiencing post-traumatic stress symptoms even though she was not a direct victim of the generational harm her body is reacting to.

When I compare the dark state of our world today with an imagination for the full liberation and flourishing that every single person on this earth could be experiencing, I become undone. I persist because of the hope that we could be more鈥攎ore free, more dignified, and more loving towards one another. I hope for a time when the wide gap between who we are today and who we are meant to become finally closes. I say yes to a costly call only when I know its worth.

With Mary, I picture a teenager struggling to explain a supernatural conception to Joseph and her community. She was aware of the likelihood that no one would believe her right away, or that no one would believe her at all. This leaves her vulnerable to public shame and the accusation of living immorally. Yet her continual obedience was compelled not by fear, but by hope鈥攁 hope for the world to be so much more than it was, and that the Christ Child who resides temporarily in her young body will bring universal peace and rest after generations of chaos and despair.

鈥淗er continual obedience was compelled not by fear, but by hope鈥攁 hope for the world to be so much more than it was.鈥�

She might not have been fully aware of the detailed parts of her son鈥檚 coming miracles, nor the degree of his humility and obedience to God, but she said yes to a costly call of pain and peril ahead鈥攆or not only did Mary know, but she was sure of its worth.

In this time of hostility and collective unrest, may we reassess the health of our hope, and with this, I pray:

Holy Light,
Just as your mother, we ask that you renew our imagination of the immeasurable scope
and depth of your redemption.
May we live a life that not only embodies good news, but is also thrilled by it.
May you move our hearts to gaze at wonder with openness.
May you fortify our spirit to discern whether we walk in fear or in hope.
You are well aware of the darkness of our night,
The volume of our cries,
The constancy of our questions and doubts.
So may you give us a radiant assurance that we are favored and loved.
Our eternal belonging and rest are coming closer by the day.
Until then, may we ease in the mystery of your fierce and gentle ways,
You have always been with us.
Closer than breath, you are with us.

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