“Having the baby now…No time to get to the hospital…At the tea shop,” hollered the “Grandma” as she ran up the stairs past Iven to retrieve something from her room, looking understandably extremely anxious. We don’t know these neighbors well but have been trying to connect more, especially with the three younger children in their family of five – quickly becoming six – living in the tiny apartment that shares a wall with ours. The oldest of the kids who lives at home was nine months pregnant with her second baby and we had been greeting them with “Has the baby come yet?” for weeks already.

I took our own little baby Elian across the street to the sidewalk tea shop where the girl was laboring, in a lawn chair, just behind the tea cart. Her mom was hurriedly pacing back and forth on the street and people were yelling to get the girl in a taxi, while others hollered back, “there’s no time!”

I joined the small crowd of women gathered around her, trying not to be in the way, quietly praying and wondering if there was something I could do to help. One of my neighbors and I joked together about how little Elian had come to help encourage the baby that was getting ready to greet the world.

After just a few minutes a motorcycle pulled up with two men on it. Their police radios and first aid bag told me that they were some sort of official “first responders”. We had read a newspaper article recently (actually, on Elian’s due date) about how in Bangkok there is a special division of policemen on motorcycles that are trained and dispatched to deliver babies for women stuck in traffic. The guy they highlighted had just delivered his 42nd baby stuck in traffic.

My neighbor, however, didn’t even have time to start fighting the traffic to the hospital – less than a minute after the official looking guys arrived the girl started shrieking in a manner which told all of us that have given birth before that the baby was coming NOW. Most people started shrieking back and the men I had expected to come take control of the situation passed out two pairs of rubber gloves, said repeatedly, “better for the women to do it” and turned to walk the other way.

The woman who runs the tea cart looked at me and asked in Thai, “Tam Pben Mai? (Can you do it/Do you know how?)” I totally thought she was joking so I half laughed and responded with, “I don’t know how, but I can pray!!” She and one other girl I don’t know put on the gloves and several of us helped pull off the shorts and underwear of the laboring women, from beneath a sarong that was draped over her lap.

The girl’s shrieking made it clear that the baby’s arrival was quite imminent, and though I am sure everyone else there also recognized this, nobody did anything. Finally the younger girl with gloves picked up the sarong and sure enough revealed the head of a baby that had already emerged between his mother’s legs. She timidly put her gloved hand under the baby’s head and looked at me with terror, clearly totally overwhelmed. I thought, “this is ridiculous…someone needs to step in.” I turned to a neighbor and asked her to hold Elian, reached my hand out to motion for the tea shop lady’s gloves (who gleefully pulled them off and worked to get them onto my hands instead) and reached down to help guide the baby all the way out of his mama, and into this world.

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Last Advent was unlike any other Advent before. I spent it on a three week solo intensive that was isolating and illuminating. This is one of many poems birthed during that time.

And here it begins
at the end of a remote island road
lit only by dusk,
the night held close by maritime air
crisp with its watery wind.

Here is a place that holds
inspiration without art;
inhabited by tokens of the primal child
screaming and weeping towards freedom.

Gone are the church and its city lights;
gone the table of remembrance,
the chapel lit by candlelight,
the piano playing pretty songs of longing
with a key that sticks.

Gone the floor that creeks,
replaced by stone steps into a forest,
lit by leaves colored in fire,
strewn upon soil, rich and dark,
like a woman’s blood.

This too is Advent.

Filled with rudimentary paths no better than another,
lost and found like all of us;
in a forest on the edge of death,
like all of us.
Tall enduring trees,
snapping, broken, laid bare to waste;
like all of us.

Shhh.
Here he comes,
the little boy with trembling fear
and sadness runs the gully deep.
And picking up the axe he swings
at every wretched word,
at every fist to harm.
he swings to kill,
he swings for freedom.

The heavy wood breaks.
The ground is strewn with all that remains.

Now with strong relentless hands,
buried in red dust and bark,
a man is kneeling in what is left,
I am holding what is left.

With what is left I will begin.

Tad Monroe works with college students at Seattle University, he’s a pastor, poet, storyteller, and football coach.                                                                      He agrees with Thoreau, “life is for living”. More reflections can be found on his website tadmonroe.com where this was first published on December 3.

“I only need to get through the day.”  I say this every day, and so today became a long season. And the “right now” that I can’t stand, also can’t fit into a day.  Hours and minutes can’t explain this today.

Today I cried. I cried a lot.  I cried, and the more I tried to stop, I couldn’t.  And I tried to pray while crying, and wasn’t able to articulate a word.  I was angry and frustrated, and then exhausted of being angry and frustrated. And then I started crying again.  I wasn’t even weeping; I was bawling. It almost felt as it was a tantrum, on why, oh, why can’t things be a little better, just a little?

Today I fell down the stairs, and when I was writing about it, the words that came out changed ‘fell’ into ‘failed.’  Rolling down the stairs wasn’t as painful as the idea of not being able to stop at the bottom of the staircase. And I cried again.  The more I cried, the more I realized that the pain from falling and failing has become too familiar lately. And the scratches and bruises are hard to see from the inside… so I didn’t realized I was as hurt as I was.

I got lost today.  I got carried away while fighting with my thoughts and next thing I knew, I was in the middle of nowhere, not knowing where to go. This is a recurrent feeling in my life lately. I just don’t know how or where or when to take the next step.

Today I tried to read a little, but tears were wetting the pages.  Then I tried with a different book, but even just flipping the pages was painful and exacerbating.  I wanted to find some clarity, but the letters were as blurry and dark as my heart is right now.

So I tried to read a softer bible verse – just one. Maybe one that was easy to digest.  One that wouldn’t require me to hold onto something that is too far away.  I just needed something for the “right now.” Something for today.  And there it was, the one that has come over and over in the past months, from the voice of good friends, in an old bookmark and a couple of other random places. “Be still and know that I am God.”  The words said, “don’t move” as they saw me in pain.

And the irony is that “stillness” is not the word that caught my attention this time but “know.” And as I defragment this season of ‘today’s’, I can only smile and know the one thing I should know.  And maybe hope and dream a little for tomorrow, or the day after. Meanwhile today, I just sit with these thoughts.

Liz Herrera loves to learn, read, have a good cup of coffee and find creative ways to combine her passions: communications, urban ministries, social action and mixed media.  Liz is a journalist and has served alongside the team of CTM Guatemala since 2006 and worked for over 12 years among marginalized populations with churches and non-profit organizations.

 

i like christmas.  i am not crazy about the commercialism and try to avoid stores at all costs starting from thanksgiving on, but i do love the season.  i love the story of Jesus because of its upside-downness & the wild and wacky ways he entered into the world as God-in-the-flesh.  i love the intentional focus and celebrating each week of advent.

at the same time, i deeply respect that it is a time of year where things start to go haywire for a lot of people i know.  in fact, thanksgiving begins one of our darkest seasons at the refuge.  while other churches are getting geared up for the awesome christmas service ahead, ours is feeling the reality of depression-and-loneliness-for-many to start setting in.  it’s an interesting phenomenon and in talking to others who intersect with the margins, many say the same thing.  while the rest of the world is spinning toward the holidays singing christmas carols & going to fun parties, there are a whole bunch of people hanging on by a thread.

at the same time, regardless of life-struggles-in-general, throw in spiritual shifts and “i don’t even know what to make of Jesus anymore” and it’s even more complicated.  and lonely.  and a reminder sometimes of how much we’ve changed.  when i wrote when easter is hard earlier this year i had no idea it would stir up so many feelings far & wide.  my guess is that christmas isn’t quite as hard as a holiday as easter for a lot of people in the midst of changing faith, but it still can be tricky.  at christmas we sing more songs about peace on earth and good will to men and less songs about blood and the lamb so that might make it a little easier for some.

no matter what our circumstances are–practical or faith-based– i want to honor that these times in the year can be extra hard, extra weird, extra lonely.

the christmas season can remind us that:

we aren’t where we wish we were.  we don’t have money, partners, kids, health, security, friends, community, healing, sobriety, you-name-its that we thought we would at this point and that can feel so discouraging.

we feel alone.  some of us feel lonely in the relationships we are in, while others feel lonely because we don’t have them at all.

our families are tricky (or i am guessing you might have other words for it, ha ha!) or nonexistent.   no matter how we slice it, holidays are a time where we intersect with family.  for some, it is a happy time and you are happy to see each other while for others, families bring up feelings of dread and anxiety.  for many, there’s no home to go to and we are painfully reminded of our orphanness or the harsh realities of divorce and single parent-ness.

life is flying by.  another year has come and gone and here we are, one year older and one less year left to pursue some of our dreams. and then sometimes we wonder about our dreams.

we want more connection with God but we aren’t sure how to get it anymore.  we might not have a church or community that feeds us like before or feels safe enough to even walk into.  often, we can’t seem to muster it up on our own so our connection with God just feels…empty.

we are scared of hope.  this season is a time of hope & anticipation and for a lot of us, hope feels dangerous.

i am sure there are many others, but these are some of the top of my head today.  i promise no trite answers or simple advice but i do have a hope for those who struggle with christmas–that some how, some way, more light can seep in.  i have hope that all of us experience more slivers of joy & peace & love & hope & grace over the next month.  slivers of light are sometimes small miracles in and of themselves, God’s little revelations and reminders that we’re not alone, that he is with us.

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I missed Christmas this year.  Fortunately my friend Cathy did not.

I’ve actually missed Christmas for the past several years. It has become a conflicted time for me. I miss the Christmas of my childhood in the cool misty mountains of North Thailand and the memories there. I know I can’t return – but what I see presented as alternatives usually makes me feel ambivalent at best. Somehow I’m just not able to enter into the Christmas cheer that most people try to portray – even if they don’t feel it either. Many of my friends who grew up in the Philippines say it’s never too early for Christmas carols – and in the Philippines they take this sentiment seriously. Carols can be heard in department stores in August.

I usually hold off on playing my favorite Christmas music until a week or so before December 25^th – but then the “season” quickly comes and goes.

This year it came even quicker.

I was scheduled to work on Christmas day but my wife and I planned to celebrate on Christmas Eve and then in the morning before I left for work – but during the afternoon of Christmas Eve my stomach started to rumble and I woke up on Christmas morning having to run to the bathroom every few minutes. Needless to say, the gifts I was offering that morning were not appreciated by the giver or the receiver. Soon the toilet was blocked.

This was remedied by a Christmas gift of a borrowed plunger from the neighbors and somehow I managed to make it through work before dropping into bed that night hungry, having not eaten anything all day.

So this year, I really missed Christmas…but so did many around the world who are sick and have no doctor or medicine or even their own toilet. And there are many who are unaware of the real meaning of Christmas completely.

Fortunately my friend Cathy didn’t miss Christmas this year. In fact she might say that she truly got it for the first time. She wrote on her facebook wall, “Amazingly, for the first time ever, it hit me. Christ’s birth means that I am never alone again. He is always with me. Christmas totally changed for me this year.”

So for all those who suffer, for those who are hungry, abused and beaten, for those who have no gifts, no lights, no running water let alone clean water, no safety, no roof, no warmth or too much heat, for those who have no promise of relief in a new year I pray that this message will ring true.

Emmanuel. Surely God is with us. Not in some cheesy vending machine kind of way but in a way that will bring courage and peace, contentment and joy. God is with us in all of our fear and foolishness, our impotence and our striving, our grasping and our giving up, our lust and our killing.

Emmanuel. God with us. Never alone.

“Let it be.” These are words of faith in their most distilled form.

The angel Gabriel comes to Mary and tells her that she will bear the savior of the world. Mary is understandably confused. She asks, “How can this be?” And then, after some consideration she says three very simple words that changed her life and the course of human history. “Let it be…” (Luke 1:38b)

The Beatles song, Let it be, was written in honor of this event.

“When I find myself in times of trouble,
Mother Mary comes to me.
Speaking words of wisdom.
Let it be, Let it be…”

As a rule, CTM is an active network that makes things happen. We come out of the prophetic tradition and are very much concerned with issues of social justice. Nobody has accused us of being overly contemplative. Perhaps that is why the words of Mother Mary are so challenging. She reminds us that transformation is not something that we can will or work into existence – ever. It is always a gift. At its most fundamental level, the transformative power of the Gospel is something we accept, receive, and let it happen.

The problem, of course, is that Mary’s words, like so many words in Scripture are easily distorted. In the mouths of the main-stream, “Let it be” can easily become a cover up for the status quo. Itcan easily mean, “We like the way things are, so let it be.” On the other hand, in the mouths of the marginalized, “Let it be” can easily become an utterance of despair, resignation and fatalism. It can easily mean, “We are tired and things will never change, so let it be.” Mary’s words (the Beatles too) resist both temptations. They offer us another way.

As I see it, the key to understanding Mary (and the Beatles) is in the word “it.” When she says, “Let it be,” the “it” that she is referring to is not the external conditions of the world she inhabits – a world enslaved by violence. The “it” that she is referring to is the goodness and grace of God’s favor on the world she inhabits, and the mystery by which that favor will be demonstrated in Christ. God’s favor is the “it” – the only “it” that we are called to accept and let be.

Check out this clip from the movie Across the Universe. It beautifully, if painfully highlights the tension in Mary’s words. The scene is set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the tumultuous 1960′s when the Beatle’s wrote their song. Hear it as a prayer – a prayer for God’s favor. Hear afresh the words of Mary this Christmas, as God’s favor in Christ draws near again, “Let it be.”

Kris Rocke
Serves as director of Center for Transforming Mission
Bumps into Reality by accident, most of the time
Heard God laugh once

Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination is one of the assigned books for students taking the Image is Everything intensive offered by CTM. Dr. Brueggemann is widely regarded as one of the most influential contemporary Old Testament scholars today. In the following sermon delivered at Duke Chapel in Durham, North Carolina on December 5 2010, Brueggemann speaks of the power of poetry. Brueggemann reminds the listener of the Mothers of Israel who did poetry – celebrating the impossible – while the men among them parsed logic and drafted briefs and memos. Brueggemann states that Advent is a  time for struggle between the poem and the openness of God – and the memo that attempts to keep control. He challenges us to relinquish control in order to receive the impossible from God. Of course, as he says, it’s not just any poem, but poems from prophets who said wild things like “Unto us a child is born” and “I know my redeemer lives.”  Using Isaiah 11:1-10 and Matthew 3:1-12 as his texts Brueggemann challenges us that we “cannot get to the Christ Child without getting to these poems.”

During this season when we can be easily inundated with commercial trappings and hectic schedules, if you need something to remind you why we celebrate, I encourage you to spend 18 minutes with Walter Brueggemann and his thoughts on “The Poem: Subversion and Summons.”