The Gift

At my most cynical, it's the shopping that saps me. I don't mind browsing, but choosing is agonising, and any time spent at the shops in December is uncomfortable. I care too much about buying the present that will delight.

We all sit around the pile of presents that dwarfs the tree. We've eaten chicken and ham and all the healthy vegetables, drowned in gravy. Now for the presents. The wrapping is torn off quickly and the excitement never quite satisfies. Are gifts a reminder that nothing in this world will ever fill our gaping hearts?

In the midst of Christmas spirit, giving is fun and the presents a ritual that brings us together. Advent is like a parade passing two warring factions in the middle of town. The howls of commercialism and my recriminations wave streamers on my left. The delight of enjoying good things and blessings from our maker shout from my right. There's no easy straw man here because we live in a world of things and expectations and people whose bread is bought by Christmas dollars. Take care with judging, I tell myself. My sister-in-law says I look tired, so I nod. I'm not sure if I am physically tired, but this moral mire drains me. Is this why Christmas fills me with both excitement and dread?

Family and giving and having my cooking on show lays me bare. I see my dependence on praise from others, my fear of disappointing, my pride. The gift I need is grace.

My daughter painted me a picture and my son found me a colourful tin at the op shop. No other gifts can compare in value, and I boast gently in them. Truly, I am blessed.

 

We cling to these Christmas rituals, don't we? Impressing each other with our hospitality or our generosity. Getting Christmas done earliest, being ready for it. I do it every year. And then I remember that we're celebrating a late arrival baby in a messy stable. How could we ever really be prepared?

 

It's such a time for love and acceptance. That it's OK when my roast potatoes are a bit cold and soggy. Or just plain underdone. That I didn't actually get you your favourite present, but you're glad to spend the afternoon with me. That your being unprepared or flustered or just tired is fine with me.

 

What about this gift? The capacity to sit amongst this mix of delight and expectation, impatience and weariness, with grace and patience. To let it be, without wishing it were something else, because God is here. 

 

Linking with Amber for the last December Abstraction.

 

 



It goes without saying...

The important stuff is hardest to form into sentences. For introverts. Probably for all of us.

My regard and warmth can be so comfortable, so integral, that I forget you are unaware of its presence. I neglect to say it aloud.

I'm pretty sure I didn't tell you that the possibility of talking to you is enough. That your very existence, and the repeated intersections of our lives are with me every day. That the times we laughed, or sorrowed or shared have worn grooves in me. The good kind of grooves, like smile lines etched around my eyes, or the hollow made by my elbow tucked around a child.

I'm doubly sure you've no idea that you are in my thoughts regularly. That for every time I speak to you, there's been a dozen when I pictured you and blessed you. My cards don't get written, or if they do, they don't always get sent. And I'm not excusing my disorganisation. Just letting you know I haven't forgotten.

I examine myself and know that the here and now absorbs me. I struggle to think in more than one dimension. And I'm sad that I don't respect and serve long-standing friendship faithfully enough. Because I don't want to leave important things unsaid.

I have wanted to trust in the economy of friendship. Being a faithful friend earns me good friends in return. I realise that this is another way to measure myself and strive for good enough.

It's that feeling at a party. When the celebration is for you and you worry that you're not enough reason for all the fuss. It creeps up at my fortieth when precious friends bring good wishes, presents and smiles. They while time with me. I fear you're wasting it but actually you've wrapped it and proudly given it to me. Because you love me.

There is no economy in friendship. I cannot buy it, or earn it, or store it up for later. Friendship is an extravagant, generous gift. You bring grace to the table, my friend. Thank you. A big loud thank you.

Sharing with Emily,

Bother is good

She's sorry to be a bother.

How do I answer? That she's not a bother (my desire to calm and reassure). Or that she is a bother but that's what we are called to. To bear one another's bother-ness.

She is loving me enough to let me bother.

Another apologises for the tears she sheds over coffee. Sorry to talk about the depression or the failure or the overwhelming lostness. We tell her that it is joy to be real, to know her search and that she lets us talk about God and his comfort.

Why all this delicacy? This hiding from pain? This pretence?

People hidden but longing to be noticed and their wounds salved. Sad, that we go to such trouble to be OK and to not make trouble for people. Sad that inside we are trembling and teetering on tears, and comfort seems such a bother.

We are the disciples of the one who bears burdens and soothes the weary. The more we do that for each other - the more we allow the bother in, and let the bother be OK - the more people will be drawn to this family. Because we are real and we let each other in.

God's gifts challenge us

“While God’s gifts are welcome, in fact they do disrupt. God’s gift of truth disrupts our systemic mendacity that denies our lethal social practices. God’s gift of generosity contradicts our parsimonious selfishness. God’s gift of mercy interrupts our hard-hearted indifference. God’s gift of justice exposes our systemic injustice. God’s gifts amount to an inconvenient reality among us; they remind us that what we have come to regard as ‘normal’ continues a deep abnormality in which we may have no complacency.”


–Walter Brueggemann, Living the Word. (Sojourners)

O God, I beg two favors from you;

let me have them before I die.

First, help me never to tell a lie.

Second, give me neither poverty nor riches!

Give me just enough to satisfy my needs.

For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?”

And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name.

Proverbs 30:7-9

Notice It.

"Can we go to Grandad's place in the holidays?"

Last night. The car is packed ... clothes - check, sleeping bags - check, gumboots - check, children - check, dog in a travel box... etc. The kids and I wave back at Dad as we leave, drive out the driveway ... then back in to pick up forgotten essentials. The trip was smooth other than the reappearance of a dinner unexpectedly. Thank goodness for the spare pyjamas I had carried absently to the car, (not quite sure why).

Today my father has driven kids around in the trailer with a load of lucerne, then on the back of the tractor to go down to the dam. He has carried baby boy to soothe his crying. He has made us lunch and dinner and distributed kind and gentle words throughout. He mowed the lawn and sat with me to enjoy a quiet winter-sun cuppa.

I have talked with my step-mum (who welcomes conversation and drinks it in), and she made me an espresso coffe and offered me a glass of wine with dinner. I have stepped into an oasis. A quiet place where the demands of home and life seem slower and less insistent.

I read part of the weekend paper. Somehow that seems an enormous achievement.

Today I give thanks for...

922.  grandparents
923.  2 days in the country
924.  kids on the back of a tractor
925.  feeding the animals
926.  ibuprofen and paracetamol
927.  a father's love
928.  meals prepared with a desire to serve
929.  dogs playing and racing
930.  holidays
931.  playing in the shed
932.  long afternoon baby naps
933.  my father's quietness and gentleness
934.  reading Spectrum and Good Weekend
935.  savouring the moment.

Stop. Sit. Soak in the slanted rays of sun on my skin, on the dark denim cloth as it rests on my legs. See the dapples of light on the freshly mown grass. The bare branched trees with their bumps of pre-leaves, hinting at shade that will be. Breathe in the shorn lawn smell. Notice the memories that drift in my mind of these smells, these sights, sounds and tastes. Notice the feel of a dog on my lap, leaping up as the baby slides down to wander a little. Safe and settled. This moment is a gift from God to refresh me.
Notice it.

God is enough

Do you wish you had known? That the you of today could whisper in the ear of yesterday's you. A warning? Some preparing or wisdom for what is to come?

Or does God just deliver the grace that we need on the day it's required?

Somehow he gently delivers patience and goodness ready-to-use if we would just open the parcel. Let down again, we face the choice to hurt back, or to plead with our maker for more of his enabling forgiveness. The narrow way is to turn from revenge, to decide not to injure when we feel broken and raw.

"Father, I did not know it would be like this." He hears our anguish, he weeps our tears, his heart knows the piercing wounds in your spirit. He is beside us when we have been abandoned. He dresses and tends the burns, the grazes, the deep gashing wounds with the salve of his presence, his empowering and his complete enoughness.

Truly, he has given us everything we need for the life reflecting him.

Today I am thankful for,

606.  friends sustained by Jesus
607.  heartfelt, fervent prayers
608.  autumn in the Blue Mountains
609.  peaceful sleep
610.  generous laughter
611.  browsing, unhurried
612.  friends with gifts, using them
613.  refining through suffering
614.  impossible refreshing from God
615.  coming home - walking in the door to hugs all round
616.  an unexpectedly good day at work
617.  walking at dusk
618.  the house in quietness

I am thankful, today, for God's work in our church. Yesterday we had the induction service for our new children's pastor. God has brought a really gifted, encouraging, like-minded friend into our midst to share in our ministry to the people around us. We live in a suburb with lots of kids and families, and have been looking for someone to lead us in the ministries we have and dream of having to kids around here.
My list is continuing but I am just going to share,

551.  Jen, and all that she and James bring to our church family. Thanks Father!

Find out more about the thankfulness list and the Gratitude Community

Thankfulness...

464.  the smell of fresh cake
465.  arriving home to dinner on the table
466.  warm cheeks laid on mine
467.  handmade love-cards
468.  vegemite/nutella smeared faces
469.  half-emerged front teeth
470.  desperate prayers
471.  reading beautifully formed, evocative reflections
472.  mending hearts
473.  abundant grace - no scarcity here
474.  tying soccer boot laces
475.  familiar discussions
476.  letting go long held resentment... again
477.  donuts delivered to the door - another small thoughtfulness

The gratitude list continues. Not at 1000 by the 9th of May, but enjoying many good gifts from above.

Gratitude Community Update

I have completed 1-250 this week. I have written blithely at times and then had times of deep searching to turn the thankfulness tap on.

Here's a few...

52.  morning porridge
53.  a big glass of water from the tap
54.  patting Bonnie to sleep on my lap
55.  a fresh loaf of bread
56.  an unexpected message
57.  time with old friends
58.  seeing the past in a different way
59.  a friendly chat with the man making coffee
60.  laughter at a meeting
61.  being part of a team
62.  the scent of maraya on the air
63.  panther black sky with pinpoint stars

Why don't you give it a go?
(Let me know, too, please)

1000 Gifts

Gratitude is such a healthy attitude. I really want to cultivate it in my family. I'm starting with nourishing my own gratitude. The challenge is to gather a list of 1000 gifts I already have. I would love to finish by Mother's Day (May 9th). I'll let you know how I'm going... 

Click the Holy Experience link to read more...

Advent

It's been 2 months since I have posted anything and I'm contemplating changes in my blog.

My project for the next week is to make sure we have something planned to do as a family for advent. I have been reading what other people do/have done and feel slightly overwhelmed at the prospect.

My prayer is that I can excite everyone about the gift that God gave us - Jesus. It's so easy for kids to get caught up in all the commercialism of Christmas. I have really noticed how parents can promote this by making gifts and desires such a focus. We live in an area of Sydney with lower resources but parents go all out to buy heaps at Christmas. Especially putting heaps of money into Chrisco (a company that I really dislike for the way they rip poorer people off!!).

Being Thankful

How do I teach my children to enjoy good things and be thankful for them?

If something we like happens regularly, we can get to expect it and forget that it is a blessing. We might even get to the point of demanding it and being put out when it doesn't happen. A gracious gift can become a burden to the giver and the recipient takes it for granted.

I am finding this a hard one to teach at home. Maybe I need to look out for where I take gifts for granted?