Advent 2018: A Refiner's Fire

Since having a baby, I find myself measuring time in new ways: in length of naps, time spent nursing, or bouncing or rocking. I wonder when I'm rocking my boy how many miles we've logged in the rocking chair. I think I'll always be able to hear Tom sing-song saying, "Movement, you like movement" as he made yet another lap of the apartment with the boy in his carrier on Tom's chest.

We mark time in coffee spoons, tea bags, bottles of beer, the ice as it melts in an old fashioned, in the waxing and waning moon, the constellations course across the sky, the monarch butterflies' arrival and departure.

Tomorrow Tom and I mark 2 years of marriage.

We went out to celebrate our anniversary yesterday and were pretty giddy and happy to be out, together, having fun. It was the first date we've been on in at least 7 months. On the way home from church today Tom talked about how he appreciated the "real" quality of our relationship, it's authenticity - not always easy, but good and growing. I said it made me think of a gem stone that's unrefined - it may not be as shiny, but it still has great value.

One thing we've learned to say to each other in sleep deprivation, and diaper explosions, and barfing dogs, in unexpected apartment fumigations and backed up toilets is "Thank you for doing hard things with me."

I've been listening to "The Cherry Tree Carol" this week and thinking about Mary and Joseph. I like the song because Mary and Joseph are so recognizably human in - Mary hungry, and Joseph peeved about his position as the father/not father of the baby. Long story short: Mary asks Joesph to reach a cherry for her, Joseph peevishly replies with an "answer most unkind" let the father of the baby fetch it, and then God causes the tree to bend down so Mary can get a fruit. Joseph realizes he has been unkind, bids Mary cheer up, and they walk on home.

How familiar, how often I find my own self harried, subsequently unkind, and brought up short in the light of God's grace. I apologize, I ask forgiveness, and go forward. I think Tom would say the same. We come back to the same truth we spoke before we got married - "We're two sinful/imperfect/human people who love each other very much." There are shortcomings, but there is grace, failures of patience, but forgiveness. Our rough parts sanding away against each other getting smoothed out as we tumble through this ocean.

I wish we knew more about Mary and Joseph, but perhaps we can infer a warmth, a love, a security that let Jesus grow in wisdom and stature, that led him to grow to be a man who made sure his mother would be looked after when he was gone. Jesus loved well and fiercely, he did good to others, he helped those in need - and some of that had to be out of the nurture of his parent's marriage, right? So often I think of Jesus as kind of in a vacuum - he gets born, he goes to the temple, and then he enters ministry - but think of all the sawdust, all the meals, all the shoes and skinned knees, think of the baby Jesus teething - think of all the small loving actions his parents did for him, and the way they showed him how to love by their actions toward each other.

Think of Joseph and Mary, sleep deprived with a newborn, singing whatever the first century equivalent of "Skin-a-marink-a-dinky-doo" was while they changed his diaper.

2 years of marriage tomorrow and we are so grateful for all of it. And I am humbled by what our love has born, and looking forward to what is to come.

Advent 1 2018

9 years ago I came to an end of sorts on this blog after a series of Advent reflections. Between now and then a few moves, a dog, a husband, a son gained; a father lost; a few churches joined and left; a marathon run. Anyway, feels right to make another try at writing here at advent - to start it up and see if the engine still turns over.

My life moment by moment feels largely composed of the questions: When will my son need to eat? When will he sleep and for how long? And how much of all the other tasks that aren't baby related can I fit into that time - not the least of which is my own eating and sleeping, and a bonus when I can hang out with my husband (OMG, we actually have a date scheduled next week!!!!).

So I felt like a reindeer in the headlights (sleighlights?) this morning when someone in Quaker meeting mentioned it was the first day of Advent.

Anticipation.
Expectation.
Longing and wondering.

And especially what does this mean to me now, in this season? And how do I share that with my son? How do I live into the expectation and hope of Christ's arrival?

We read a "My first Nativity" board book to the baby - acting out the suggestions of looking for the star in the sky, and looking for the new born king, then we sang Hark the Herald. While my husband and I read and acted and sang our son sat on his Dad's lap and played with a measuring cup, vocalized along, exercised some serious gymnastics and contortions, sucked his thumb and seemed excited about his forthcoming oatmeal followed by his traditional breastmilk nightcap.

And the thing that I've really been thinking about in this run up to Advent and now today is sweet Mary and breastfeeding. I'd never thought about before, but baby Jesus had to eat. So when I stumble to the rocking chair and grab up my boy in the middle of the night, I've thought quietly of the Mother of God - bleary eyed, tired and tender, nursing and comforting a little baby boy.

As a man and a minister Christ says "This is my body given for you..." Was he thinking about the babies he'd seen breastfeeding? About how a mother feeds her love out of her own flesh - how her milk is safety, nourishment, comfort, sustenance?

I've never felt so visceral a connection to the words Jesus speaks at the communion table before - they've always seemed so metaphorical, vaguely poetic. But here I sit knowing that in a few hours I'll nurse an infant - that my body took in extra water and calories today to meet not just my own physical needs, but his. My sleep will be interrupted, my body freely given, and my boy will fall back asleep with his needs met again.

Communion: a gift one to another, a meeting of needs, a quenching, a rest.

I'll say a prayer of thanks for my husband, for my boy, for my body that provides, I'll think of sweet Mary with a new respect and knowledge, and I'll pray to have the same trust in Christ that my baby has in me - that when I come in need, I will be filled up and sleep in peace again.