The Ghost of Christmas Past (or what your English grammar teacher forgot to teach you about the real meaning of Christmas)

For Nancy, my favorite bibliophile and for William, the only person I know who knows the words to “Once in veiled darkness Judah lay”

To be perfectly honest, I am a sermon snob.  It is not so much that I am critical of preachers, but I do want a sermon with three points that tells a story.  Frederick Beuchner  is a master storyteller who knows how to craft a sermon. One of my favorite Beuchner quotes states:

“Christmas itself is a grace. It could never have survived our own blindness and depredations otherwise. It could never have happened otherwise. Perhaps it is the very wildness and strangeness of the grace that has led us to try to tame it. We have tried to make it habitable. We have roofed it and furnished it. We have reduced it to an occasion we feel at home with, at best a touching and beautiful occasion, at worst a trite and cloying one. But if the Christmas event in itself is indeed—as a matter of cold, hard fact—all it’s cracked up to be, then even at best our efforts are misleading.”

One of my students must have momentarily lost her mind because she thought it wise to argue with me in front of a patient, not once but three times.  I guess I may have snapped.  I would have described it as I had a moment and she was lucky I didn’t remove her tongue.  I chose to verbally shred her instead.  I was attempting to instruct her on how to do perineal care correctly, and she thought it wise to balk at my instruction.  Now truth be told, there are about 100 ways to wipe someone’s booty, but the Board of Nursing only recognizes one.  Just one way, and this also happens to be my way.  

I guess since I have been giving baths to patients for the past 30 years, I probably have given well over 1000.  I would say that makes me an expert and Lord knows I have cleaned way more booty than a 1000. Apparently my confused student had forgotten this fact.  I also would like to add this was her fourth bed bath.  Just her fourth.  Let me say that number again, 4. Any who, when I tried to correct her technique, she argued.  Furthermore, she continued to argue after I speaking to her through clenched teeth and my temporal artery was pulsing. Needless to say after we finished tending to the patient, I took her to the conference room and proceeding to instruct her in the error of her ways.  It was not pretty.  It got even uglier when she responded to my criticism with “But, Mrs. O’Brien….”  I quickly told her that the phrase “But, Mrs. O’Brien” would never be the correct answer.  Ever.  I also suggested she remember that I have forgotten more about nursing than she will ever know and if she temporarily lost her mind again, I hope she had sense enough to keep her mouth closed.  As my students tell me “Ms. OB snapped.”

Which brings to the sermon on Sunday and how thinking about how angry I made my English teacher once kept me from cutting out her tongue.  The reading for Sunday was Isaiah 40: 1-11.  The passage tells Judah that deliverance is near.  Judah was living in a time that parallels our world today.  Oppression.  Slavery. Poverty.  War. Violence.  It seemed as if God was not going to show up to rescue.  The prophet reminds the people of Judah that help is coming.   

Besides sermons, I love the stories behind hymns and carols.  I love to hear who, why and where they were written. There is a carol entitled: “Once in veiled darkness Judah lay.” I am willing to bet some serious money that there is only about one or two of my readers who even know that carol, much less can recite all the words.  I am also willing to bet that if all of you look in your hymnals on Sunday, only about 2 of you will find it in your hymnal.  It is not found in the Baptist hymnal, the Lutheran hymnal or the Methodist hymnal. I did find it in the Presbyterian hymnal which was a shocker to me.  It is in the Moravian hymnal and as I learned on Sunday, there is a reason for this.  

My pastor told the story of how this hymn was written.  His grandfather wrote it in 1915.  To be honest, I have never met a writer of a hymn before.  His grandfather, Rev. Douglas Rights, a Moravian pastor, was in seminary at Harvard and entered a hymn writing contest during Advent.  He wrote this hymn for the contest and he won.  The hymn is a musical version of the prophecies of Isaiah. 

Veiled in darkness Judah lay,

Waiting for the promised day,

While across the shadowy night,

Streamed a flood of glorious light,

Heav’nly voices chanting then,

“Peace on earth, good will to men.”

Still the earth in darkness lies.

Up from death’s dark vale arise

Voices of a world in grief,

Prayers of those who seek relief:

Now our darkness pierce again,

“Peace on earth, good will to men.”

Light of light, we humbly pray,

Shine upon Thy world to

day;

Break the gloom of our dark night,

Fill our souls with love and light,

Send Thy blessed Word again,

“Peace on earth, good will to men.

The hymn tells something about verb tenses and how that teaches us about the real meaning of Christmas.  My fifth grade English teacher made us diagram sentences.  She was a grammar nazi.  I on the other hand, am more the creative writer type and love to play with run on sentences, hyperbole, metaphor, simile, sentence fragments and the like.  Subject/verb agreement was never high on my priority list.  Once, she hit my knuckles with a yard stick because I didn’t use the future prefect progressive tense of a verb.  Most of you probably didn’t even know there is a verb tense other present, past or future but alas, there happens to be. But thanks to her, I learned.  Now she had to beat

that knowledge into me, but I learned subject/verb agreement. 

Now I know you are breathless with anticipation and are dying for me to get to the real point, but let me refresh your memory on verb tenses first. In English, there are three basic tenses: present, past, and future. Each has a perfect form, indicating completed action; each has a progressive form, indicating ongoing action; and each has a perfect progressive form, indicating ongoing action that will be completed at some definite time. Notice the word perfect.  It means complete or finished.

The grace of Christmas and the real meaning of Christmas can be found in the present progressive and future perfect progressive form of the verb: come.  Some 2000 years ago Jesus came to Bethlehem.  He took on our fragile flesh and brought his peace into our violence.  He breathed our air and walked on our sod. Tears were and are falling.  Hearts were and are breaking.  We needed and need to hear from God.  He was promised and we waited and are waiting and will wait. He didn’t mind the manger and he made himself at home among us.  He filled and fills and will fill our hungry souls. His coming broke heaven’s silence. That tiny heart of that baby lying in that manger was filled with blood that will save us. He took our sin and made us holy.  He did not come in vain.  And he will come again.  The real message of Christmas: Christ came.  Christ comes.  Christ will come again.  Jesus came in one definitive moment of history.  Jesus continues to come into our hearts today and Jesus will come again. 

All is grace and grateful to my English teacher for making me diagram sentences and the Moravian hymnal and every song really does need to be sung

Kathleen

There. Are. No. Words. (Or the point of hyperbole- a commentary on what a prophet who had visions of heavenly creatures and hot coals on his tongue had to say about Advent)

 For my friend Lyn and in praise of cookies and the gratefulness to the prophet Isaiah and Casting Crowns

It began as a simple plan.  My friend Lyn and I were going to have an old fashioned cookie swap.  We were going to get together one afternoon and bake a few batches of cookies to share with each other.  Instant holiday joy! Right?  Butter, sugar, flour, chocolate and nuts screams joy to me.  What we didn’t count on was exactly how long this would take, how big a mess it would make, and how tired we would be.  She moved into my kitchen Saturday and at one point we had two types of cookies in the oven, two types of dough chilling and a pot of caramel melting on the stove.  I think the last time my kitchen was in that much chaos was when we installed tile floor.  And the tile floor might have been easier. 

I had made a run to the grocery store at 7:30 that morning to buy: 5 lbs of flour, butter (4 1bs), eggs (1 dozen), and 4 bags of chocolate chips, 2 lbs. of pecans, evaporated milk, heavy cream, 2 bags of coconut, 5 lbs. of white sugar, 1 lb of brown sugar, 1 lb. of confectioner’s sugar, candied cherries and a bottle of bourbon.  (Incidentally, the bourbon was not for baking but for drinking my new favorite Christmas drink: Bourbon Pomegranate fizz).  Drinking a baking are very complimentary activities.  You should try it sometime. 

Anywho, we began this scrumptious adventure at 2 on Saturday and we threw in the towel at 6. Literally.  Lyn brought as many supplies as I had bought that morning as well as her Kitchen Aid.  Do not even think about attempting this kind of a baking marathon without at least 2 Kitchen Aids, a Cuisinart, several saucepans, about 6 mixing bowls, three sets of measuring cups, (and does anyone even really know how much 5/16 of a cup is?  I am still pondering that one), 12 cookie sheets and multiple cookie racks.  Don’t forget an unlimited number of spatulas will be needed as well. And even with all of that equipment on hand, it was not exactly the easy task I had envisioned. 7 different types of cookies later (about 12 dozen to be exact), we smelled like butter and sugar, had flour in our hair, and chocolate on our elbows.  I would also like to note that my blood glucose level was about 746.

We both are irritated by how cooking blogs have turned into these psychodramas that revolve around butter and sugar.  She and I both just want to read the damn recipe, not the novel on the first time the cookie was ever made.  Personally, I think these cook/writers (and I use both terms lightly), really have never made the recipe at all.  And I really don’t need the seventeen photos on the making of the cookie.  If you need a photo of creaming butter, may I suggest you find a series on Netflix to binge on instead.  I’d personally recommend Mad Men or Breaking Bad.

This brings me to my other rant.  Lyn was reading a recipe on turtle cookies, (and yes they are as good as you are imagining in your head right now).  The blogger was attempting to describe this delicious concoction of pecans, chocolate and caramel and simply stated: There. Are. No. Words. Periods and all.  Lyn and I just couldn’t let that go and proceeded to verbally shred this blogger.  Of course there are words.  There are always words.  Scrumptious.  Serious deliciousness. Ridiculously awesome. To die for.  The best thing I have ever tasted. Ever.  It is so good it makes you want to slap your momma.  Can I just lay my face down in that pan and lick it?  But there are words. 

Of course there are some tragedies that human language fail to describe.  For instance, there are no words for Sandy Hook, Ferguson, The Va. Tech massacre, the recent be-headings by ISIS, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, 9/11, human sex trafficking, and the crisis in Dafur.  There are no words.  But cookies always have words. 

Which brings me to my real point: the prophet Isaiah.  Advent’s best wordsmith.

For many Christians, particularly the American variety; Christmas is a time of comfort, of peace, and most always: abundance.  We’re fortunate if that is the case.  But what if Christmas is intended to be an annual reminder of our need for a Savior to break into our darkness, our “homelessness,” and for us to be convicted of our lack of offensive faith?  What if Advent, the season leading up to the celebration of the Incarnation, ought not make us sentimental and satisfied but rather challenge us to live out our sentness as bold heralds of Christ’s coming? At least that is what the prophet Isaiah thought.

The book of Isiah has been called “the fifth gospel.” By this I mean that so many of the themes of the gospels, incarnate in their portrayal of Jesus, have their scriptural beginnings in Isaiah. Isaiah’s connection to the story of Jesus seems particularly strong in the Advent and Christmas seasons. Even the prophet’s name — Isaiah means “Yahweh saves” — foretells the Christmas story.

The writings of Isaiah are distinguished among the Old Testament writings for their extraordinary literary quality. Isaiah was a poet who used vivid and powerful images and symbols to convey his message.
His father’s name was Amos and he was a lifelong resident of the city of Jerusalem. His concerns are those of the city, the king, and the Temple. Isaiah was called to prophetic service in the year King Uzziah of Judah died, which would have been around 742 B.C. He appears to have been around 18 years old at the time. He was married to a woman who was herself a prophetess (there were many more men and women prophets in those times than those whose writings have survived in Scripture). He had two sons. Isaiah preached at a critical time in the history of the Jewish people. The original nation of Israel had divided into two, Israel to the North and Judah to the South. Each had its own king, and they were constantly in conflict with each other and with larger, more powerful nations. Isaiah tried to advise three successive kings of Judah (Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah) who sometimes accepted his counsel but more often ignored him to follow their own priorities. Isaiah disappeared from the scene sometime around 701 B.C.

During the time of Jesus, nearly 800 years after the prophet’s own life and death, the words of Isaiah continued to be read prominently in the synagogue. Jesus probably heard more about what Isaiah had to say than about any other prophet. In the gospel of Luke, Jesus begins his ministry by reading a passage from the prophet Isaiah and applying the message to his own ministry (Luke 4:16-21).

The prophet of hope, peace, mercy and justice had this to say about Advent some 800 years before Jesus:

The grass dries up; the flower withers, but our God's word will exist forever.

 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

Do you not know or have you not heard? The LORD is the eternal God, creator of the ends of the earth. 

On that day the deaf shall hear; And out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see. The lowly will ever find joy in the LORD, and the poor rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone. You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing, as they rejoice before you as at the harvest, as people make merry when dividing spoils.

The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
 and a little child will lead them.

The most decisive event in human history was summed up in one word some 800 years before Jesus was ever born. That word: Emmanuel.  That is the word for things like Sandy Hook, Ferguson, Dafur, beheadings, sex trafficking, human slavery, injustice, tragedy, suffering. You are the savior we have been waiting for.  In our humble hearts you will dwell.  God is in us. God is for us. God is with us. Emmanuel. 

Advent blessings and remembering that all is grace.

Casting Crowns...a video just to remind you of Isaiah 

The sky is not the limit

I would hazard a guess that most of us, most of the time, live with Christ’s apparent absence rather than a sense of his presence. Today is my least favorite day of the liturgical calendar- Ascension Sunday.  I don't even like the hymns.  Technically, the Feast of the Ascension is always celebrated on a Thursday-exactly 40 days after Easter.  So here we are some 40 days after Easter and we are staring up at the clouds wandering where exactly Jesus went and what exactly are we supposed to do now. The Ascension brings up some serious abandonment issues for me.  I can’t help but think if Jesus would have hung out with us just a little longer then maybe things would have turned out differently.  Maybe we could have avoided the Crusades or the Great Schism.

To be honest I find Luke’s story a little too sci-fi for my liking. The way Luke tells it Jesus walked around, ate, partied, and talked for 40 days after his resurrection in a body.  And then one day, the disciples were enjoying a nice little hike with Jesus and suddenly Jesus defies gravity and disappears into the clouds with the disciples standing on the ground staring at his feet.  As Jesus is floating above them, just before he is “beamed up”, he gives his disciples some final instructions.  And just what was Jesus thinking, leaving these guys who argued amongst themselves and had completely abandoned Jesus, in charge of changing the world?  Can you imagine the Instagram photos or tweets that day?!?

The weirdest thing just happened…

#keepyourfeetontheground

@skyisthelimit.com

#canigetawitness?

The game has been changed forever.

“I will be back!”

“Hang on! Help is on the way.”

Up, up and away on my beautiful cloud…

We weren’t ready for you to go, Jesus…you didn’t tell us who was the greatest.

You want us to do what???

Go where?  All the world?  Seriously?

Who did you say was coming?  Is he family?

 

And maybe, just maybe if the disciples had Instagram or Twitter I could wrap my head around it more. The whole pre-scientific concept that Jesus went up to heaven defies modern understanding of the universe. "Up where?", people ask. "Into outer space, a planet, a star?" The ascension story doesn’t fit into modern thinking anymore; it’s not mentioned in the Bible very much and it falls on a workday. Who needs it? But somehow the early church fathers wrapped their heads around it and made sure it got included in the Apostle’s and Nicene Creed.  Both affirm the reality of the ascension. It is that important.  It is as important as the resurrection, even though it doesn’t get a lot of press.  I looked and you can’t find a card that says, “Happy Ascension Day.” And given our love to market anything…why not ascension day balloons or climbing gear? 

And this is where it kind of gets messed up for me.  Jesus bodily ascending into heaven so we could do what exactly? And where did he go and why did he leave us?   I know he promised he would send a Helper to guide and shows us truth…but let’s face it…that Spirit is a wild thing.  And to expect us to be Christ’s hands, eyes, feet, and healing presence in the world.... well, I am not entirely convinced that was the best plan.  Another blogger put it this way: “I don’t know, Jesus.  I guess I just can’t get over how miraculous and infuriating and profound and ridiculous it is that you trust us, that the God of the universe allows sinners to do His work. It’s quite an unconventional plan. There are days when I’m convinced it’s going to fail.”  

I am easing into the belief that God trusts us to know we don’t have to hold on to him physically.  He gives us power to “Go into all the world” and actually show up in tangible ways in the lives around us and to pursue justice and peace.  Ironically by letting go of Jesus, we never can really loose him.   In the ascension, God is saying that we are capable of restoring a broken world, that we really do have the power to be Christ’s love to all the world and there is no limit on that.

What God can and cannot do or why Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is a bit overrated.

 

"Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying." - Jesus according to St. John

 

He died again.   For all the layers of depth and high Christology the gospel of John has to offer, the story of Lazarus is the hardest for me to wrap my head around. This week the lectionary had us read the entire 11th chapter of the John's gospel.  All 45 verses.  I am one of those types who loves the high church tradition of standing to read the gospel and raising the gospel over our heads and processing with it.  I love the blessing of it with incense and the crucifer going before it.  But I will admit, that last evening at church, after I had helped Vance build a fire pit, painted two rooms and did six hours of yard work, I could have done with Readers Digest condensed version.   I could have just had verse 25 read and be done with it.  As usual my mind was wandering, I was fidgeting, I was thinking about dinner and how much I was missing meat and wine and thanking God that he has not called me to be Orthodox yet.  (Not only would the Great Lent be impossible for me, their faithful stand for the entire liturgy which takes 2 hours).   It takes a long time to read that story.  And it was not entirely lost on me and my very tired body that perhaps the Church fathers knew what they were doing when they insisted on reading the entire chapter.  There is some good stuff in that story, but to me the raising of the dead is a bit overrated.  

Was it impressive that Jesus raised him from the dead 4 days after he was in the tomb?
Absolutely. It's been a while since I raised a guy from the dead.
Like forever a while. Like I'll never be able to touch that a while. So yea, that was one of the greatest miracles the world has ever seen. Mind blowing amazing.

But we have to remember, it's important to remember, that Lazarus died again.

There was another funeral. His friends and family all wept again but this time there was no coming back from the grave.

The story isn’t even about Lazarus. I mean, Lazarus does very little in this story. He gets sick, he dies, and then he stumbles out of a tomb. Lazarus is just a supporting actor in this story. In fact, if this were a movie, Lazarus would have a very short, walk-on part. He doesn’t even have any lines! People talk about him, but only Jesus speaks to him, and Lazarus isn’t on screen when He does.

So what is the story really about?  Is this a story about the omnipotence of God? I don’t know because I really don’t know if God can make a four-sided triangle.  I don’t know if God can make a rock so heavy he can’t move.  I don’t really know if God knows the future or not.  I tend to think not because of free will and I tend to think a four-sided triangle is a square. And even in this story, God didn’t move the rock.  People did.  So maybe there are rocks too heavy for even God to move. So maybe getting up from dead isn't even the point. 
All of these questions speak to our fascination with the extent of God’s power, specifically whether or not God can do the impossible.

"For many of us, though we speak of love and grace and forgiveness, it is the ability to do the impossible that, in our minds, truly makes God, God. So, when we are faced with a situation in which God seems incapable of doing something we panic, worried that that inability somehow diminishes God’s divinity. "(shamelessly stole this quote from a guy named Zak Brown).

And if we are truly honest, we don’t like a God that makes rocks that he can’t move.
Most of us want Jesus to show up and pull a raising the dead.  We certainly don’t want him to be late and we certainly don’t want the funeral to have already taken place and we certainly don’t want to have to grieve.  So why did Jesus take his own sweet time in getting to Bethany? 

In one of my favorite books, The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis writes about the limits of God’s power. In a scene towards the end of the book, Eustace, Jill, Tirian, and the Pevensie children are standing alongside Aslan in the new Narnia looking on at a group of dwarfs who believe they are stuck inside a dark barn. Frustrated that the dwarfs can’t see their true beautiful surroundings, Lucy begs Aslan to do something to make the dwarfs see the reality of their situation.  

Aslan replies to Lucy saying, “Dearest, I will show you what I can and what I cannot do.”
Giving in to Lucy’s request, Aslan walks up to the dwarves, shakes his mane, and instantly a magnificent feast appears in the dwarfs’ laps.

But they can’t see it for what it really is. They think someone is simply hiding in the barn with them making lion sounds in order to scare them. They know there’s food in their laps, but they give no thought to where it came from, instead greedily fighting over it.  Aslan says, “You see, they will not let us help them…their prison is only in their mind and yet they are in that prison and so afraid of being taking in out.”

The point I think C.S. Lewis is trying to make here is that there are some things God simply can’t do and that’s ok. 

I also think Lewis is trying to make us see that most of the time we have to participate in our own miracles as well as the miracles of others.  Lucy and her siblings wanted to help the dwarfs, but the dwarfs would not allow them to. 

It is interesting to me that Jesus didn’t move the rock.  He told others to do it.  Lazarus also needed help removing all those bandages.  Lazarus didn’t just walk out of that tomb without the help of others.
 
God is not a superhero, and as long as we think of God in that way we miss out on the truly incredible things God is trying to do in and through us.  In the end, I think our fear that there may be things God cannot do, says much more about us then it does about God.  We like the God who shows up and makes the dead live again, not the God who shows up on a cross, rejected as a failure.  We want the resurrection, but we don’t want the path it takes to get there.  We don’t want to die. But sooner or later we all realize that we are going to die.  I know this seems like gloomy news… but really it is good news.  I think the real reason it took Jesus so long to get to Bethany was to show us what faith and real trust looked like. (And there is the part of me that believes in the humanity of Jesus, that believes that Jesus was seeing if God really did raise the dead or not.  After all, Jesus was depending on the same power that raised Lazarus to raise him as well. And I am not entirely convinced that Jesus knew the story ended well for him. And perhaps this is why God has not called me to a more Orthodox faith.  Obviously, I did not give up snarkiness for Lent).  Jesus did come to bring the dead back to life, but the real miracle in all of this is the gift of faith.  The ultimate test of our faith is that God is on the other side of that rock.  Sometimes we have to move the rock and sometimes we have to wait for someone to move it for us.  The miracle is in the waiting.

#epicfail

      O, Lord God, who sees that we put not our trust in anything we do...(BCP)

      Snow is an agent of Satan. Friday, two days into my Lenten fast, and the epic ice storm of 2014 hit.  I am attempting to give up meat, desserts and wine this year.  And so far with the exception of Wednesday and today (but the day is still young), I have failed.  And if it had not have been for the snow, I probably would have stayed on task. 

            My house was one of 144,000 that was without power Friday and gratefully it is has been restored.  I am saying a prayer for all my friends who still do not have electricity.  By 11 am Friday, my house was cold, so I decided to pack up and go to my mom’s house.  Davis and I packed enough for two days.  My mom lives 6 miles away.  Vance was at work, so I figured he could fend for himself.  Between us, we had five bags, four pair of shoes, four coats, two iPhones, Kindle HD, and two pair of boots and a snow shovel.  It was still sleeting and snowing, and I am guessing there was about 4 inches of snow/sleet/ice on the ground and my car.  My trunk was iced shut. It took me and Davis thirty five minutes to clean off the car and we still left all the snow all the back and hood.   We were frozen and covered in sleet when we finally go into the car and I am planning on writing liturgy that extols the mercy of God for granting man the ability to design heated car seats.

            And at the end of my very long driveway, Satan attacked me in the snow.  One doesn’t associate the color of white snow with Satan, but now I do.  The warmer temperatures and periods of rain had reduced all of that snow into a nice gray slush that accumulated under my car.  I have a Sonata that does not have a snow plow attached to the front, so by the time I reached the end of my drive way the snow was well past my bumper and my car just stopped moving forward.  I got out and assessed the situation.  I got back in the car and said a few choice cuss words and Davis just began laughing out loud and said, “Mom, Lent is not going to end well for you.  #epicfail.”

            We were going to have to dig out.  Davis went to the garage to grab our snow shovel.  It was a lot of snow.  And yes, Davis is in much better shape given basketball and baseball workouts along with weight lifting to shovel than I can ever hope to be, but those cars were driving awfully fast.  My decision was if one of us was going to be hit by a motor vehicle it should be me.  So Davis watched for cars and would yell, “Car, two coming…one coming…it’s clear now, etc.” for the next 35 minutes as I dug my car out.  Two police cars actually parked across the street and watched this little comic charade of mine.  I didn’t expect them to help shovel, but stopping traffic for a couple of minutes would have been nice.  Davis said they were just waiting for me to get hit by a car, so they could call it in to EMS.  He was probably right. It was a foolish thing to do, but I was cold.  And by then, I was colder. 

            Finally we were free!  I was so exhausted and so cold and so wet, that I just threw the snow shovel in the bag seat, told Davis to hop in and we left. My mom had asked for me to stop and pick up some birdseed for her, but I was not stopping that car until I got to her driveway.   As much as I love my mom and truly don’t mind driving in all kinds of weather, her birds were going to have to starve.  Davis had been such a trooper through all this and I felt he needed a treat.  He loves Chick-fil –A.   Of course, I do too.  As I drove to my mom’s I noticed the parking lot into the Chick-fil-A was clear, so I drove right up to that drive thru window and ordered Davis a #5 combo and myself an entrée of 8 nuggets. As we pulled off, Davis gently reminded me I had given up meat.  I am not sure but he may have posted an Instagram photo of me eating my nuggets -#epiclentenfail.  

            Lent is tough, so I've compiled this list of tips for anyone entering the wilderness.  I found these while surfing the web looking for ways to succeed at Lent.  Never could I unplug.  Remember my Lenten retreat last year? I am the one who brought the copy of her bible and BCP as an app on her iPhone, so I could also check my son’s baseball game scores.  I kept staring in my lap during that retreat just like my students do.  

The following tips are based loosely on an article by Dr. Tim Stanley found in the Telegraph. (I have no idea what type of website or what kind of authority Dr. Stanley is on the subject of Lent, but these seemed very reasonable to me. But, then again, as my son said, #epiclentenfail.)  

1.    Don’t give up anything you shouldn’t be doing anyway.  Drinking too much, cussing, credit card fraud, overindulging sweets.  Really, really should not being doing those things anyway. 

2.    Don’t give up anything you won’t miss.  Like work. Parking lot duty. Cleaning your room. Having your teeth cleaned. Mammograms.

3.    Don’t give up everything because you will die or perhaps someone else will.  Some people go on crash diets of no meat, no carbohydrates, and no alcohol. While you might feel like a saint for 24 hours, (I made it for a whole two days), you will feel like a raving lunatic in about a week.  I am just a middle-aged teacher/nurse from Virginia and not Jesus.  The chances of me keeping a strict fast are very, very slim. God is very accustomed to human beings letting him down.   And I often suspect that God expects us to fail far more often than we do.  

4.    Don’t let Lent sink you into despair.  A monk said once, that the thing he was giving up for lent, was giving up. 

5.    Don’t think you can sneak off the Lenten vows behind God’s back.  He is omnipotent and omnipresent.  He really does know about the Dove chocolate you have hidden in your dresser drawer. 

6.    It is about God, not you.  Lent can sometimes be turned into a second chance at New Year’s resolutions or an excuse to shed a few pounds.  The entire point of Lent is to remind us about God-not to fit into last year’s swimsuit.  Try to think about Jesus living on a diet of grace and sand-that’s the real point of fasting. To get all of your demons (which could be chocolate, social media, booze, selfies, anger, fear, snow, heat, jealousy, grudges,  Chick-fil-A,etc.), out of the way so you can actually see God every once in a while. 

       The good news is that even if Lent turns out to be #epicfail, and you wake up and find yourself hiding in the bathroom eating an entire bag of Dove chocolates, it really is ok.   It serves as a reminder of how weak and frail you really are.  I hate to break it to you, but the job of God has already been taken. The entire Lenten season or Christianity for that matter is about facing your humanity and owning up to your failures.  Better still; the message of Lent is one of redemption.  Of being resurrected again and again and again.  It is about life coming from death. It is knowing that whatever goes wrong in life, God always gives second chances.  Lent is about falling down, getting back up and trying again even the entire 40 days were #epicfail.