The Sixth Noel: Moving in the Elements

THE SIXTH NOEL: MOVING IN THE ELEMENTS

Saint Matthew 2:14:

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt.

Click on this link to listen to the soundtrack for this Noel. 

Once again, the joyful Christmas celebration is disrupted by a little thing called reality. Or tyranny, which, to me, are pretty much the same. 

I don't want to say that such things are OK. Children, divine or not, and families, holy or not,  shouldn't have to flee for their lives at the hands of evil, stupid politicians, warriors, powers. But . . . as the bumper sticker says, it happens. A lot. 

It happened to Jesus and his family, if the wild and not very sentimental story is correct. That not-very-insignificant bit of realism connects with the other dots of this story, expressed with pith and power in the old Saint Helena Island (South Carolina) gospel song, "Mary Had a Baby." 

In that amazing call-and-response version of the Christmas story, there are no sleigh rides or Christmas bells. There is, though, a mother with a baby. Born in a stable. She laid him in a manger. Shepherds heard the singing. So far, pretty humble stuff. 

Star kept shining. King Herod tried to find him (cut from this version, unfortunately so, since it reminds us of the earlier response to "What did she name him?"/"Named him King Jesus."). Forced into exile, Jesus went to Egypt, traveling on a donkey. Angels all around him.

In case you didn't realize it, I just quoted about half the song.

Those who know the song, and especially this version (since most performed versions include only three or four of the verses), know that I left out a line. I think it's one of the most intriguing and wonderful and unexpected lines in any Christmas song, gospel song, maybe just song.  

"Moving in the elements, my lord. 

Moving in the elements, my lord. 

Moving in the elements, my lord.

The people keep a comin' and the train done gone" (grammar corrected by Cockburn for some strange reason; probably some Canadian thing).

That pretty well sums things up, I think. We don't know who wrote that fine line. Probably not one person. But someone was the first to sing it. Maybe they heard it in church, or just a prayer meeting. Or maybe it was a popular expression for being left vulnerable to the exigencies of nature--the rain, the wind, heat and cold, sudden donkey stops, hunger pains, maybe lack of water, no roof over one's head, no bed, inadequate clothing, and, as they say, the list goes on. 

What a line. What an idea. Christ the Lord, the new born king, the Son of God, had given up . . .whatever THAT was he gave up for THIS. For moving in the elements. For a mother's womb, a father's rough hand of discipline, for a donkey's gait, for dirt, wind, hunger, thirst, fear, grief, temptation,  disease, a permeable skin, death.

But there's more to the elements than just pain and suffering. He was moving in the glorious elements, the "something rather than nothing" that is creation. The miraculous sun, the delicate moon, the faithful star that kept shining, the elementally composed beasts and fellow humans who, yes, can hurt us, but who also can make us laugh, scratch our backs, listen to our stories, join with us in song, stand silent with us as we watch a sunrise, and stay with us in our time of need. Or visit our grave.

Of course, there were no guarantees as to whom would do what when. No guarantees that the elements composing rocks and nails, for example, would be used to build or to destroy, to join things or crucify persons. 

That was the risk. But "the elements" is exactly what Yahweh declared good, if that oldest story means anything. And "moving in the elements" rather than escaping them is exactly where we might expect to find the one who some call "god with us" (Emmanuel). 

I saw my brother's body at its worst stage ever. A body in which he had done wonderful things and some, I'm sure, not so wonderful. At its best, to love, to generate children, to build fine things, to put counters in his brother's kitchen (when the poor professor could finally buy a house). To mount the stations of the cross in his local church. 

Even at the end, I thought, and said out loud to whomever cared to listen, he's a giant. He was. He was of the elements, elemental. Of the earth, earthy. Of the creation, a well-made creature. His skin, his mouth, his hair (damn, Gordon and I envied him his great hair), his kind eyes--they were not his shell or his husk, the reality being something and somewhere else. They were the elements in and by which he moved. 

Just so, at Christmas, we celebrate the refugee God, moving in the elements, from heaven to earth, from Israel to Egypt, from birth to death. When people call him the god/man, though it's not really something to be understood, it is something that, in a sense, makes sense of the senses. 

If he was anything, he wasn't a divine spirit hiding inside a puppet of skin and bone, just appearing to be elemental in order to get us to forget our bodies and the world around us and think about . . . what exactly were we supposed to think about again? 

For once, I'm not going to complain about Augustine. I will just say this: if Mary's baby (aka King Jesus) didn't enjoy the food and the wine and the goosebumps from the first cool wind of autumn (and the first girl he ever realized was a girl!!), and if he didn't feel the annoyance of sand under his shirt, too many hours without sleep, or not enough shade, he might as well have stayed put. 

But he didn't. 

And he did.

I'm not going to say "it's elementary." That's way too easy.   

If you didn't click on the link to listen to the song, do so now. Of if you did, go ahead and listen again. 

The Fifth Noel: Chantez Joyeux Noel

The Fifth Noel: Chantez Joyeux Noel

We sing when we are together. That's what we do. It's in our DNA, as they say in phony journalism and the meetings of public relations consultants. By we, I hope I mean we human beings, who share song with the birds, but have, arguably, better lyrics. Arguably is an ugly word and, a little known fact, is forbidden from use in opera libretti. 

I mean I love bird songs almost as much as I do human necks, but the entire bird kingdom, if there is such a thing, has still not produced one bird duo as fine as the Everly Brothers. 

Anyway, by we I also mean the Ricke family. I'm not exactly sure where it came from, but I know a few things. My maternal grandfather, Charles Thompson, whom we called Paw-Paw (at his request, lest you think less of me as a child) played in a hillbilly band back when that meant something more than a bunch of suburban Californian kids with expensive mandolins and fiddles and phony accents. I mean, back in those days the number one requirement to be in a hillbilly band was to be a hillbilly. Today, it helps if you're from England and play the same stupid lick on the banjo at the end of every song. 

But Paw-paw played hardcore hillbilly, in a band called the Arkansas Travelers. My mom had some old 78s (wish I knew what happened to them) which occasionally she would put on the old record player so she could listen to the music her dad made when he was a young man and before he was her father. I don't think he sang on the records. As I remember his voice was a combination of a growl and croak. That worked for Dylan, but back in the day, hillbillies had to be able to sing it or leave it alone. 

Mom used to sing to and with us on every car trip of any distance. And when you live at the ultimate bottom tip of the nation, a mile from the Rio Grande River, you had to drive (and sing) a long way to get just about anywhere. She also played the harmonica, especially under the influence which was often. She didn't do either particularly well, but when you're a kid, you don't really know that, and when you're in the back of Country Sedan fighting with your siblings, you don't have the energy to be a music critic. I remember she also played the jaw-harp, which, for some reason, is not included in most symphony orchestras.

Her favorite was the song about "Redwing," the little Indian maid. Also Clementine and songs like that. And the song about how much we loved our Valley home way down upon the Rio Grande. We'd sing all the way to Houston sometimes, or at least it seems like it now. At least as far as George West which is where mom lived as a girl and was smack dab in the middle of absolute nowhere. She used to make dad drive us all there so she could be nostalgiac, brood, cry, and (I suspect) write poetry.

Well, we got the bug, if that's what it is. When we got a bit older, it was very much the expected thing, the usual family activity, in different configurations, to sit on the steps (in Denver), Mom's backyard (in Houston), Missy's spirit yard (in Austin), and Gordo's stone porch (also in Austin). Usually Gordon and I would play guitars and whoever else was there would sing along. But we'd also pass the guitars around if other people had a song they wanted to sing or accompany. Noel could play, but usually didn't. He never took the lead. He never sang loud, just would join in with everyone else. 

Singing is a gift, from the gods or the birds or both. I'm not sure anyone has ever really understood exactly where it comes from and what it does to and for us and how it does it. I'm sorry for people who think that music is primarily something experienced through ear plugs and while doing other things. Music is already a thing. Maybe a thing divine. And supremely worth doing. Can you imagine singing and dancing to an old French Noel while doing your homework or texting someone or watching ESPN with the volume off? If you can imagine it, stop it right now before I unfriend you (another ugly word not allowed in opera). 

The last time I was really with Noel for an extended time was in October when he was recovering from his hip-replacement surgery. I brought my ukelele. He had a lot of downtime, and he was in a lot of pain. We sang some stuff together, the stuff we always sang together. Beatles, Dylan, Simon and Garfunkle, Amazing Grace, and such. Then he wanted me to play some of my songs. He got to hear a couple that basically nobody else has ever heard. And the stories that went with them. It made me feel really good that he liked them. He made me play when other people came to visit too, like his in-laws. Not sure what they thought about it. After all, it was a ukelele. Sometimes I even wonder about that.

In November, things were obviously a lot worse. We either knew or feared that we were coming together to say goodbye to him. He said some words, some very lovely ones in fact, but for the most part, conversation was not much of an option. But we sang a lot. A. Lot. With a chaplain whom we invited in to pray with and for us. He stood at the foot of the bed and sang a wonderful blessing. We sang hymns, old songs, Christmas carols, and whatever else we felt like. 

Nathan brought his mini-Martin so we had a guitar to play. One day we sang for what felt like three hours straight. Starting with "The First Noel" and "Silent Night," but pretty soon, we sung up every song that driver knew. At one point we slipped into "Take It Easy," and "Wild World," and then the room really started jumping when we took off on "Brown Eyed Girl." This feels like a movie in my memory, but as we were "sha la la la la la la la la la la-ing like New York Presbyterian Hosptial ICU has never heard before, Noel's nurse whisks open the curtain (closed to give the impression we cared about keeping things quiet) and squeals, "That's my favorite song" and starts rocking out with us. 

I can't remember how we ended. I can't remember why. Maybe we actually were trying to be sensitive to the other patients. I remember that, at some point during the long night before he died on Saturday morning, we sang Amazing Grace again and I read the 23rd Psalm. And we prayed the Lord's prayer together. 

Everything good in this world can kick you in the gut if you aren't careful. And, truth be told, it will kick you in the gut even if you are careful. This is what it is to be an animalangel on this mysterious planet. It means you have a gut. And you will get kicked. So don't be so careful.

In spite of that, we sing. Or maybe because of that. As I said before, we can't explain it. Well, actually, I can, but you would have to sign up to take my course Dr. Ricke's Ironic Explanations of Everything, and it only happens around a fire or on the stone porch or, now, a hospital bed, and never on a T.E.D. 

So Love comes to us again, and, despite what you may have read in devotional literature, we sing and dance as spiritual exercises. Love came as a baby. Love comes as a brother. Love comes in a birth. Love comes at death. Love comes in a song. In a dance. Ask Saint Francis. I will bet you a hundred years in Purgatory that he agrees with me.

Well, one day we had nothing to do. The funeral would be Tuesday and Wednesday. We had rested all day Sunday. So, on Monday, we took a drive up the Hudson River to a little town where Lynn and I and Matthew and Nathan and Lauren used to live. We walked, a talked, and ate Italian, and marveled at the great river at Nyack, so big the Dutch called it a Zee at that point. 

We got a hotel that night and, glory be, it had an indoor pool. We spent a fun hour at the local Walmart trying to find things that would serve for swimming gear. The clearance swim suits had been gone since September. But we put together a little of this and a little of that. Missy was the hardest to figure, but she finally rigged something up. 

Nobody else came into the pool that night. Maybe because of the crazy music coming forth. I swear that joint had the sweetest acoustics of . . .  any indoor swimming pool in the Hudson River region. 

I forget what got us going. DNA, I guess. But before you know it, Gordon and I were harmonizing on the sweet high then higher tunes of the Everly Brothers. And, of course, "The Boxer." Sam Cooke. "You Send Me. " "Chain Gang." Beatles. When we started in on The Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody,"  Missy finally suggested we quiet it down a little bit. I don't know, we probably ended with "We Are the World" (not!) or "Let It Be" (probably).  Gordon was sitting on the edge of the hot tub, and I was in the pool, keeping time by slapping the water. 

Because I'm human, and maybe because of Kierkegaad, I can't imagine pure joy. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just that I can't imagine it. But I do imagine it involves singing. And I hope it involves dancing. Maybe Noel will take the lead for once and show us all how to do it. 

We slept well, despite the snoring. 

The Fourth Noel: Blood, Tears, Comfort, and Holy Innocents

THE FOURTH NOEL: BLOOD, TEARS, COMFORT, AND HOLY INNOCENTS

At the exact moment, 
a moment I will never forget, 
that I knew Noel wasn't going to make it, 
I put my hand on his leg and said, 
without rehearsal,  
poor boy.

I had, we had, all been so strong 
fighting for him and with him, 
that there really hadn't been 
free time and 
emotional space        

for a good cry, 
except for those occasional misty moments 
as we talked about Noel's life 
entwined with ours.
Part laugh, part cry, part mammalian brood instinct. 

Then, for some damn reason, 
I said it again in Spanish. 
Pobrecito, which might also be translated,
Poor little bastard. 
I guess you never know what will open the floodgates of grief.
A picture, a voice, a song, a smell, a mental image that forces its way on and in you without the slightest conscious provocation.

In this case, it was word, 
a familiar one from our childhood days, growing up on the Mexican border.
One we usually meant ironically and even sarcastically 
as if to say--
oh you poor whining baby can't you see I'm playing the violin for you? 
POH-BRAY-CEE-TO!

With that, not after that but with, 
I broke down into uncontrollable sobbing, 
Turning away from Noel's bed and hunching over and shaking until my oldest son,Matthew, came and held me tight, 
Like I was his baby. 

December the 28th is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. 
Part of the Christmas "Festivities"--a day of remembrance for the baby boys of Bethlehem, 
massacred by King Herod and his soldiers, 
who hoped to wipe out the new born king and the kingdom of love in one ugly act. 

Why? That's a question Noel asked, although I never knew exactly what he meant.
Why? The mothers of Bethlehem asked, and I know exactly what they meant. 
They cried and they cried and they cried and they cried, and after pausing--
to breathe and wipe their snotty noses, 
I'm sure they cried some more. 
And every year around December the 28th or whatever the real date of the dying, 
They cried again. 

As they should.

The Gospel of Matthew says their terrible grief 
fulfills the words of the prophet Jeremiah, 
"It is the voice of Rachel, crying for her children. Refusing to be comforted."
In the medieval tradition, both in art and drama, 
 the mothers of Bethlehem make their lament so loudly that it becomes an annoyance to the soldiers, 
who then start to call them names (like "shrew" ). 
Their lament links them with the tradition of Mary, mourning at the cross of her son, refusing to be comforted even by him. 
This is usually called the Planctus tradition. 
Or sometimes, the Laments of the Virgin Mary. 

So, if you want my advice, 
do NOT read Saint Augustine's take on the death of Holy Innocents. 
Basically, isn't it nice that they got to go to heaven without living on this bitch of an earth. 
Or words to that effect. 
Maybe I'm missing something, but that 
seems to undercut or judge as unworthy 
the grieving of the mothers, 
which seems to be the very point of the biblical text.         
Figures.

I would, instead recommend the words of St. Matthew. And the acts of son Matthew. 

A final bit. 
My friends Cindy and Courtney lost their son Tripp in late November of '11.
I know I thought about what that first Christmas must have been like without their shining boy, who had also been my student. 
Now I know, although not exactly. 
No two griefs are ever alike because grief is always particular grieving for someone in particular.

And that's only one family. 
Of course, it's difficult to focus on but important to remember 
how many around us are grieving at Christmas. 
It's not a few. 
Not by a long shot.

The Feast of Holy Innocents is the fourth day of Christmas,
an example of how liturgy is meant to shape and teach us, sometimes even without sermons. 
Sometimes better than sermons. 

The first Christmas, 
the Real Christmas, 
is bleared with the tears of grieving mothers 
(and we assume, fathers, and brothers, and sisters, and rabbis, and friends). 
It is the Lucy Van Pelt version of Christmas
--"Jingle Bells. You know, Santa Claus, and ho-ho-ho, and mistletoe, and presents to pretty girls"--
that is offended by the juxtaposition of such horrors 
with fleecy snow, fleecy lambs, 
and a divine baby who never cries. 

The real Christmas has always been about both birth and dying, dancing and grieving. 
And asking why. 

Unless I'm missing something, it does not promise or guarantee the Lucy Van Pelt version of anything. 
And it may not always even bring comfort. 
The mothers of Bethlehem would not be consoled. 

But that's no excuse for not trying. 
Even if you just hold them until they quit shaking.









 

       

The Third Noel: Lovely Things Lost and Found

Noel at 14

LOVELY THINGS LOST AND FOUND

Things happen, that's for sure. Disruptions of the everyday, dissension in the troops, eruptions and divisions and incisions of all kinds. 

Noel, like the Saint John of tradition, the Saint remembered on December 27 by the church universal, was a lovely boy. And a smart boy. And, I might add, he fancied himself quite a fisherman, though on the Gulf Coast of Texas not the Sea of Galilee. 

The handsomest young lad you could imagine. I always thought he had more of our father's looks than any of us. I favored our mother. Gordon, I thought, favored our grandfather. Missy--I could ever only see her fingernails coming toward my face. But Noel was a ridiculously cute baby who grew up into quite a lovely boy. 

And did I mention smart? And talented? And athletic? Although we were all competitive swimmers, he was the only one of us to ever win the all-around title at an AAU swimming meet (meaning that he probably won several events and won a medal in a few others). 

We called him the little professor because . . . he knew everything. And if you didn't believe him, he'd willingly volunteer the information. He could have should have been a professor. Or a lawyer. Or a minister. Or anything else that combined the gift of the gab with brains and an ability to make people like you. 

As I say. Things happen. Life changes. Difficulties arise, if you want to get all passive about it. Family problems. Father problems. Mother problems. Drinking problems. Job problems. Financial problems. All of our lives were disrupted, mine the least because I was away at a boarding school. But Noel's life, as with Gordon's and Missy's, was shifted off kilter before he was a teenager when our father and family basically lost everything in our little Texas hometown and had to start all over (and, in fact, never recovered). We moved to Denver, notorious city of sin and vice. Then things happened. 

I might talk about some of those things, but it's not my point or my purpose. I wanted to say, Saint John moved from being probably a mediocre fisherman to being the self-proclaimed disciple whom Jesus loved. And from that, in rather short order, to the disciple whom Jesus left (and left his mother with). Great love was the theme of his writing; one assumes of his life as well. With that came great loss and great grief. Grief is the price we pay for loving (I didn't make that up; but then again, neither did Rachel Held Evans so she can't come after me). 

Noel died on November 23rd, surrounded by his family and knowing their love. You might say he ended as he began, being loved on by his big brothers and sister. His tender baby skin, now in a giant's body, was poked and prodded and bruised and bloated and scaled. 

We rubbed lotion on him every day. My son, Nathan, gave me the idea when I came to visit Noel back in October, when he was "just" getting over hip replacement surgery. Everything hurts, everything goes to pot when you're lying around in a hospital bed day after day. Anyway, Nathan just said I should rub some lotion on his face because he was getting all dried out. That was a great idea. 

I'm not resigned to this death. I'm not happy about it. I'm not OK with it. But it is a great gift, I think,  to be surrounded with love when you die. And to be able to surround the dying one with love. Noel was a great brother, a lovely boy. But to say he "deserved" such treatment isn't fair, I think, to the majority who do not have such an ending. It's a grace, a gift, a special mercy not merited. To be lovely, to be loved, to be missed so much--these are special gifts in a universe in which all things move towards rot. 

Doctor Olson, liver specialist, stood by his bed with tears in her eyes. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to get a transplant. He was going to get better." Obviously, we were all crying then. She looked at all of us in the room with him. "But this is a gift. For you. For him. People don't have this. People don't get this. Hardly ever." We thanked her. May she live to be a hundred and have not too many mornings like that one. 

Nigella, J's dog died last night. J is a dear friend. Nigella was a Sharpei whom J rescued several years ago. She rescued her, gave her a home, loved her, fed her, cared for her, managed her sensitive health, saved her. And now has lost her. Nigella was J's  family, along with the other dog she lost last year and Tilda, the crazy dog who survives. She couldn't talk today. Or move hardly. I took her some noodles. 

Kristin's cats died a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if there are laws in the old German Democratic Republic as to how many cats one person can own,  but if it were the good old totalitarian days, I don't think she could make her home a veritable cat hospice. But she does. And, right now, she's feeling the price of loving and caring so much. 

The same is true of my brother Gordon, one of the most sensitive dog-lovers I've ever known. His beloved Giant Schnauzer, Sonia, died of cancer three weeks ago, almost right after we got back from New York. 

Things change in this world. Christmas or not. Cute vibrant talented little boys grow up, get sick, and leave us. Lovers leave or die or both. Rabbis get crucified. And then, if we can believe the stories, rise again only to leave again. We are animals and we are hurt, disoriented, lost, whimpering at loss. We also can think about and reflect on and tell stories about and remember and, maybe, sacralize our losses and our lost loves. Animal losses are different, I'll admit. As long you admit, dear reader,  that they are the same. We'll call it even.

My mother always picked me up from violin lessons. One Saturday morning, my father did. "We had to put Sally down, Mott. We had her in to the vet and they had to put her down." Put her down? I was eight. I had NO idea what he was talking about. You have a pet. You have a loved one. You feed them or they feed you. They make you laugh or you make them laugh. They sleep with you or you sleep with them.  

What do you mean?

"We had to put her to sleep. The vet put her to sleep." 

Oh, OK. When will she wake up? 

"She's dead, Mott. I mean she's dead. She won't wake up. . . . I'm sorry, son." 

I'm crying writing this. I swear I'm not making it up, either. No wonder my dad never really explained the facts of life to me. I didn't make things easy for him. 

Some old people (more and more that means about my age) are sitting at a table next to be in this Thai joint. They are headed for Georgia for the winter because they are "snowbirds" as we call them up here. They have been talking about me for some time. Perhaps because I am writing. Or maybe it's my fashionable, rather girly scarf. One of them called me Da Vinci. Maybe they thought he was a writer. One of them was saying something about the fact that I was writing through a meal. Sounded as if she thought me somewhat pretentious. If she only knew, I hear Tania Runyan muttering. I fantasize a response. Glance over. 

One of them whispers (loudly)--"he can hear everything you're saying."

I do, and I remember stuff. As do you, dear readers. No lovely boy or girl or puppy or kitten has ever been less than lovely.  No matter what happens. I freak out, like everyone, about the passing of time, but read my chapped lips: the. past. is. all. we. ever. have. except. for. the. split. atom. of. immediacy. And that's already over now. 

That fact doesn't reconcile me to anything. Certainly not the absurdity of death and dying. It's just a fact I'm throwing out there. And in fact, if you are not in bed with me at exactly this moment (and that's not even true of the dog because she is sleeping with Jenny), then all I have of you and all you have of me are memories (and fantasies rooted in those). 

I remember a lot of things about Noel. J remembers Nigella. Kristin remembers her cats. Gordon his dog. My mother remembered my father until she became our memory of her (I speak in earthly terms). Good things. Wonderful things. Difficult things. But memories of living. Also known as what we do in time.

The BEST kind of memory is one we helped make. I don't mean so much by being there or by "planning a memory" (that's not possible by the way), but by so loving in the moment that the memories we carry of the past are already tinted rather than tainted. 

I know there is such a thing as regret, and I don't trust anyone who doesn't have any. But I can think of people, some of whom I've mentioned here, who so loved (another bit of John's language) that people, dogs, cats, hamsters, chickens, even trees had not just the gift of breath but gifts of grace, the over and above, without which the veterinarians might just as well put us all to sleep already. "Reason not the need," King Lear said about giving. Love is so damn inefficient. 

So be it. It's the third day of Christmas. OK, it's now already early morning on the fourth, but let's pretend it's still the third day. I'm just saying, give your gifts now (books, hugs, caramels, cups of tea, soy-free dog food, room on the sofa, poetry and songs, a warm spot with a  blanket) so that your memories, Christmas or otherwise, will swerve towards grace. 


 

The Second Noel: What We Know and Don't Know

THE SECOND NOEL:
WHAT WE KNOW AND DON'T KNOW

There are infinite reasons to be sad.
*Five to be joyful. 

Saint Stephen died, with a vision of heaven and ultimate love. 
*Saul stood apart, choosing excellent stones, cock sure he saw clearly. 

We think we know what made Stephen great--
his courage in the face of persecution and death. 
*What made Saint Stephen great was feeding widows and caring for those in need, which he did without casting stones. 

On Christmas Night, we gather at the manger, where our fellow animals are fed.
*On Saint Stephen's Day, we remember him who never witnessed more truly than when he fed others, appointed by the apostles to care for widows and the poor

I can't know what my brother Noel was seeing as he was dying.
*We stood, and watched, and witnessed, yet knew we saw darkly.

He looked at me, earlier in the week, and asked, too clearly, "Why?"
*"What do you mean?" I said. But he never answered. 

Father Charles, in the eulogy, speaks of Noel's life of service. A long-time catechist and trainer of others in that ministry. An experienced handyman around the property. "Noel hung the new stations of the cross for the church last Lent. Selflessly."
*I take that to mean that the church still owed him money.

I don't know any more about Saint Stephen, but I'd like to think that--
*he was a much loved younger brother. 
*A little spoiled as a child.
*A champion swimmer as a boy.
*The apple of his mother's eye. 
*Looked a lot like his father.
*Led an oil-exploration team in Texas.
*Owned his own home-remodeling business. 
*Could make an excellent margarita. 
*Wanted more than anything to be a good parent. 
*Once had a dog he loved very much, a Samoyed Husky named Frodo. 
*Had a daughter who loved to ride with him in his pickup. 

 
 

The First Noel: Instead of That, This

THE FIRST NOEL:
INSTEAD OF THIS, THAT

And so this is Christmas. The First Day of Christmas, that is. So don't throw out your tree quite yet. We have twelve more days, culminating on Twelfth Night with bonfires, dancing, much merriment, and the customary 12th Night belching competitions! That's a Shakespeare joke. Pay some serious coin to take my Shakespeare course, and I will interpret the mystery for you.

Today, the feast day of the Nativity of the Son of God, we ponder the gifts of life and love and, especially, a brown bird with a round body and short tail in a fruit tree. I hope you feasted. But not on partridge. Too greasy. And besides, you wouldn't eat five gold rings would you? Or twelve drummers drumming?

So. So. So. Let's catch our breath. 

We waited and waited and waited throughout Advent for the coming of the One for whom we were waiting. We longed. We listened. We hoped. We prayed. We sang in a minor key. Most of us probably said at some point, (in the words of an old friend of mine), all this hoping is really exhausting. And then we decided we were just gonna buy that tacky tree, join Lucy and the kids at the dance, and forget about ol' Linus and the true meaning of Christmas. 

But now Christmas has come. The waiting is over. Kind of. Christ has come we proclaim, although, as I've mentioned more times than I should have had to if you people would just pay better attention, there's still a certain well, don't get too excited because what we really meant was that at some point in the unknown future He will come like THAT and then . . . well, then things will really start changing around here! So be it. Charlie Brown gives Linus the look at this point and sighs.

OK, well that's the chief irony in Ironic Advent and, to me, it's a frustrating inescapable part of the whole thing. But, still, despite all that, let's let ourselves cut loose and do some serious pondering. I mean, what DO we have here, in the manger, in Bethlehem? What is THIS?

An amazing gift. No, more amazing than I can say and than you are thinking right now. Really. A fantastic story in the original sense of that word. In fact, I'd say a shocking, rather strange view of  God emerges from the story (even if it's just a story) or, more specifically, from the barn in Bethlehem if we "believe" the story (and, one of these days, I want to talk more about what that word believe might mean in the context of such an outlandish narrative). 

But let's "believe" it together, for at least a minute (which, let's be honest, would be a miracle in itself). Here, we have a deity come to live among messy us, messily. Sleeping with the beasts, born of and now nurtured by the body of a woman, first revealed to ragged shepherds who were routinely scanning the hills taking count of their sheep not eagerly watching the skies or scriptural prophecies for news of any coming miraculous births. Not Duke PhD's I'm saying.

And I could say more, but won't right now. Just this, then: the entire ironic "coming in humility, emptying himself of all but love, his only weapon the cross, etc." problem of Advent (with all its apparent promises of a coming king who would rule with power and justice and cause all oppression to cease and wars to end forever and ever, amen) is anticipated in this strange birth. Which we were believing in a moment ago, remember? Or, if you couldn't get there with me, and you were just following along for argument's sake, we can still agree that the story of this birth sort of flows into the story of the rather humble, strange, some might say even disappointing "kingdom" of the Son of Man (as he was said to call himself). 

Instead of that. This. 

Months ago I had a great notion. Sometimes I have those, Irene. It was this. November 22nd, the 50th anniversary of the death of C. S. Lewis, an author with whom I disagree often but whom I love unconditionally (as they always say on those horrible television programs), a memorial to Lewis would be dedicated in Westminster Abbey. I won't, now, go into my long and continuing encounter with the person and work of C. S. Lewis; just trust me that it is personal, literary, religious, and critical. Yes, yes, I've been to the places and seen the things and done the stuff; I said trust me. And I know my way around over there.

So I contacted a group of other friends who shared my passion (four-fold as described above) and said, basically, "We have GOT to be there." To some degree, we are the prime movers of a series of Lewis sessions at the International Congress on Medieval Studies every year in Kalamazoo. And so, we started planning, and even arranging some funding.  

Plans went well, for most of us. And some of my best friends of the world were, indeed, there for the symposium on Lewis on November 21 (led by other, English, friends of mine with whom I've worked in the past) and the dedication service on November 22. I had really really looked forward to that. 

Unfortunately, I was not there. In fact, the whole C. S. Lewis thing pretty much never crossed my mind those days. I think I remember, one time, somebody said something about JFK who had died on the same die as Lewis. 

That was in reference to another death, that of my brother, Noel. 

We were waiting with him all day on November 22, as his blood pressure went lower and lower, eventually hitting ridiculous numbers that made us think the doctors had been wrong all along for not doing some procedures because, they said, his heart couldn't take it. This boy, our own miracle Christmas baby, now fading away, was a very strong man. No, stronger than you are thinking right now. People can't stay alive with the blood pressure numbers he had. But. . . .

Somewhere late that night, early the morning of the 23rd, I said, he's going to outlast the night. Four of us were with him for I don't remember how many hours. It had been six earlier on the 22nd. Ten or twelve earlier than that. Now it was four of us. Joann, Missy, Gordon, and me. We touched him, sang to him, watched him, prayed for him, kissed him, told him we loved him and were proud of him and marveled at the great strength in weakness. 

The sun game up. Outside the Intensive Care window, it reflected off the skyscrapers on the New Jersey side (Noel's side), and it shone on the Hudson River which flowed exactly as it always does regardless of what's happening on either side. At about seven, Noel stopped breathing. 

I was planning on and waiting for an amazing trip. A kind of closure to a life-long encounter with someone I consider to be a great (though flawed) fellow mammal. 

So be it. I got this, instead of that. During and after (and still) we who shared this talked together about the intensity of those days. It was liminal, out there, somewhere in the high country as they say, supercharged, gut-wrenching, sacred. 

I can honestly, now, start to feel a little regret for missing the Lewis thing as we called it in the waiting and planning stage. Noel wouldn't mind, I'm pretty sure. But I witnessed something and witnessed someone and now witness to something and someone that I will never forget, as long my brain is functioning as a mind. And maybe longer. 

And I'll write about that some more. There are twelve songs of Noel, this is just the first. I especially don't want to draw false morals from things or force what happened (at Bethlehem or at New York Presbyterian) into some pre-determined grid. These are just the reflections I feel like singing tonight. I have a sense of how weakness can be strength. Of the power, if that's the right word, emerging from watching or witnessing love and goodness even when it appears to be losing the last battle. 

I'm sure C. S. Lewis said something worth quoting about that somewhere. Well, actually, I know he did because I gave a paper on his book A Grief Observed at Kalamazoo last spring. You can look that up if you want. This is my story. This is my song. And Noel's. 

Ironic Advent #24: Sh*t Christmas

SH*T CHRISTMAS

I've lost my notebook (again) that I kept on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in the summer of 2012. I remember wanting to write a poem on this topic and roughing in some notes. I shared the ideas with a friend who was also on the pilgrimage. She laughed but then gave me that arched eyebrow look. I'll admit, I loved that look on that face and would trade two Pacers tickets to see it again. 

Anyway, when you are walking through Galicia in August, you notice how beautiful the world can be. And how shitty. Galicia is a special place, parts of it as removed from the modern world as a place can be. A lot like parts of Ireland, I'd say. Only shittier. 

As you walk the pilgrim way, headed toward Santiago and the shrine of St. James the Apostle, you pass through a lovely green world, hedgerows full of berries, heavily forested hills, rolling farmland, a patchwork of tiny plots still farmed the old-fashioned way by families who have lived on the same land for centuries. 

And as they move their animals from barn to field, from farmland to village, they move them across the only roads there are, roads that double as village streets, the pilgrim way, and animal paths. Roads filled with beauty, history, and shit. In the daylight, you had half a chance of walking through those bovine minefields unscathed, but in the darkness (especially the two hours of darkness most pilgrims walk to escape the summer heat) you'd be a lucky devil to emerge merd-free. 

And I'm not even mentioning the Italian bikers who would find all the good pit-stop-sites in the bushes before anyone else (since they were traveling at ten times our speed) and leave their gifts for the poor slob walking pilgrims who'd be coming the say way by mid-afternoon. 

Yes, I'm just an adolescent boy, and my so-called mind just runs this way. (Runs, get it?). You can think that, and you might be right (thought I doubt it). More likely, you just don't want to read something so disgusting on this Holy Night, the night of our dear Savior's birth.

That's fine with me. Think what you want and be as sensitive as your nose tells you to be. Butt, as I was walking through shitty Galicia those days, I thought immediately of what it must have been like for certain poor shepherds and pretty much everyone else back in the hill country around Bethlehem when God became an animal (if the stories are true). 

Hey, I'll admit it; we have come a long way. And I'm perfectly fine with plumbing and indoor toilets and designated shitty roads from the barn to the field so that the ones I walk one, ride on, or drive on are, at least, relatively clean. But the "highway for our God" that John the Baptist preached, like the road that Joseph and Mary took on their las posadas pilgrimage from Nazareth to Bethlehem, was almost certainly pretty shitty. In fact, that whole O holy night, was probably a pretty shitty one as well, except for the stars brightly shining.

Quick check list: there was sheep shit, cow shit, donkey shit, dove shit, not to mention mouse droppings and microscopic bug poo. By Epiphany there would  be camel shit as well. I imagine that certain poor shepherds had to go occasionally and just did it in the fields not too far from where they were sleeping when the glorious angel host of heaven brought their tidings of the same. And, if somehow those shepherds didn't have to go before, I'm sure they did after meeting angels. 

And, though I'm sure some people (maybe Augustine) think Mary was spared the indignities of being a physical, created human being, a highly-evolved mammal with amazing capacities for thought, communication, and reflection, I am just as sure they are wrong as I am of why Rorie the dog must be taken out for a walk. Mary had a baby, my Lord! She puked, she shat, she peed. Oh, and her lovely mother's breasts filled with milk for the Son of God. 

Don't even tell me that Joseph didn't have the nervous shits that night, catching a quick smoke behind the barn. 

And although the old song says "The Little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes," it doesn't mention whether he did or did not make anything else worth swaddling. I'd have to say that if creation and incarnation mean anything, he did. 

It gets worse. Or better, depending upon your poo point of view. Butt, the important thing is this. I realized those days in shitty Galicia, that the world of Jesus and Mary and Joseph and the donkey and the shepherds and thousands of people out in the wilderness to hear Jesus preach and then getting hungry and then having to go, was a world full of shit. Ours is too, of course, but we hide it better and do our best to keep the smell and the flies away. We build different roads for life and religion so that our religious roads stay clean and spiritual. Perhaps because were are more platonist than Christian. More spiritual than Jesus or God ever were, or ever intended us to be. 

We are little animals. We eat, drink, suck, shit, cry, mate, suckle, age, weaken, die, and rot. We are more than little animals. We think about, talk and write about, reflect on and respond to these animal facts of our existence. And we also meditate on the fact that such powers are ours. 

Fact is, the first Christmas was not clean. There's a purity or a holiness that is embedded in and emerges from (but doesn't rise above) the shit. We are embodied and embedded, and the incarnation tells us that God took the risk of meeting us on that level. His coming sanctified all this shit for all time. 

In this age when spirituality and fastidiousness are easily, and wrongly, conflated, when technology preaches that perfection is a kind of smooth stream of energy without resistance, we need to hear the message of God who came to us not on a computer or a live satellite feed or in a secret mathematical code. He came in egg, blood, piss, feces, the general mess of birth on earth. This too was good. More than good. Now, it was God. And, despite what some early Greek church fathers might think, it didn't smell like perfume.

Take care of your animals tonight. Look at them and say, me too little Rorie (or big Sonya). Me too. And remember, we have been gifted to consider these things. To meditate on them, ironically or otherwise. "Cradled in a stall was he with sleepy cows and asses (ha!)," in the words of the 15th Century song we sang tonight. He came to save us. Not to make us shitless spirits. Why would he want to do that, having made us bodies in the first place? 

Dear fellow pilgrim. If I've offended you, so what? How is that even important in the great scheme of Advent and Christmas. You saw the title. And I frontloaded the shit in the piece so you'd get plenty of it right out of the chute. Don't get me wrong either. I don't like cleaning up after my dog and I didn't like changing diapers. I just don't ignore reality and allegorize my fastidious preferences into a spiritual theorem about existence. God's nose gets bent out of shape over more important things. He sees and smells things differently than we do. Shepherds shitty sandals are holy. Herod's brightly polished Pradas are pure poo.