Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #20: The Parable of the Lost and Found Vest and the Obscure(d) Miracle Star

Ben Camino's Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #20: 

The Parable of the Lost and Found Vest and the Obscure(d) Miracle Star

Dear pilgrim. This meditation grew long and dense, just the way I like them. But you should know that it was meant to be published yesterday, December 21. So just change all the time references if you would. When it says "today" it means "yesterday." Sort of like parents and their understanding of contemporary culture. "Today's kids spend all their time on Facebook!" "Ummm, dad. Kids are not on Facebook anymore. Just old people." 

Anyway(s), there's way too much going on in the Ben Camino universe (he meditates on it, he doesn't own it) to fit it all into one Ironic Advent Meditation. Some sages would quail at the task; Ben Camino delights in the feast. Why do I want to eat that last sentence? As we used to say in the sixth grade, here goes. 

Two nights ago, I went out to the see the miracle conjunction or the miracle star or the Christmas star or the Supiter event (I made that one up! ), but it was too late. Someone had said it was visible at nine, but, apparently, she isn't an astronomer. My friend Kristine IS an astronomer, but she lives in Connecticut and I don't have her phone number. 

I was hoping, then, to see it last night but I was driving on a pretty crazy busy fast freeway from San Antonio to Austin and missed it again. Perfectly clear both nights too. Tonight Missy and I made sure we were outside at the appointed or at least recommended hour to encounter the miracle but there was a very heavy cloud cover low on the horizon to the southwest which was pretty much exactly where the star was between dusk and sinking out of view. 

Miracle stars can't do everything, despite the adjective. Maybe that’s as it should be. Nothing would be more 2020 than to have this occur but we not be able to see it. 

In another way, nothing could be more Advent-y. I mean unless you are one of a handful of certain poor shepherds or three magic men lucky enough to see both the wild thing in the sky and the holy thing in the manger. In fact, I've heard that some mothers of Bethlehem didn't exactly appreciate the miraculous birth as much as Macy's and Walmart do. Even if they could see it, they probably didn't want to. 

Be that as it may, the last few days have been full of thoughts of loss for me (and lots of other folks too I'm sure). When everything around you sings be happy for the great gift, you sometimes have to sing back (perhaps even croaking like Russell Crowe), something (or Someone) giveth AND taketh away. 

For those who know Ben Camino as well as I do, you know that this is one of his major themes. Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie Brown again. The myth of Sisyphus. Life.  As my dad used to say, he keeps "harping" on it. Yeah, just like they did under the willows of Babylon, if you get my allusion. 

In fact, as Ben would undoubtedly say, drawing attention to the wonder of language even to express anguish, the allusion is no illusion. The displaced people of God in Babylon resented and lamented their loss. As did the mothers of Bethlehem, who would NOT be comforted.  And none of this gets mystified away in the story. 

The holy thing whom the angels sang, the shepherds found, and the magic men worshipped, was rejected by his people, unjustly accused, rejected and abandoned by people who should have known better, and finally tortured and executed for being . . . God. Just saying. 

The whole lost and found thing (cue "Amazing Grace," Aretha) is some pretty mysterious business. Loss is real. And, yes, when you find your reading glasses after looking for an hour (like I did tonight) that's a big hip hip hooray. But when folks (I mean people, humans, featherless bipeds with a soul) are lost and then found (as we say), there's still . . . stuff.  

Let's think about it. Redeeming means paying for something. One meaning, the one I hear about in sermons, is "buying back," as from slavery or from being pawned. But another or at least related meaning is "a reversal of value." The sinner has been redeemed (bought back -- and folks that's a rather complicated allegory). But, more popularly, we sing "I'm redeemed" like in the old gospel songs, and we mean, I was lost lost but now I'm found. I was a sinner but now you can call me a saint. The value of my life has changed, even been reversed -- in my eyes, in heaven's eyes, perhaps in the eyes of at least some of my fellow folks. Death was a horror and a pit of meaninglessness. Somehow, it was redeemed. Or so the story goes. Somehow, redeemed by a miracle or something like, it now is full of profound meaning. 

So, not only have I been thinking about a lot of personal losses in my life recently, real ones that will not go away with wishful thinking or more faith (only believe and you will be healed), but I've especially been thinking of Noel's death (since it happened on December 20th a few years ago). And other people have died this year that I loved. And, very sadly, others whom I love have died to me and/or I to them. 

Some things I handle by long walks, writing songs, singing psalms, and a really good gin and tonic. Others are stuck so deep in my guts (perhaps my soul) that I know they aren't going anywhere. I mean, really -- Mary had a sword in her heart. If it went away after, say, Pentecost, then I just don't understand human relationships, parenting, or the words sword in the heart. 

I don't think they go away. Wounds perhaps heal. Yet scars are real.  

But can they be redeemed? Fundamentally transvalued? I won't say I'm exactly wagering on it, but I will say that I'm hoping so. 

Which brings me to one of my favorite articles of clothing. 

What? By the way, this whiplash literary effect is also known as the "turn," the volta in a Ben Camino mad rav . . . I mean, ironic meditation. 

Where were we? Favorite article of clothing. No, not my indigo Levi jeans, of which I have perhaps too many pair. Or my Clark's boots, bought in Oxford, which I love almost as much as I love the word inordinately.  

No my favorite piece of clothing is a rather basic dark blue (perhaps indigo again) zippered fleecy vest, nothing particularly expensive or special, except to me. 

I might say, and I'd be saying the truth, that it holds me tight in a time when nothing else does. But I also like the way it goes with almost everything else I wear which is either black or dark blue. And a beloved fleecy vest that you can wear just about any time you want comes in handy in chilly Indiana. 

I lost it. The vest I mean. I was with my brother and sister taking part in a family ritual we enact every time we get together down here in Austin. There are three Goodwill stores in a sort of triangle within about fifteen miles. I am usually not back "home" for more than a day or two before we make this pilgrim journey, to find a piece of junk and Goodwill to men.

I was trying on a snappy cowboy shirt (yes, yes, tall and enough blue in it to go with the fleecy vest), so I had to take off said vest and the shirt I was wearing. I bought the shirt don't worry. And I was socially distanced and masked. Whew. I felt your stress all the way from Texas. 

Bought the shirt, I said. But forgot the vest. That was our first stop, and I didn't realize it was gone until after the last stop. So on the way back, we checked in the first store, but I couldn't find it where I left it and nobody knew anything about it. I was unhappy, but not that unhappy. I thought it was a pretty good donation. I just hoped they washed it when they found it hanging in the snappy shirt section before they put it out for sale. 

So today my brother comes by to take me to the Avis place to return my rental car (that entire experience was traumatic, but not the point now). I was sitting writing something on the computer when he came in. 

"Look what I got!" he says, just like he always does when he gets something at a thrift store. It was a blue fleecy vest. He knew that I had lost one, but this fit him so well, and had already been tagged $6.99, so he figured it must not be the same one. He just figured, as he said, that we had similar taste. 

But it was mine. My vest was lost. But now it was found. It was also redeemed, bought back. I used to think it was worth $40, but now I know it's worth $46.99. 

OK, this is a terrible example of redemption. Maybe. But you've got to admit it's a pretty great ironic redemption story. It's the Gift of the Magi in a world of Goodwill. My dear brother bought it for me without knowing it. Thinking he was buying it for himself. Good thing he listened to reason after I threatened him. 

No, really. It's a real parable, and it happened to me. The letter and the spirit have kissed; my fumbling messy lost and found story is real, and it involves my brother liking something I like enough to buy it for himself and to give it back to me when he realized the truth. That probably means something and I'm sure Ben Camino readers will be interpreting it for . . . minutes. 

But, about that star. It was cloudy again tomorrow (remember my weird time scheme?). I went out to look at the appropriate time and there wasn't much to see. But then the clouds sort of parted for a few moments, although there was still some hazy veil over the sky. And I saw the conjunction. It wasn't that great, because, as I said, I don't think I was getting the full picture. 

I had to kind of use my own imagination, not having a clear night or a Hubble telescope handy. I had to trust that my friends all over the world who were posting pictures and writing in the equivalent of hushed reverent tones on social media were being square with me. I couldn't really see it myself, and when I did, it was underwhelming. 

Maybe their vision helped redeem my experience. And, of course, maybe tomorrow the sky will clear, Lucy will actually hold the football for Charlie Brown, and the baby King will establish eternal peace and justice in the galaxies. And obviously peace on earth, Goodwill to men. 

And as I lick my real wounds, chant the Psalms, and scan the skies, I will be styling in my much-loved dark blue zippered fleecy vest, a sort of gift (or re-gift), part of a strange redemption story of my loss and my brother's find. 

Now let's see if he gives me anything for Christmas or just counts that as my gift. It would be OK if he did.  

Peace folks. It is now 11.05 (CST) tomorrow. How's that for redeeming the time? 

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dark blue zippered fleecy vest found