Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #8: Advent Roots

Ben Camino's Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #8: 

Advent Roots

Roots are gnarly things aren't they? I mean, unless by roots we mean carrots growing in very finely cultivated soil. Humans have, when they knew what was good for them anyway(s), taken care of their roots. Roots ground and fix and give life to whatever is rooted to them. But roots and that to which they are rooted best flourish, when some cultural work by heaven, mother nature, or even people like us helps them along. 

Maybe that makes sense. It better because by the end of this meditation, I'll be applying it to Advent and Christmas. 

But first, this. Today I spent a good deal of time hiking around or "tramping" as Thoreau and my father would have said. I suppose tramping is less tied to the path and more interested in whatever seems interesting at the moment than my normal hike (which often even has a mileage minimum limit I'm trying to meet). Today, was a wander. And, as you might guess, it being the Advent season, I wondered as I wandered. Sorry. 

And you can see by the picture above that I came to place I've been studying a lot lately. A place on the banks of the Wabash River where a great deal of the root systems of the trees on the bank are exposed due to erosion. Besides being really really interesting to look at (I have more pictures if you'd like to see them), they are very interesting to ruminate upon. I would say ponder, but then that would mean I was pondering while I was wondering while I was wandering. And none of us wants to hear that. 

I'd love to work on the long version of this meditation. But I'm going for the short one this time. All that tramping and pondering and wondering and wandering wore me out. Plus I'm trying to cut down on caffeine a little bit as an Advent discipline. This ginger-lemon tea hits the spot, as they say, but it doesn't quite pack the punch of the Starbucks Christmas Blend (don't judge me, I asked for Advent Blend). 

If you've read some Ben Camino before, you know that chewing on my roots is one of the ways I describe what I do when reflecting on my own life and experiences as part of these meditations. But the Advent season, every year, is a four-week call to root chewing (from one perspective), root strengthening (from another), and root exposure (by an ironic advent meditator, at least). 

This is the way, walk ye in it. These are your roots. Tie yourself to them. Live in and through them. Acknowledge them. These metaphors don't work perfectly, of course, but I hope you will know what I mean. 

Christmas is a memorial of something that happened once, a long time ago, but it meant everything (so they say), forever. Advent didn't happen. At least not in the same way. Some things happened (angel visiting Mary for example). Many are yet to happen (world will end, stars will fall, sun will go dark, perhaps not in that order, according to the reading from the gospel on the First Sunday of Advent. And the gospel today was about John the Baptist, the grown up one, not baby John who leaped in his mother's womb. John the prophet is a post-Christmas "thing" that happened. And much of Advent features Old Testament prophecies. I guess if you hold to speech-act theory, those "happened. But not in the same way as Christmas happened. 

My point is this. Advent is a (more or less, depending upon us) elaborate imaginative root system for the celebration of Christmas (and I don't just mean partying). By elaborate, I don't mean every Christian should feel obligated to take part in every little ritual and practice that the Church or even a local church or family encourages. I mean, it's something that has developed over many centuries along with the celebration of Christmas, a celebration that itself has always been somewhat controversial and open to misunderstand and, frankly, misery. And it serves a function. It roots Christmas to something other than the pagan festivity it has become and, perhaps, once was (if you believe the Puritans). 

I am tempted to make the point that we especially NOW need our Christmastide to be rooted in something other than the lights, the shopping, the music, the flurry, and the hurry. BUT, truth be told, I am older than many of my readers, and I'm pretty sure things haven't changed quite as much as some of we old-timers pretend. I was a terrible pagan when I was ten. 

Advent cultivates the soil, strengthens the roots, sometimes exposes them lest we forget. Black Friday, Frosty the Snowman, Christmas Vacation (sorry that's the worst), sugar-covered . . . everything -- "this is what the season means to me" we mumble, dazed after yet another day of Christmas cheer. 

Advent says -- John the Baptist; the God we have abandoned still calling words of comfort to his creation; a young Jewish girl who meets an angel and says "My Soul Magnifies the Lord"; her cousin and her cousin's husband, who happen to be the aged parents of John the Baptist; the world will end someday  so you might want to think about that; and a little family of two (but soon three) makes a long difficult journey. 

We aren't trees, but the family of the Christ is figured as one in Advent. The tree of Jesse. Yes, even the Son of God is rooted in something other than . . . God. And, by the way, you might look up "Tree of Jesse" as an Advent practice, especially to get children involved. 

I suppose Advent/Christmas is always a time for thinking about own family history too, especially the older we get. That's probably as it should be. Those roots matter too. A lot. But they are best understood in the larger root system of Advent. 

In fact, Advent roots are so important that, sad to say, once every seven years December 6 is NOT really St. Nicholas Day. Otherwise, Ben Camino would have certainly chewed on that tonight. But today is the Second Sunday of Advent. The day we remember John, the cousin of Jesus, who came preaching baptism for the repentance of sins in the wilderness of Judea. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, or at least a Saint Nicholas. But even in December, some things are more important than him. 

I said that there was no "real" Advent before the birth of Christ, but, of course, in one way at least, there was. There hadn't been a good old-fashioned prophet in Israel for a long time, not a legit one anyway(s). And along came John, reminding people of their roots, reminding them that being God's children had certain obligations. And that all started with remembering who they were, who Yaweh was, and what He expected of them. And John proclaimed, "He is coming! And neither I nor Saint Nicholas (like I said, John was a prophet) are worthy of tying his shoes." 

OK, I got carried away. He said, He is coming. Prepare for the coming. Repent. Do Advent. Get rooted. Go deep. Get used to the weird time scheme. And, while you are here, would you like to try some locusts and wild honey?  

My advice for you friends is simple. Eat roots. 

Amen. 

Come on already, Emmanuel. 

Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #7: The Great Advent Hymn Bake Off

Ben Camino's Ironic Advent Meditation #7: 

The Great Advent Hymn Bake Off, Part Ah (that's A in German) 

Dear reader. If you know Advent, you know that Advent hymns and songs (I don't want to argue about what is and isn't a hymn, thus my waffle) are a very rich treasure in Christian tradition and in the cultures influenced by Christianity. You need not actually be a Christian to be moved by the minor key, the ache of longing, and the incredible imagery expressed in ancient words and melody of songs like "O Come O Come, Emmanuel." It is obviously much loved and rightly so. That "ache" of longing (and perhaps doubt) is, of course, what Ben Camino argues sets Advent off from "the Christmas season." 

And there are many other lovely Advent songs. One some of us sang last night as part of a Vespers service (by Zoom). "Creator of the Stars of Night" or "Conditor Alme Siderum" as it was known in the seventh century and sung to the same tune since the ninth. 

Anyway(s), I have tried to come up with the right image for an Advent hymn contest. Death-match seemed a bit much. And I didn't want to waste too much time thinking about it, so I settled on Bake Off. I really just mean contest. And, in truth, it's not a contest. I already have a winner. So just think of this as Ben Camino trying to make up for all his gloom and doom meditations with a reminder that Advent is also a time of music and singing (although usually in a minor key). 

An Advent hymn, like Advent, has to feature the ironic double (or triple?) Advent time scheme, and I'm not talking about the beat. I mean Advent starts, on the first Sunday with the future, a vision of the end of all things for which we need to be prepared, the future in which all things will change. 

But it also asks us to think of the past, long ago by our standards (not just "Last Christmas"). And it also, somehow, foretells and points forward towards . . . that past event (right?). If we give ourselves to the story, I think we can't help but be disoriented like the Messiah's original audience for whom he was the coming King until he wasn't. Things got messy, certainly less than glorious, place called "the skull," and . . . what exactly were all those songs about? 

This is going to sound like heresy I guess in terms of the Christmas liturgy, but I’m going to say it anyway. In a small font, though. You can’t really be looking forward to the birth of baby Jesus. If anyone appreciates the irony, I do, so you can rest assured that I’m going to keep singing the songs and pretending to look forward to what has already happened, but unless we are chewing on the past in Advent and trying to figure out what all that means for us, we might as well just turn the whole  thing over to Amazon.com.

The more I chew on my bitter roots this Advent (as I do every year),  the more I’m seeing a story of ironic love and redemption, and, believe me, it’s not one that anyone would choose ahead of time, especially if I were in that Robert Frost poem and had other choices. The gaps in my life and the cracks in my story (and yours, dear reader) are nasty and brutal and worthy of some kind of Divine sympathy if there is any. While we are waiting on that, though (trying to figure out if it's already arrived or is still coming or both or neither) let’s share some of the human kind. That's maybe how we are supposed to get ready for the other if there is the other. Well, in truth, I don't think it's maybe. Our ancient friends, dead and unfortunately too oft forgotten would just say, of course, that's just almsgiving, the deeds of mercy. The one "Christian discipline" the grownup Christmas baby said will separate the sheep from the goats. 

Which brings us to Paul Gerhardt’s lovely hymn “Wie Soll Ich Dich Empfangen?" (“How Shall I Receive Thee”), one that Bonhoeffer references several times in his Prison Letters (which I've written about elsewhere, and I'm sure you can find it with a little google, dear reader). This hymn may not be as ancient as the first two I mentioned, but it is helped out in the competition (it's not really a competition) by the two famous tunes to which it is sung -- one by J. S. Bach and an earlier one from Johann Crüger. 

In this moving hymn, it is exactly this world-weariness and disappointment in the life of the first-person narrator that the sympathetic savior comes, now (a fraught word in Advent time, as we have established), to heal. The most popular English translation of this hymn, by Catherine Winkworth, misses the passionate intentionality of this love by translating the great expression of the kenosis thus: “Love caused Thy incarnation, Love brought Thee down to me . . . .” Lovely and deeply meaningful, but not precisely, I think, as radical as what Gerhardt was expressing. 

A more faithful translation is something like: “Nothing, nothing, could drive you from your heavenly home (tent, actually) but your love above love . . . .” Perhaps, meta-love? An earlier, more literal though still problematic and heavily-condensed translation renders the key “incarnational” verses of the hymn like this.

Nought, nought, dear Lord, had power to move

Thee from Thy rightful place, 

Save that most strange and blessed Love

Wherewith Thou dost embrace

This weary world and all her woe, 

Her load of grief and ill

And sorrow, more than man can know --

Thy love is deeper still. 

Oh write this promise in your hearts, 

Ye sorrowful, on whom

Fall thickening cares, while joy departs

And darker grows your gloom. 

Despair not, for your help is near, 

He standeth at the door

Who best can comfort you and cheer, 

He comes, nor stayeth [waits] more. 

If we didn't have the Epistle to the Philippians, Chapter 2, with it's great hymn to the mystery of Christ's self-emptying love, we would, at least, have Gerhardt's. Thank God, Paul, and this second Paul, that we have both. Like the fallen (into both sin and gloom) Edmund in C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we don't know the depth of the gloom, of the darkness, of what Hopkinds called "worldsorrow." We know it's bad, but we don't know how bad it is. Nor do we understand how great the love which undertakes to save us. 

In a far deeper way than the Colonel Nathan Jessup character (yes, yes, Jack Nicholson) meant in the military drama A Few Good Men, "we can't handle the truth." Well, I don't really have much more to say about that first stanza unless I wrote about it for another twenty pages. Just read it over for a few weeks. Memorize it. Learn German just for the chance to savor it more fully. 

In short. Our situation is worse than we could ever know. The solution is a deeper love than we could ever understand. The sorrow, the woe, the grief, the darkness are not only real but almost (I said almost) infinite. To minimize that side of the reality is to minimize the other side, the unaccountable embrace of His strange (absurd?) and blessed love.  

Notice that Gerhardt is careful to remind us, something which Bonhoeffer points to several times, that this door is one we can’t open for ourselves. One does not just walk into Mordor. Oops, sorry. One does not just use positive thinking, or a new counselor, or better diet to conquer the darkness (although all of these have their places). 

In fact, on the strength of reading the gospels and the prophets, I believe that one way we must do Advent, that is, get ready for the Bridegroom, the baby in the manger, the Coming King, the Lord of the Universe, the great healer of our souls, all the things, is by doing what we can to comfort as many others as we can in the little time we have. Perhaps it's by writing a song as lovely as Paul Gerhardt's, in which the speaker serves as a loving, caring connector to his two audiences in the two stanzas quoted above -- one divine and one human. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the prisoner are beautiful songs as well. 

And perhaps, we will show love and care, too, for those who also suffered through the gloom, fought the good fight, and have now gone on ahead. Like Paul Gerhardt. Tending (and, I think, attending) to the dead  of course, is another of those works of mercy, as defined by the Christian tradition. As with all almsgiving, being good to him (in this case by attending to his well-wrought faithful lyrics) will be good for us. 

Here's a link to the Bach version of the song (in German of course). 

Bach version clickable link. 

Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #6: The Problem with Waiting

 Ben Camino's Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #6: 

the problem with waiting (after George Herbert) 

Dear reader. If you know me well, as well as most of the Jennifers know me, you'd know how inordinately I love the poetry of George Herbert. Please look him up if you don't know about him. When you have time. I didn't mean that as an imperative but as a suggestion. I know, sometimes Ben Camino is rather pushy.  

I also like Jackson Pollock, thus the image. Anyway(s), I wrote a version of this poem last year as a way of working through my Advent angst with the haunting but redemptive voice of Herbert (and perhaps Herbert's master) in my ear and guts and soul (and Kia Soul). 

So, I've taken some time today to see it again, hear it again, and think about how I can both push and pull it along to where it should be on this pilgrim path or trackless midnight desert, whichever this place upon which I rest my trunk turns out to be. 

So here it as of 10.21 (EST) on the sixth day of Advent 2020. Also, thanks for all the encouragement and generosity you have shown me. Someone said that to me today; so I'm passing it on to those of you who have done the same for me. 

May the Divine Assistance be with us always. And with our loved ones everywhere. (the closing prayer of Compline). 

the problem with waiting (after George Herbert)

the problem with waiting is the problem of misplaced focus

as in 

why am I waiting for that which I know not except by 

promise (which is to say by possibility but not yet, if ever, presence)

when a perfectly fine right now  right here

parades itself to my eyes, heart, blood and guts, and soul

and (Kia) Soul

on this path which I refuse to see as process only or 

simply pilgrimage

but instead a chance to bite sweet creation itself on the very backside of being

or to gloss my nasty text for nicer minds,

to give myself up fully to this now rather than pray for that then

I mean, to give up crying (or bellyaching as the kind giant put it) 

for the ghost of all I need that may not ever anyway be 

instead to clinch hard and wrestle all night 

with the angeldemon of the trackless midnight desert

when like an apogean voice sent down from nowhere

but stuck forever in some seventheenth-century devotional lyric

I am addressed, possessed, known well, seen through, 

washed clean of all my wallowing evasions,

invited, no, enticed to hold the bleeding hand of Love

the forever way down the endless path

to nothing but

Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #5: A. A. Advent

Ben Camino’s Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #5: 

A. A. ADVENT

Dear Reader. I've written sooooo many ironic advent meditations since 2012 (and some of them I can't find, so if you are hiding them, it's time to come clean!). As I was saying before I interrupted myself, as is my wont, I've written so many that sometimes I just feel like I need to re-insert some of them into what Jung called the collective unconscious and what I call the minds and hearts of the few people who read my blog. 

It's not that I'm out of new material, but it's the fact that so much of Ben Camino's ruminations have to do with his childhood and his family. They are important to my thinking about and responding to the world and the story of Advent. A few years ago, I hit the family story very very heavily. And I mean heavy in several ways, including -- my secretary would look at me the morning after reading my raw meditation of the night before and say . . . "are you OK???"  

Anyway or anyways as some of my favorite people in the world still say despite my attempts every Advent season to shame them otherwise, this is one about my mother and, therefore, about all of us. It was first published during Advent 2013, very shortly after my brother Noel had died. Whew. I processed a lot that year. Anyways, here it is, a tribute to my mother and to my sister and to my brother Gordon and to Father Leone and to the reality of magic, I mean redemption. 

*********************

Eudora Juanita Ricke, my mother, was crazy. NO, really, officially. And she wasn't around much when we were young. Mostly off at the State Hospital as they used to call asylums. Which rarely provided much. Asylum, I mean. Lots of shock treatments though. I still remember the horrible shaky-handed letters we used to get from her. Dear Kids. . . .  

She went through hell there. 

Poor girl had a rough childhood. Seriously, she did. People think abusive situations and dysfunctional families got invented sometime in the late 90s? Nope. 

Nita, as she was known, lived through father after step-father after step-father. Moving around from bad place to bad place. Her mother, Jewel, wasn't one. A Jewel, I mean. But she had it rough too. That's a constant, by the way, in this story. Maybe worst of all, Nita read poetry. Fell in love with it and the dangerous dreams of the imagination. And then, oh hell, she started writing herself. 

I'll spare you any of it. I have some of it--journals, notebooks, sheets of stationery--stretching over almost forty years of her life. Mostly dreams of happy love or thoughts of suicide. She tried that more than a few times along the way.

There were high points, though. Meeting that dangerously handsome Catholic boy named Charles Ricke during her senior year of high school was one. To her hard-scrabble Baptist mother that was probably worse than meeting the Antichrist himself.  Then, their impossible fantasy storyline--he on a ship in San Diego almost ready to sail for the Pacific theater; she taking a train (at age 19) from Houston to meet him there; marriage in Saint Joseph's Cathedral (her first time in a Catholic church). 

Soon, though, he left to fight the big one, she got depressed, things happened that I don't know about, and they split up. Then they got back together. Then, later, when we were mostly grown, they split up again. Then they got back together. I'm exhausted thinking about it. 

And, of course, the miracle of her having children when it looked, after years and years of trying, that it just wasn't going to happen. I told that story in Advent 2012 in a two-part Ironic Advent Meditation, "Eudora Juanita's Long Parenthesis." How long you ask? Like I said, two parter. You should read it. Also it's true, but I don't see how that matters much to you.  What are you, Plato or something?

Other high points? I don't know. Maybe dressing up like a "gypsy" fortune-teller at church fiestas and community carnivals, making us call her "Inga," and speaking in that horrible fake Swedish/German/drunk gypsy accent she affected at such times. 

So. I know what you're thinking. Madness? Inga? Fortune Telling? How exactly is this about Advent? 

All I can say is, you are very narrow-minded, and I'm surprised you don't see it. But since you are a reader of little brain and, like the rest of us, hard heart, I'll be patient (an Advent virtue, by the way) and tell you. 

When we were quite young, we only knew mom as mom, sometimes a rather absent mom, sometimes a rather sad mom, but still the only mom we really knew so we just thought she was . . . normal. Just mom. 

Later, and later still, one by one I suppose, Missy, then I, then Gordon, then Noel, realized that she had a humongous drinking problem. Really bad. And  sometimes we'd rather she just stay in bed with the "terrible headaches" for days at a time than come forth from her mom cave and cope with the world, usually with a big mason jar full of scotch and whatever she mixed it with, if anything. 

Things came to a head (sorry, I just jumped a decade). Missy told her she was leaving home the day she graduated from high school. Which she did. Old friends of my parents would come to visit and speak to us privately about . . . . Well I can't remember much of what they actually said. I guess they were just trying to let us know that they knew things were bad. And that they were worried. And they said things like, "don't give up; it will get better." 

Eventually, Gordon and Noel bore the brunt of it since Missy had left and I was away at school. No need to talk about it anymore right now. Just that they had some tough times. Of course, dad was still around and he tried his best to hold things together. That's his story. And I'll post it on Monday, the anniversary of his death. His life was tough, but he never abandoned Nita or us. I'm prejudiced, but I think of him as a very worldly saint.

Well, I said I wouldn't treat you to any of my mother's writing, and I won't. But I have read the journal entries from that time, and I know how much she wanted to change or die. It sounds like St. Augustine now that I think of it. But time and again, she wrote things like, "Lord help me change. I can't go on this way. But if I don't change, it would be better for all of them if I died." That sort of thing. Sounds sort of trite I guess unless it's your life. Your family. 

Anyway, Missy's leaving had really brought some focus to the situation. I remember clearly one day Mom had a little accident driving, probably under the influence. Nothing could go right for her, etc. You could just see another big binge coming. She was sitting on a stool between the kitchen and the living room. That's where the wall phone was. She was all dressed up. Really dressed up, maybe even with a mink stole on or something. She did that when she forced herself to get up and then usually ended up going to drink and have a few golden moments if she could. 

Instead, she called a guy. A guy she had met. A guy from A. A. OK, I'll be honest, I don't know if it was a guy or a woman. She called somebody. That person listened. She talked. I don't remember what she said. But she talked and talked. The next day she got cleaned up, dressed up (way dressed up), and went to a meeting. And then the next day, and the next day, and a lot of days for a long time. And she made a lot of calls from that phone, especially when she felt like having a drink.

There are other stories that blend into this one. Once Nita got sober, Charles started falling apart. That was a (insert bad word here) tragedy. People ask why I'm so damn ironic. I say, why is life? Why are you blaming me?  Also, shortly thereafter, Gordon, Noel, and I became Jesus freaks. Crazy things happened to all of us. 

But this is my Ironic A. A. Advent meditation. So, let me try to wrap it up. Mom died a few years ago. And. She. Never. Had. Another. Drink. She went on not only to be super-involved in Alcoholics Anonymous, but she actually ended up going to the University of Houston to achieve certification in alcohol and drug abuse counseling. She eventually ran a half-way house for alcoholic and drug-abusing women in Houston. 

Later, she ran all the alcohol and substance abuse services for two different counties in Texas. I'm not making this up. You either have to say damn! or amen! But you can't just sit there. You should probably cry. If you aren't, I guess I haven't done my job. 

It's a story of the kind of redemption that I struggle to believe in. There's more. Later in life, after a number of strokes had left her in need of full time care in a residential facility, my sister, Missy--the one whose ultimatum and departure finally got Nita to walk on coals and jump without a parachute into the future--moved back to be close and to help take care of her.  

My brother Gordon and his wife Margaret had pretty much shouldered that responsibility for many years. The last few years, though, Missy was able to help. I can't know what that meant to Nita. She had quit talking. I know, though, what it meant to Missy. It meant, as I wrote elsewhere, when a daughter mothers her mother, the kingdom has come. 

Well anyway, that's what happened. Nita . . . changed. It was like the Iron Curtain. Obviously, that was just the way things were in our world, and there wasn't much hope that they would change. Until they did. You can't believe it when it happens because you have quit believing that it can happen. Anyways, back in Denver, we weren't too sure about mom's higher power (that's Alcoholics Anonymous talk), because, as I said, we were now Jesus freaks and overnight theological geniuses. But we were happy she was getting up, making some breakfast, having clear conversations, and even holding down a job.  

Speaking of religion, though, another interesting thing happened. The time came for Nita to do her Fourth and Fifth Steps for A. A. Well, first off, I must admit that I'm not a very good person, plus I have an ironic streak if you haven't noticed, so I quickly tired of hearing Mom use the phrase a searching and fearless moral inventory (Step Four).  As I said before, she fancied herself a writer, so she filled up sheet after sheet with her sins, faults, misdeeds, character defects, and bad habits. Nobody enjoyed doing a searching and fearless moral inventory more than Nita. 

But what to do with the Fifth Step (Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs)? Well, although Nita hadn't been to mass in a blue moon or more, she knew that a certain priest at Blessed Sacrament Church had reached out to Gordon and Noel, trying, no doubt, to keep them from being young hoodlums (and basically succeeding). So, she went to that priest, Father Ken Leone, to do her Fifth Step. He said, fine, we'll do an A.A. step and Christian sacrament at the same time. At the end, although not required for the step, he laid his hands on her head and prayed a prayer of total forgiveness, assuring her of God's pardon. 

Well, Nita was always dramatic. More than dramatic. Judy Garlandish. She wept for joy or sorrow. She gushed with those who gushed; was crushed with those who were crushed. She knew not the middle way. And I wasn't there to see what happened. I just know what she said. And what she said was that a kind of electricity flowed through her; that she felt like her life was starting all over; that she was sure that she had felt the love of God. 

A while later she asked me, new Jesus freak and Bible expert that I was, whether I thought that was the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Then, I didn't know, so I said I didn't know. I figured it wasn't since it happened in a Catholic church, but I didn't say that out loud. Now I think, well if it wasn't the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, then I blame the Holy Spirit. Because if there is such a thing, there couldn't have been a better time or place. 

Well, that's the story of A. A. Advent. No, it didn't happen during Advent, dear reader. Please pay attention. Now is Advent, and I'm telling the story now. It's a story of longing, waiting, "HOW LONG OH LORDing." Advent, real Advent, involves KNOWING how bad things are (in us? in the world? take your pick), how badly we need some help, someone to listen, someone who is really going to be there, maybe someone who is going to leave for awhile and come back again years later to take care of us, someone who will say the only magic words there have ever been: "Forgive . . . you."

Nita needed that. I'm not saying that's enough or evidence that proves anything to a skeptical (and rightly so) world. Not to mention an ironic narrator. Lots of people need things and they. never. get. them. And puh-leez don't allegorize and redefine reality to make it seem like they do. 

On the other hand, sometimes these things happen. Do you realize how hard it is not to give up hope when things look hopeless? Do you know how hard it is to break an addiction? That's why they call it an addiction. Yes. Yes, some of you do. I know you do. Well, sometimes, no matter how hard and how hopeless, the magic happens. And I say praise God and pass the magic. 

But magic is as magic does (I have no idea what means). But I do know what this means: people are hoping and longing for miracles that we can help make happen. If you noticed, there was quite a group of those in this story. Like Missy, like the person on the phone, like Father Leone, like Gordon and Margaret, like my father who gets his own story in a couple of days, like my friend Jack who teaches Shakespeare to prisoners, like the people who give their hugs and their presence to new A. A. members,  and like a million other Advent angels. Like us, if. 

And everyone of those angels makes a choice, a series of choices really, to be more than is required by the bottom line. In fact, to be rather . . . extravagant, flinging hope into what appear to be impossible situations. 

I once wrote a piece sarcastically (who me?) claiming that I was using as my new "branding" (hahahaha) the phrase: "squandering advantages since xxxx." Imagine it, though. The antidote, in part at least, to the problem of privilege. The one who came, who comes, didn't count his privilege as something to grasp, but he lovingly squandered his advantages for the sake of Nita. And Missy. And you, dear reader. And yours truly (and yet ironically), Ben Camino. 

Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #4: Slant Advent

 Ben Camino's Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #4: 

Slant Advent

"Tell all the truth but tell it slant --

Success in Circuit lies"                                                         

Emily (Dickinson) said it, I believe it, that settles it. 

Except of course Emily never settled anything, even when she preached. Ambiguity, irony, resistance in every phrase. Even -- in her -- punctuation -- faith -- hope -- and love -- desired and pushed away with -- every breath. Fragments. 

God I love Emily. And not just because my daughter went to Mount Holyoke. 

"Tell all the truth, but tell it slant" she said, which means, if anything, you can't tell (or know) all the truth the way some people talk or think of truth but you have to talk about it anyway(s).  

There's a certain slant of light Advent afternoons and I went hunting it sometime between None and Vespers today on the path by the bed of the old canal dug by German and Irish immigrants in my neck of the woods 180 or so years ago. 

On one side of the old tow path is the canal bed. On the other is the Wabash River. And not far from my house is the "forks of the Wabash" --basically a little island that splits the river in two for a bit. It's a pretty place, full of ghosts and giant Sycamore Trees.

A good place to run, to look about, to ruminate.  

Many of those trees are now leaning slantwise towards the River. When you get there on a December afternoon, with the certain slant of sunlight shining on the water and washing all you see in muted silver, you want to pray for your friends, sing imprecatory psalms "in honor" of your enemies, and chant the names of everyone you've ever loved. It makes you hungry too, but that's beside the point. 

Advent, Ironic Advent, Slant Advent, Emily's Advent is the pilgrim path between but always in relation to and with the different (conflicting?) aspects of the story. The promise of the baby King of peace. The coming of the King of justice. The quick reminder on December 26 that lots of babies (not to mention German and Irish immigrant canal diggers)* have to suffer and die in this dark but sometimes lit with muted silver world between then and then. 

It's a lot to take in. To believe. To "celebrate." Yet Dickinson's life and writings make it clear she didn't plan to let go because belief was a problem and faith was difficult.  She was particularly drawn to the story of Jacob wrestling with God as a typology of her own faith. In her famous letter to Judge Otis Phillips Lord, she wrote, "We both believe and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble." 

One of Ben Camino's Four Spiritual Laws is from another poet he loves much, perhaps inordinately, Gerard Manley Hopkins -- "The world is charged with the grandeur of God." Hopkins  urges us pay closer attention to the dear "freshness deep down things." Dickinson would agree but only fifty times an hour. The other fifty she would be wondering about Deus absconditus, the God who hides himself soooo deep down that we might question a.) the official story and/or b.) the character of such a Divine Sneak. The God who lurks. 

The dying sun of December, the muted silver of all that slant light, makes me look twice at . . . everything. The glory is veiled. It beckons and pushes away. Or, perhaps, urges us to pay closer attention, because Love wants to be sought and found. I thought a lot about the veiled glory, the hidden God, the muted light today as I paid attention and as I thought about Advent. 

He came, they say, veiled not just in human vesture, but fully invested in the shit and blood and placenta and messiness of a human life. A poor young woman was his mother. A donkey was his chariot. Certain poor shepherds sobered up just in time to learn the hymn the angels taught them and come to the first Christmas service. It was a cattle shed after all. But . . . kings came. 

Or not. Sometimes it's too much to believe. And then it isn't. You look again. You don't want to be taken in. But you might want to be . . .  part of the story. 

For those who don't know the poem, Emily's image of "a certain slant of life / on winter afternoons" seems primarily a negative one.  It "hurts" (but "without a scar"); it "oppresses like the weight / of cathedral tunes" (is that definitely bad?).  It's not clear to me, though, that Dickinson is complaining. Or, that she is only complaining. At the same time, she is registering the weight, the gravity, the cut, the numinous charge (not necessarily pleasant, however) of this slant light and whatever it represents. 

As I said, my path between the old canal bed and the Wabash is a good place to run, to look about, and to ruminate. As are Emily's mind and words. As is, I hope, this Slant Advent Meditation by your not-so-humble servant, Ben Camino. 

*Some estimate that one canal digger died (and many were buried on the spot) for every six feet of canal. 

 ***By the way, here is a link to the Ironic Advent Meditation I posted this day two years ago. I kind of like it. It might even be funny, but I can never tell for sure. So if you haven't seen it before, or even if you've read it forty times (which probably means your name is Jennifer), feel free to take a look. And browse the others going all the way back to Advent 2012 if you need some literary muted silver to fill your mind and heart. 

Ben Camino: Ben Camino's Ironic Advent Meditation 2018 #1: Advent Imperative(s) (bencaminosoul.blogspot.com)

Ironic Advent Meditation #3: Advent Imposters

Ben Camino's Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #3:      

Advent Imposters!

You must know, dear reader, how emphatically important this third ironic advent meditation  is, simply by the fact that it features the first ever exclamation point (aka exclamation mark, exclam, bang) in any Ben Camino title ever! Bang! 

Of course, Jesus talked about imposters of all kinds, so we should be up in arms, at least armed with punctuation marks exclaiming the bad news. And the worst imposters of all, he said, were imposter christs who would come in the last days. Now, I'm not entirely sure if we are in the last days or not, and I'm not sure if that guy dressed like a fox on CBN the other day offering eternal life in exchange for all your chickens* was, indeed, an imposter christ, but I am sure of one thing. 

The church of today like its good friend, contemporary culture, would almost certainly not have a traitor's chance in hell of identifying an imposter Christ or any other kind of imposter as far as that goes exclamation point, mark, exclam, bang, pow! 

Why so, you query? Yes, yes, you queried, I know you did. Don't pretend you didn't, you . . . fake. Alright, alright. Maybe some of us are too quick to see imposters. I may lean that way to balance the culture. As Don Quixote did. Goodness, what do they teach them in school these days. It's all in Aristotle. 

Back to your query, though. Why so? Why are we incapable and uninterested and unequipped and ineffective (whew, all those prefixes!)at the task to which Jesus set us oh so many centuries ago of being on the watch for imposters. Answer: we are often so sensitive and kind and soft-hearted (perhaps a good) and soft-brained (almost certainly an evil), we would spend all our time convincing these imposters that they merely are examples of the almost infinite number of persons these days apparently suffering from imposter syndrome. 

Instead of "get thee behind me!" with full stop exclams, we pour out run-on sentences full of sympathy, excuses, and commas, intended to help people see that they are just as good at being Christ as . . . Christ or just as good at anything else as anyone else, no matter how ill-equipped, unprepared, and inexperienced they are. 

You can't cancel me on Twitter. I don't Twit.  

Do me a favor, though. I won't put a link because it's too easy as it is. Just google imposter syndrome. Count up how many TED talks there are on the topic. Go to images and look at the thousands of venn diagrams and inspirational posters and flow charts and such. Fine, fine, fine. 

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely agree that there is such a thing as Imposter Syndrome. Just not THAT SUCH. But, like other things (syndromes, symptoms, nefarious practices, power dynamics) we have somewhat recently discovered/invented, they have become the trees for which we cannot now see the forest.

I promise not to use a Venn Diagram, mostly because I don't know how to make one and Ben Camino's ironic advent meditations are performed in real time, like baking, and I barely have time to edit (you noticed?) much less go to Venn Diagram school between now and ten minutes from now. 

So,I will explain instead. First, the very reason we have the concept of "imposters," is that SOME PEOPLE ARE IMPOSTERS. A LOT OF PEOPLE. Posers or not. You can be a poser imposter (that's nefarious). Or you can be a non-poser imposter. As my dear former brother-in-law used to always say sometimes: This is what we know. 

What do I mean? Well, you can be ill-equipped, unprepared, and inexperienced at something (your job, a relationship, savior of the world, a Shakespeare professor, what have you)and you can know this to be true while still passing yourself off as someone other than you are (you poser!). You, sir or madam, are the worst. Of course you can also just THINK or, more precisely, FEEL you are unqualified, in which case you really do suffer from imposter syndrome. False self-knowledge is real, and it's turn both ways.  

The other way is by being a non-poser imposter. You might lack self-knowledge (insert Socrates "know theyself" imperative here), you might not be so good at performing regular fearless personal inventories like they teach the folks to do in A.A., you might just have parents and/or people in authority over you who don't tell you the truth about yourself. Or ...  maybe your peeps just won't tell you that you aren't wearing any clothes, dear Emperor. 

Being a non-poser imposter sounds bad, of course, but it's not that bad. You can learn to listen to other smarter, more skillful people (and other people's parents), you can study people who really are excellent at what you thought you were qualified to do and even ask them for advice, you can learn to look at yourself more truthfully, you can work hard to prepare your previously unprepared self for the work you are already doing badly. The world is not a perfect place and we might need to have some folks doing work for which they are relatively unprepared. Just not bridge building. Or Shakespeare. Or saving the world. Let's face it. Mediocrity happens. But most folks can get better if they really want to. Especially if they realize they need to.  

So, yes, there are way too many  nefarious imposters. Pretend Messiahs. Or pretend anything else. But there are also folks who perhaps bumble into a situation and, unless it involves the nuclear button or taking away the sins of the world, it might still work out IF  such a one, finding himself/herself in such a situation, flexes the learning muscles instead of primping and posing as something he/she isn't. 

And . . . obviously, Advent, you ask? Yes, yes, the third day in fact. Beware of false Christs. False Messianic Kings. And even false cute things like Ricky Bobby's baby Jesus who are no more than a projection of Holiday cuteness and giggles rather than real Christmas comfort and joy. More on that in a sec. 

Imposters, though? Let's nail it down. Aristotle mapped them on his famous map of the mean like this.**

1. Qualified and knows it. Whether you are priveleged or not, has no value to the question at hand. Remember: bridges and dams are real.

2. Qualified and doesn't know it. Real imposter syndrome!!!! Pat these people on the back, pump them up, and pay them what they are worth, not what they think they are worth. Show them a Venn diagram, after they come to see themselves for what they are, let them give yet another TED talk.  

3. Unqualified and doesn't know it. These are the obtuse functional imposters. These folks might cause damage if, say, they are supposed to build an academic program, a bridge, a dam, or the stairway to heaven. Still, not knowing one is unqualified is not the same as being qualified. On the other hand, if good-hearted or open to wisdom and fortunate enough to be approached by those who aren't too nice to share their tough wisdom, this person can change, grow, learn, and either find a better fit elsewhere or start fitting better where they are). I thought I knew basketball until I had a really good coach.  

4. Unqualified and knows it but Fakes it. Such people are dangerous and bad, although since they are also almost certainly conniving and shrewd, they sometimes still might do some good. They won't know how to build a good bridge themselves, but they might get on the phone to cousin Leroy who can help. Alright, really that doesn't sound like a bridge I'd want to be on. Still these people are the true imposters. And they are rampant. And one should not be too nice to them. One should beware of them. And maybe try to talk them into being a #3b (seeking help). Or, sorry to get all biblical, maybe we can pray, like the psalmist, that they fall into the ditches that they dig. 

Advent (what? finally?! gee thanks Ben Camino!), of course, has an imposter double. It's called the Christmas season. More commonly, perhaps, Xmas. In the Xmas season, the twelve days of Christmas are counted backwards from December 25 rather than forwards towards Epiphany. And Xmas tends to stretch from the day after Halloween to New Year's Day. Then, after the football and the feasting and the Black Friday gift-giving, the tree is tossed and we each go hide in our rooms to play with our new techie toys. 

Or something like. 

The point is that there is a real Imposter Advent, the Xmas season as pushed by a tired, desperate, greedy non-community, the dying gasp of our lethal consumer culture. 

But that doesn't mean your neighbor, or you for that matter, dear reader, are necessarily Advent poser imposters. Your ignorance may not be criminal misprision. Sometimes it just . . . happens. You, perhaps, are just trying to please the kids, keep up with the neighbors, not feel too sad in all the loneliness, enjoy the lights like you did when you were a child (but it gets harder every year the louder and glitzier Xmas becomes). And we are tired, arent' we? 

There is a better way, a way of personal growth, but not a way of pretending. And I'm here to be the friend that will tell you about it rather than confirm you in your misery (no matter how cute those Grouch pjs are). The real Messiah, the not-fake stairway to heaven builder came as a poor child. "Advent" was on rough country roads, on a donkey, in the cold, moving in the elements. Decidedly not glitzy. 

Yet it did promise great presents and real presence. 

In fact he lived his entire life in poverty. Then faced terrible injustice and suffering at the hands of the culture of his day. And, in that, hiding somewhere, was the true gift.  

How is this a good story for me, you ask? How is this good for ME?! Thanks for asking. And don't get mad at the answer.  

It isn't. For you, I mean. I know this is not what your preacher says and not what your parents taught you either. But it's not for you. It's for us. You will know the true Christ, the true Christmas, the true Advent, by its us-ness. And, as far as you (or I) are concerned, since we have a hard time focusing on such things, it's best to just say real Christmas is about "thou-ness" (see Martin Buber). Short version -- it's for that person over there. And that donkey. And those folks who have never even heard the story but sure could use some grace.  

It will be difficult this year, especially. this year of isolation. But find the us in Christmus (I'm really sorry about that one). Find the old man ringing the bell outside in the cold. Or the pandemic equivalent of him and his bell. Out of love for us, don't go shopping in a crowded store for the perfect gift you just realized is perfect because it flashed across your computer screen earlier today. 

Do something special instead, something so traditional that it seems new-fangled in an increasingly fake and poser culture. 

Buy a donkey for someone. Ask me and I'll tell you how to get one and make sure it gets to someone who needs it. Or find the equivalent. And no, I don't mean posting a picture of donkey on Tweeter.  

Shovel the elderly neighbor's sidewalk; yes, you can use that fancy snowblower you got on Christmas morning. Come to think of it, why don't you do it all winter. No, I don't mean mine. I can handle mine (I live in Texas). 

Real Christmas is really good, but it costs something. Precisely, being real. Finding a way to be human rather than yet another Xmas drone.   

Alright? Buy the donkey. Use that snowblower. Find the old guy with the bell. And beware the guy in the outfit who wants all your chickens. And by all means, light a good old-fashioned candle. Follow the poor family on your Advent Calendar, on their lonely, precarious journey. Enjoy the light of the world, the light of us. Weep for our isolation.   

When He comes, He comes for us. And he will say unto us, "you are real. Come into my real Christmas kingdom." 

OK? Let's go!! eXclam.

* I made this up

** There's no such thing        

Ironic Advent Meditation 2020 #2: Ironic (Saint) Andrew

Ben Camino's Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #2:     Ironic (Saint) Andrew Gets a Cross of His Own

Dear reader. It's just the second day of Advent, and I realize that some of you wonder why I am now talking about Saint Andrew instead of Advent.  The short answer is that the liturgical year pays attention both to the proper of the seasons (we are very early in the season of Advent obviously) AND the proper of the saints. The what? Well, Saint's Days. We don't worship them, but we "pay attention" to them. 

Saint's days are scattered throughout the year, but some of the really great ones come during Advent and Christmas. And some I have added, like the Feast of Charles, my father (coming soon). A good liturgist, or for that matter, a good ironist, does his or her best to weave the meditation upon the life and teaching of the saint into the proper season. There will be reader evaluation forms to fill out by Epiphany for you to critique how well or how badly Ben Camino has done so. He won't read them, however. 

Anyway(s), here goes. 

I guess it's kind of cheeky (or ironic) to feel sorry for a saint and martyr, brother of the first Pope, companion of the Lord, loaves and fish miracle assistant (I like to think of him as a sort of apostolic miracle whip, ), and, most famously, patron saint of a pretty sweet golf course in Scotland. But I do. 

If he would have had a better PR guy or even just Saint Luke churning out the Acts of Andrew (a sequel),  I’m sure he would have his own gospel or at least an epistle or two. And a LOT more statues. Of course, we shall see, moving forward (or backwards perhaps), if statues are as stationary a memorial as people have thought since . . . well before Ozymandias. 

Wait, that's probably a bad example. By the way, if Ozymandias does not ring an ancient Egyptian bell, I would rather you look it up than just clicking on a link I provide. OK? That's more the Ben Camino way. Feel free to add your annoyed comments in the evaluation after Epiphany.  

Anyway(s), I think it's obvious that if Andrew would have just doubted the resurrection (like Thomas) or argued with Jesus about getting his feet perfumed (like Judas) or jumped into the water with little faith (like his brother) he would have been more impactful, as every university administrator I have ever known would say. Doubting Andrew. Or perhaps, Ironic Andrew. Has a certain ring to it. Nobody would ever forget Ironic Andrew. Would they? Really, would they? 

But . . . no. Andrew pretty much disappears from the story, overwhelmed by James, John, and, obviously, his more visible, irascible (some faithful friends will know that I threw that word in just to hear it shimmer) and oh-so-loud brother, Peter. And, apropos of nothing, how about the names of these two boys? A lot of interpretive ink has been spilled explaining why Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter, from something like the reed to the Rock. But obviously he felt sorry for him since his brother Andrew’s name meant . . . the Man. 

Of course, I am more than willing to admit that people probably didn't go around saying, "well my name means "manly," what does your name mean?" But if your brother got named "Rock," you might remind him of what mom and dad said about you from the beginning. 

Where were we? Advent. Well, maybe this doesn't exactly feel like an advent meditation, but then, I’m never sure what Advent EXACTLY is anyway. I mean, I know it's the preparation time for the coming of the Savior. The first coming, the second coming, all the comings. It's the second day, and I'm confused. 

And here is what we know about Andrew -- the fisherman, the fisher of men, the Man. The Eastern Church has another special name for him too. The first called. I like that. Inordinately. And, for that, we can give thanks and raise a glass of fish extract in honor of this former follower of one amazing and possibly mad Baptist preacher named John. And thank the Coming One that Andrew did not miss his cue when the script had a sudden change, and the Coming One done came.

For the Gospel of John (thanks for the love, John, even though you sort of hogged the New Testament) tells us that Andrew was hanging out with this Baptist character one day when Jesus walked by. The Baptist said, “Look over yonder" or some other cool old-school hillybilly expression—these guys not being particularly Oxfordian if you take my meaning. "Boys, I'm pretty dang sure the Lamb of God just walked past.” 

And Andrew followed. 

Not only did he follow, but he "quickly went and found his brother" before his brother was the rock.  And the rest is history, mystery, and the story of a conspiracy to leave Andrew out of all the really good stuff that James, John, and Peter got to do.

But seriously, I jest, but I jest seriously (got it?). When the moment of Advent comes, which the liturgical clock says is . . . NOW, and if anything in this confusing concept means anything, it means that Advent points to the moment, the sudden event which means everything and is not be missed. 

Of course, it is also a long, long time of waiting and preparation and doubting and wondering and then more waiting. But sometimes, maybe, he/she/it arrives or, more relationally, comes to (us).  Advenit!  And some people see and "get" he/she/it. And some of those some go grab somebody else and say, “This is HE/SHE/IT brother, or I’m a rotten hunk of tilapia" (a popular fish in Galilee, I've heard). 

That, apparently, was language the Reed soon to be the Rock could understand. And that's why Andrew is not only the Man but is called the first called. And maybe the first to “lead someone else to Christ” as the Baptist (Melvin, not John) likes to say.

 

And, since this is an ironic Andrean meditation, I remind you that a year or two later surrounded by thousands of very hungry hearers of the gospel it was Andrew the fisherman, the fisher of men, the Man, who said to Jesus, “Well, there’s not much here Rabbi, but there is a kid. Aaaand, well, the kid has five biscuits and two catfish.” Seize the moment, oh ye rarely mentioned apostle. Heck, seize the kid’s fish. Fortunately, Peter didn’t loudly intervene, as was his wont, and tell everyone to go home first.  Andrew always knew a good thing when he smelled one.

There’s obviously more to be said about Andrew's bones being supposedly buried in Constantinople and supposedly being reburied, mostly, in Italy, not to mention his death, supposedly, by x-cross, a saltire cross (think the flag of Scotland). 

And, of course, the invention of golf. All interesting information, some of it possibly true, about the apostle who usually got left out of the story. 

But without whom, dear readers . . . maybe nothing. 

I’m not sure when, how, or even if he/she/it is coming into our lives anytime soon. But I’ve heard rumors. The moral seems to be this: it’s fine and dandy to hang out with Baptists, but don’t let that stand in the way of your brother being the Pope.

 

NO, no, no. Wait a minute--that’s not the moral! The moral is this: when the sudden event which means everything and is not to be missed arrives, we should hope and pray that someone we know and trust, a brother for example, will be there to grab us and make sure we don’t miss all the excitement. That happened to me once. Maybe more than once. I've told that story before and I'm sure I will tell it again. 

But for now, just this: Advent, if it means anything at all, is not only ironic but, when the moment comes, it's exciting enough to forget about the apostolic power rankings and just hang on for the ride of your life. We celebrate Andrew because he followed, he hung on, all the way to his own unique cross. 

And if you were one of the folks in the hungry crowd that day, or you were the reed who became the rock because your brother came and got you (I cry when I know that some people never even have a brother), or you were a son of Thunder who had visions and revelations but no cross, you probably did not forget, like some of the rest of us have, good Saint Andrew. A fisherman, a fisher of men, the Man, the follower. 

And Jesus said to them, "Come and See."

**Friends, Ben Camino has written so many of these, that he can't share them all with you every year. But there is a special one, dated yesterday, Nov 29, about a former student who died on that day. He was, like Andrew, a person with gifts that were not, perhaps, as obvious and as valued by the popular crowd, as some others might have been. But, you might want to read about him. I encourage you to do so. His name was Tripp and he was a trip. It is the most read of all Ben Camino meditations (2K or so),  and that makes me very happy. Here's the link: Ben Camino: IRONIC ADVENT 2015 MEDITATION #1: TRIPPY ADVENT