Christmas Eve and After

Well, I have finished my first Christmas Eve service. It went well, if slightly more disjointed than I would have hoped. But then again, many years ago, Christ came into the world, and that was probably a slightly more disjointed event than many expected or hoped for as well, so I can't feel too bad about a few less-than-smooth transitions.

Tonight I received a few of the best Christmas gifts ever. The first was a set of pictures of the baptisms I performed last week. I keep looking at them, because seeing such a huge grin on my face as I sprinkle water over those little heads brings back to me all the joy of that event. The second was a surprise card (and a substantial amount of vacation money) from the congregation. The financial gift is always appreciated, especially right before a long roadtrip, but I was truly overwhelmed by the love and care it represented. The third gift was the realization that my excitement about having a vacation and seeing friends and family was tempered with a strong sense that I'm really going to miss these people while I'm gone. This community truly has become my home in the last almost-year, and that discovery was easily the best gift I've received in a long time.

Now I am at home with my dog. The tree is lit, candles are burning, carols are playing on the stereo, and I am doing laundry and working on last-minute improvements for tomorrow's service. It's not the perfect Christmas Eve celebration, but it works.

After the Christmas Day service, I will be heading off on the Stacey-and-Laila-Conquer-the-Midwest Roadtrip Adventure. For the next two weeks, my internet access will be unpredictable at best. So, I wish all of you a blessed Christmas and a joyful New Year!

Christmas Cards

I do not send Christmas cards. I never have. I am beginning to reconcile myself to the idea that I probably never will.

Sometimes in the past I have thought that I would send Christmas cards. I have decided multiple times that "This is the year I will get it together and do what other people do and send out those little bits of holiday joy..." Some years, I have even purchased cards. Then I have proceeded to send out two or three of them. The rest of them are packed into the bottom of my box of decorations and wrapping supplies with a sigh: "Maybe next year I'll get it together..."

This year, once again, I wandered the card aisle and thought that perhaps this really would be the year..but then I remembered the stack of unused cards sitting idly in that box at home, and so I refrained from adding to the pile. A few days later, as I pulled out the wrapping paper and ornaments, I saw the cards. I took them out and put them on the coffee table and promptly began to feel extremely overwhelmed by the prospect of dealing with them.

If I was someone who was content with just writing a one-line greeting and signing my name, those cards may have been sent. But I'm not. Quite frankly, those kinds of cards irritate me. I receive a ton of them, and I try to appreciate them, but what I'm really thinking as I read them is, "What am I supposed to do with all of these cards that don't say anything? Am I obligated to keep them around? Is it rude to throw away a Christmas card?" And then, "Am I obligated to send a card in return?"

Occasionally I do, mostly because the one good thing about receiving these cards is that I then have an address for the person who sent it. This would be another complication in my Christmas card intentions: I have physical mailing addresses for approximately two people. I should interject here that I'm always a little surprised to receive cards in the mail, because I have had seventeen addresses in the last ten years, and I am not so good at giving updates. Anyway, if I ever decided to send cards, it would first involve the herculean task of retrieving addresses for a massive list of people, because the warped logic that goes on in my brain insists that if I start sending cards, I must send them to EVERYONE. "Everyone" in a life spent in seventeen locations in ten years - not to mention the people I knew before that - is a very long and daunting list.

That makes two (or is it three?) reasons I don't send cards: I'm forgetful, I don't have time to make them worthwhile, and I don't keep good address records. To add to that list, postage for the everyone list is expensive. Christmas cards require a lot of paper that will someday take up a lot of space in a landfill. And most of all, I don't want to think about people receiving a card from me, glancing at the one-line greeting and signature, and wondering, "How long am I obligated to keep this card? Is it rude to throw it away?"

So, if you don't receive a card from me this year (or in years to come), please don't take it personally. Just blame it on a set of life factors, personality quirks, and neuroses that have grown beyond my control. Maybe I'll get it together next year. In the meantime...Merry Christmas! Love, Stacey.

Advent Panic

Tomorrow is the fourth Sunday of Advent, and I am experiencing a sudden surge of panic. Not the usual Saturday night sermon crunch panic; the children's program has relieved me of that duty. Not the other standard Saturday evening scramble to make sure I have everything else I need for the services; I was surprisingly on the ball with all of that this week. No, I am panicking because Advent is almost over, and I have not come even close to fitting in everything I wanted to communicate before Christmas.

We have not sung all of the Advent music I love. Although I'm pleased that the kids are doing a program, it takes away the opportunity to preach that final sermon that would have pulled our Advent wanderings into one cohesive whole. Our worship services have fallen short of that interconnected, flowing build-up to Christmas I had hoped to accomplish. I do not have the satisfying sense that every person in the congregation has gained a richer understanding of what Advent is all about. In short, our Advent observance has been slightly less than sublime, and now it's nearly over, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to perfect it.

Yes, I am a terribly obsessive perfectionist when it comes to worship services.

Fortunately, in a sane moment in the midst of the manic panic episode, I realized a few things. First of all, there are only four weeks in Advent, so the chances of doing everything are pretty slim. Second, even if it was possible, it wouldn't necessarily be desirable to try to stuff everything into one season. Third, and most revolutionary of all, this is not the only Advent I will ever celebrate here.

Apparently I don't have to squeeze everything into one Advent. So what if I don't teach them every little thing about Advent? There will be another one! (Also - gasp! - they might already know some things about it, or even learn them from someone else in the future!)

I know this probably seems very obvious to most of you, but for me, a rather transient person for whom longevity in anything is just a foreign concept, this was a pretty startling insight, and one that means that, for this weekend at least, I can just breathe and let things be.

Tour d'Blogosphere

So, I'm trying to get back into the habit of posting something every day or so, but as I've mentioned before, I'm having a little writers' block problem lately - which may have been forgotten in the midst of not one but two posts yesterday. Anyway, in lieu of actual thoughts from a first year minister, I offer you thoughts from some people read by a first year minister.

This week's visit to Manhattan was necessitated by a meeting of Room for All, a developing group of advocates for the full inclusion of LGBT people in the RCA. One of our first tasks is to collect stories of the people involved in this movement, and as I was trying (despite the block) to write my own story, I came across this beautiful, honest, and inspiring post at Grover's Corners.

Fr. Jim Tucker at Dappled Things discusses open vs. closed communion, something I've been pondering as I try to find a balance between inclusivity and maintaining a sense of sacredness in the sacraments.

Scott continues the discussion of how Jesus and politics mix - and don't.

Spidey gets some clarity about Advent. Also, she's published a lovely book of funny, heartbreaking, contemplative poetry, Through Mist and Shadow.

Speaking of Advent, I had a conversation yesterday with someone who said he is loving Advent, because it is the one time of year when everyone is so busy that they're not seeking to talk to him, so he gets to be quiet and enjoy the season in peace. Then he asked how my Advent is going.

It's a pretty crazy time in the life of a pastor, especially a pastor who is going through it for the first time. I feel an almost constant sense of having no idea what I'm doing, and very little time to figure it out. I have two weeks of vacation coming right after Christmas, and the anticipation is growing. On the surface, that has little if anything to do with the Advent feeling of waiting and hoping for Christmas.

But as the busyness and chaos builds through this season, so does my sense of a time of rest soon to come. With every lit candle on the Advent wreath, my waiting becomes a little more eager, my hope becomes a little closer. As I read the Advent passages from Isaiah about an overturning of the expected order, about freedom for the captives and comfort for those who mourn, the reality that God's light shows up exactly at the time when we are wandering around in the deepest darkness becomes a little more real.

As I thought about how to answer my friend, I realized that, although my experience of Advent is noisy, hectic, and crazy, it does actually reflect the reason we observe Advent to begin with: to remind us that comfort, freedom, peace, and rest are coming. The promise of Advent is that God is there with us in the most broken of times, that light shines into the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.

(So much for no thoughts from me today, and hoorah for the breaking of the writer's block chains - another reflection of Advent if ever I've experienced one.)

The Edge of Central Park

Many pastors I know, when they get bogged down with work and need to get away, retreat to lakeside lodges and secluded cabins and quiet country villages. Well, I live in a quiet country village, and I have all the seclusion I could ever want out here. So when I need to decompress, I go to a place where I see as many faces in a minute as on a busy day in my normal life. When I need a retreat, I go to Manhattan.

Yesterday wasn't exactly a retreat day (went in for a meeting, worked on the train), but it felt like one, even though it started with driving entirely too fast to make the train - which was at the station when I pulled in to find...no parking spots. I rejoiced in the decision to wear flat shoes as I sprinted across the parking lot, only to find that the train was stalled anyway, waiting for a bus to arrive. So, I slid into my seat, pulled out my notebook, and let days worth of work pour out onto the page. Trains have this effect on me; something about moving forward while sitting still helps the ideas flow freely. Note to self: should perhaps take weekly train rides, and claim it as a work expense. I would be the most efficient, organized pastor on earth, so it would be worth it.

I step off into the madness of Penn Station, feel my tense shoulders drop a little farther from my ears, and that persistent knot in my back ease just a little. Three hours until the meeting, so I walk. I walk without destination, but I end up at the edge of Central Park - my favorite part of the city. Not the park itself, but the perimeter, where streets and nature meet in one defined line. (Please, no comments about how Central Park isn't really nature, it's a carefully designed and maintained human-made area, blah blah blah. I know. I saw it on the Discovery Channel. I don't care.) I wander just a little ways in, and realize how quiet it is there. Breathe a sigh of relief to see the skyscrapers over the tops of the trees, and walk back out to the streets; quiet is not on the agenda for the day. Hear the screech of tires, the wail of sirens, the endless voices. Smile as two carriage drivers discuss their plans for the evening - in Russian - and I understand.

Down 5th Ave., watching the tourists take pictures of the windows dressed for the holidays. Yes, I know, I don't live here either. Pop into a deli for coffee, sit by the window and watch the incredible variety of faces, clothing, and demeanors pass. Walk, walk, walk more, cover what I later realize is several miles of pavement.

Later, after the meeting, I boarded another train, rode back to my station, wondered where those other people were going, and if they were laughing inside too when the conductor came through and told us that if we missed our stop, we'd be stuck until tomorrow morning. Drove through the night, back to my quiet country village. Not a single car to be seen in the twelve miles from the thruway exit to my garage. It's dark here; I can see stars. My house is silent except for the jingle of my dog's collar as she wriggles down the stairs to greet me. And it's funny; after a day in the city, I can appreciate all that a little more.

You see, I am no so different from the edge of Central Park - not so clearly defined, and maybe a little wilder on the nature side, but it's there, the split, the combination, the dual personality. The small town girl with a lifetime of big city dreams, the raging extrovert who loves to come home to just a darkened house and a dog. And so, I understand just a little better, I can make it in this little, isolated place - as long as I can retreat to Manhattan.

Vindication (or, Random Dog Blogging)

For the last two years, I have gotten endless crap from people insisting that I should have crate-trained my dog, a coonhound/lab mix. Now, what good it does to tell me this when the dog is no longer a puppy (and by the way, has no destructive behaviors that would cause her to need to be crated), I have no idea. What business it is of theirs, and why they care enough to dispute me when I tell them that Laila refused to be crate-trained, I do not know. No one believes me when I say that I had a very anxious and difficult puppy, until I stopped trying to crate-train her and just left her confined to my room when I left the house. Then she was a-ok while I was gone, and much easier to deal with when I returned. But that is not the point of this post.

Today in my car, I was listening to the dog-training show on public radio. The host harped on and on about the benefits of crate-training, and how every dog NEEDS to be crate-trained, and how most dog behavior problems are caused by lack of crate-training, blah blah blah.

I was about to switch over to a CD, but then a woman called into the show. She had just acquired a puppy, who was proving extremely difficult to crate-train.

The host made a few "you just need to keep it up for a while longer, feed the dog in the crate, etc." sorts of comments, and then he asked about the breed of the puppy.

"He's a bluetick coonhound," the woman answered. Laila's mother was a bluetick hound. Laila exhibits primarily coonhound behaviors, despite being half lab. My ears perk up a bit.

"OHHHH..." says the radio host. "Coonhounds often don't crate-train very well...they do much better with a kennel or being confined to a single room rather than a crate when you're gone, because they're roving dogs who don't like being in small spaces."

I feel a sudden urge to stick out my tongue at a lot of people.