angie dicken

Christmas or Nativity

Truly, we find ourselves in the season of holidays. While I once demanded this season is only about one holiday—Christmas—I can’t help but see that, more and more, I was deluded by a cultural message ingrained in me. Power, dominance, my way, or else…

More than ever, marketing schemes have banked on Christians inserting their dominance in the culture, and now our religion is used to make a buck—or a billion. I am desperate to rid myself of that ridiculous pursuit of dominance. How could I have ever been convinced that Christmas was about that kind of power at all? And how could I have been so stuck on demanding Christmas and all its trimmings? As I grow older, I finally understand that “Christmas”, as we’ve come to experience it, is two holidays.

We have the marketed celebration. And we have the Feast of the Nativity.

It’s important to distance the celebration from the feast. There’s a danger in mixing them together, as if Jesus is a poster child for a grand marketing plan. And the marketers’ intention is obvious, these days. They’re playing a giant game of monopoly, investing in the manger; banking on the Santa with the baby; commercializing “Scripture” on trendy shirts, and offering up knock-off religious symbols in holiday sales. Marrying the two holidays inflates the economy, but bankrupts the sacred. Sadly, ironic.

The nativity isn’t a meme.

The Christ child isn’t a mascot.

And holiday shopping isn’t elevated and justified by using the Christian story as a logo.

Take my Savior out of your scheming, Box Stores. I’ll just shop. Just enjoy the colors and the lights. Eat, drink, be merry.

But I won’t find Christmas in those things. Thank God, He’s not in those things.

The Feast of the Nativity has nothing to do with the holiday celebration this culture mistakes for Christmas. The Feast of the Nativity is honoring the Christ and His Mother. The feast magnifies a Prophecy fulfilled. The Feast glorifies a humble servant, a compassionate Lord, Love Eternal. Nothing plastic, trending, or modern can touch the sacred meaning. Christmas or the Feast of the Nativity? They are not the same. Maybe they were once, but not as we label celebrations now.

So…What’s the big deal, you might ask? It’s all about the heart anyway. You can have it all and still have Christ.

Sure.

I will be the first to admit, I love the festive spirit of all the things in December. I celebrate the season, and I magnify the nativity. I do both.

But mixing the two in the way they’ve been mixed…well, it is a big deal. There is so much at stake.

Especially hearts.

There are people out there who need the Feast more than ever. And the stuff just won’t cut it. It has to be more than that. Confusing the two celebrations strips down the reality of Who Christ is to a plastic imitation perfectly suited for a store shelf. Who wants two for the price of one when it comes to a Savior? Allowing commerce to capitalize on our story is not what Christmas was ever meant to be.

And by God’s grace, the Feast is untouched, and will remain that way within the walls of many Churches. And I’d say, that the fullness is found in the pew, not the store shelf. The Light of the world is found in the candle lit by the broken hearted, not the perfectly lined roofs. And the Christmas story is powerful in itself—not because of dominance—but because of Love.

My encounter with a human

I would never move my family across the world unless I knew it was highly advantageous for their well being… honestly, I have looked into it. I have done quick searches on job availability and researched the lay of a far off land.

It is way more daunting than I have energy to consider seriously.

But I am not desperate. I am not in danger. And I am not raising my children on fumes of an empty bank account or pantry, or roofless home.

One day last summer, I met with a family who’d come all the way from one corner of the earth to my suburban corner with little more than the clothes on their backs.

I assume they didn’t have the luxury of job hunting first. I assume their situation was more in the way of desperation, depravation, and maybe even danger.

I looked into the eyes of their hungry child and noticed a glassy stare that slipped far away between our conversation. Slumped shoulders, unlaundered clothing, unclean hair. And yet…the glimmer of hope still remained, the smile still grew when I shared some information about free lunch in our community. And the shameless child handed me an EBT card, asking how they can get money on it for food. Because it wasn’t working any more.

To be honest, I didn’t really know what the EBT card was. Now I do.

After encountering not just adults, but helpless young children who can’t thrive with what has been passed down to them—whether another’s choices or their parents’ choices are root—I force myself to remember they are human and the bottom line is that humans need to eat. How can the happy and secure not feel obligated to help? How can those who govern the land think they have no responsibility for humans who hunger in their jurisdiction?

But, unfortunately, I know the mentality of such uncharitable refrain.

I remember messages of “those” people who don’t work and “mooch” off the government.“Those” people who make us feel uncomfortable because they don’t look like us, or talk like us, or even think like us.

I was raised to consider my value and my place being centered on my specific way of living.

And, while excuses float around about the “why’s” for that thinking, is there really any good reason to withhold aid when it comes to human life? Even if some take advantage and scam the system. I understand there are crooks. I still can’t agree that we aren’t obligated to feed people who can’t feed themselves. As a community or a government.

People need food to live. It’s the most pro-life thing to offer someone. It’s the most cruel thing to take away. No matter if someone is a saint or scoundrel. No matter if you are a church member or an atheist. No matter if you are a social worker or a politician. It’s your obligation to help people live.

Prejudice and greed are the only reasons to withhold a crumb from a child, that I can see.

So, I am trying to figure out how I can help more. I know where my food bank is. I know they will be the most hopping place in the land come Saturday. I think we will amp up our offering.

Do you know where your food bank is?

If you encounter humans today, remember, they need to eat too.

Finding Happy (when it is fleeting)

Yesterday morning, my husband and I walked through a farmer’s market then crossed a bridge and wove our way down quiet streets, around traffic cones and construction fences, and along a river to a Japanese garden.

I wish my imagination was grand enough to have allowed me to melt into the garden and transport to a faraway place, just for a day. But, I’ve lost my touch with make-believe in this unsteady season of teenager parenting and stagnant middle-age.

Losing my focus to fantasy seems too precarious when life presses against the sharp edges of reality. Sometimes the sharpness is a hi-def clarity of goodness that begs for a prayer of thanks, but other times, piercing pain of a loved one’s struggle or the dysfunction of a relationship bears great burden on my soul.

Reality garners the sharpness of a double-edged dagger-the beauty and the bitterness.

And then there is the outside messaging slicing peace into tiny bits, enough to want to run away, far away, not for the thrill of new places, but to escape the impending despair.

I’ll admit, finding the softness of a happy heart amid all the “reality” has been difficult for me.

Later that afternoon, I began to plan a birthday celebration for one of my children. I considered him in a tender, careful way, reflecting on what he loves and who he is and how I can make our time special. This shift in thinking-from the gloom of a lost imagination to that hi-def clarity of the goodness of my child, brightened my heart. And I realized something very true:

Whatever ugly is out there, whatever lies try to destroy my peace, whatever mistakes keep me from feeling good in my own skin, it’s all nothing compared to the love I’ve been granted to bestow upon others. Especially my children. It’s what I was made to do. Even in this messed up world.

And for that moment, I was happy. I had found it. And it had nothing to do with me. And it was very, very real. In the best way.

Where did she come from?

I never imagined myself walking beside a teen daughter. I think, with her being my last child, I just figured I would step into the next season without much consideration. I’d been mothering for a long while already.

However, it really is different than raising teen sons. I was a teen daughter once.

And there lies the rub.

And it’s because of my past experiences that this role as the mother is problematic for my sometimes troubled heart. Actually, I have discovered how faint of heart I can be in the thick of our arguments, in the pathetic reactions that escape me.

I often long for the sweetness of her younger years, and then battle through our conflict with less grace and unnecessary emotion. I am reminded how much maturing I still have to do in the dual against a daughter who might just be more mature than me. No joke.

When I step back and observe her reactions to this world, I realize that she’s grown so far past how I was at her age, and she is everything I wanted to be at her age, too. It frightens me that she might have a lacking mother in parenting. I remember far too well the grief of broken moments from my own teen years, and the self-doubt implanted in my core. Even now, I find myself striving to be accepted for who I am because I believe my flaws are too much. Deep down, I don’t trust I am enough. Actually, I think I know it. Deep down, I will never measure up past my mistakes. Especially among those who’ve known me longest and have tended to confirm as much.

Bitter echos of “Where did you come from?” threaten to materialize on my lips in the most heated moments with my daughter. While I hear myself demand respect and create the perfect storm of a broken moment, I haven’t gone so far as to cement the self-doubt with that shame-filled question, “Where did you come from?”

Inflicting shame is my greatest fear as a parent; a boundary that I dare not cross. I know the consequences of it. I don’t want my daughter to think she’s lost her acceptance because of that rhetorical dagger, “Where did you come from?”

Yet, can a mother ask that question with wonderment and joy and awe of the daughter estranged from her mother’s weaknesses?

Where did you come from?

Can a mother be so very glad that her daughter came from her and flourished in a way so different than her that the daughter is nothing like her at all—and that is a good thing?

When I see my daughter’s willingness to step into spaces regardless of who she knows and who knows her, the 14-year-old girl within me is shocked by such autonomy.

When I witness my daughter’s compassion for someone hurting, and her fierce desire to act, she’s bolder than I ever was.

And when I am reprimanded by my daughter because I speak critically or judge another, I can’t even correct her—because she is right. I was never taught to rebuke the vice of criticism or judgement. That vice was a way of life in my own early years. And it haunts me still. But my daughter has no tolerance for such a way.

Where did she come from?

I am so thankful she didn’t come from the worst part of me. I am thankful for the grace of God allowing her to grow into a better human than little Angie.

My daughter is not me, and I am so glad she isn’t.

Goodness

No matter how folks twist who they think Christ is in these days of power and policy, let us remember Who Christ was by what He didn’t do…and what He did. Who He was and is and always shall be:

“Have you ever wondered why Jesus, the God of the whole universe…did nothing to stop His persecutors and tormentors? He was captured, tortured, and killed—all passive things. Yet when He came back from the dead, He declared that He had defeated death, overcome the world, and conquered evil. At face value He didn’t appear to do anything, but this is the twist: He didn’t have to. If Christ had done battle with a personification of death or engaged in single combat with the devil, itmight make more sense to us visually, but it would send a very different message: namely, that might makes right, that Christ defeated evil by virtue of His superior power. That would imply a problematic universe, one of no moral content at all apart from the use of power. But this is not the message of the gospel. That Jesus conquered evil and death without force is a witness to the ultimate reality of Goodness…Goodness doesn’t need to use force to prove its reality if it is reality. This is the same reason Jesus couldn’t stay dead: He is life itself, and life itself cannot die.” (Dr. Zachary Porcu)

Traces of Hatred

I am desperate to weed out the anger, the hatred, the prejudice from my heart.

There is nothing in the way of Christ that looks like the climate today—the twisting of politics and doctrine, the excuses for hate speech and elitism. Why is it so easy to fall into the tossing waves of this world and risk a drowning soul?

I am desperate to keep my head, and my heart, above the chaos.

Staying away from social media is one way I have found to help. The rabid posts cause me to spiral, and a tidal wave threatens to slam me to faithlessness. The vicious claims and errant logic are unrecognizable in the God I love.

I keep having to remind myself that God isn’t defined by humans, even if He loves all of them. He’s also not conditional in His love, even if their love for Him is destroyed by hatred.

So, I am trying to stay centered on the Truth of God, in Love, with repentance, hanging onto faith even if it’s brittle and thin.

Through it all, my constant heart cry is,

Lord Have Mercy.

So, what are you doing to keep the hatred out?

Traces of Hatred

I am desperate to weed out the anger, the hatred, the prejudice from my heart.

I am desperate to keep my head, and my heart, above the chaos.

I keep having to remind myself that God isn’t defined by humans, even if He loves all of them. He’s also not conditional in His love, even if their love for Him is destroyed by hatred.

So, I am trying to stay centered on the Truth of God, in Love, with repentance, hanging onto faith even if it’s brittle and thin.

Through it all, my constant heart cry is,

Lord Have Mercy.

So, what are you doing to keep the hatred out?

Coldness of Heart

“In our culture, if someone spoke about coldness of the heart, we would likely describe it as an emotional issue, and dismiss it or diminish it as merely unfortunate. If, on the other hand, we were to speak about something interfering with our acquisition of information, we would treat it as a crisis of first-order. We do not understand that the greatest crisis in our lives is found in our coldness of heart. Indeed, even our acquisition of information is distorted by coldness of the heart.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

Lord have mercy.

Who do they say that I am?

“Note that he is not asking them their own opinion. Rather, he asks the opinion of the people. Why? In order to contrast the opinion of the people with the disciples answer to the question “But who do you say that I am?” In this way, by the manner of his inquiry, they might be drawn gradually to a more sublime notion and not fall into the same common view as that of the multitude.” St. John Chrysostom

And the multitude didn’t know. Yet, their answers weren’t completely against goodness. They compared Jesus to good men they knew, but they obviously didn’t know who Christ was. Rumors among the multitude fell short. I think about how similar our society is these days…everyone infusing their own opinion, their own idea of goodness. Allowing quick words to amplify the noise of opinions.

Just because a notion tied with God fits my perspective, or it sounds good, doesn’t mean it’s accurate. My assumption could be distracting me from the Truth of Who God is. I could be crafting my own little god and not worshipping the actual God of the Universe at all.

I need to know Him like the disciples knew Him, not the multitude who claims a variety of things in a relativistic culture. I must seek the “sublime notion” of the disciples, the men whom Jesus entrusted to build His Church in perfect timing. And it is in His Church that I can find the Truth.

I am amazed how, later in the passage, after Peter declares Who He truly is, Christ tells the disciples not to tell anyone. He knew the plan. The timeline. I suspect He cared more about their understanding in that moment than His reputation among the multitude. His Church would be built by the men who knew the Truth, not by those stuck in the fray of opinions, no matter how loud they were, or how certain.

**The Scripture image is from the Catena App. This is a great way to explore the early Church Fathers’ Biblical commentary**

Too Great

“Christianity is a lifestyle – a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established “religion” (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one’s “personal Lord and Savior” . . . The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.”

Richard Rohr

Even the demons believe.