That’s my SBUX order this morning as I make my way through writing and getting on the Metro. My alarm is set for 7:45, so this may be short unless I get inspiration and need to keep writing on the train. Right now, I have no inspiration and yet, I am writing anyway, about anything. I have to keep going, because stopping just creates more silence as I plan out what to say and don’t actually put it to paper. Well, not paper, but you get the gist. The last time I wrote a letter, it was to my precious Argo, and I had to take LOTS of ibuprofen afterward because my hand hurt so bad. Not a fan. I probably need carpal tunnel surgery, but no time. Maybe next year. We’ll see. Right now, I am just busy beyond belief between work, choir, and youth group. It’s only going to get busier until after the first of the year.

The only thing I really hate is that choir lasts until the exact moment I need to go to sleep, and the temptation is not to show up. But I do. Showing up in all things is my new mantra. They need me, and I need them…… desperately. It’s my one social outing during the week. I can’t remember anyone’s name except Ingrid, but that’s okay. It will come with time. Now is where I just get nervous because everyone knows me, but I don’t know them, and it’s a pain in the ass to ask them their name because shouldn’t I know it by now? Not so much.

I can remember their faces and what they wear and how they smell if they wear loud perfume, but the names just don’t come to me. That’s new. I used to be able to remember everyone’s name. Now, I’m just lost. I got up in front of the congregation when I first joined, and I got a huge laugh, so people tend to remember me. But I have to remember there’s only one of me and at least 200 of them. On a really high attendance day, there’s over 300.

Matt and Mark didn’t preach last week, and it was surprising how much I missed talking to them about their sermons. It makes me feel good to be “one of the club.” Matt knows that my attendance is only until I get a church of my own, and he’s doing everything he can to help me achieve that goal. It’s amazing to have someone in my corner rooting for me…. a pro that knows what he’s doing sees the fire in my belly and wants to help me do something about it. There’s nothing on earth that I want more. Preaching in a real, live brick church is just as important to me as the clicks I get online. I’ve gotten several Indian followers on Facebook this week, and it makes me happy that my ideas translate across the world.

I told Mark that my goal was to get picked up by TextWeek when I get the gumption to preach every week. I call it The Lanagan Lectionary, because I try to publish before Sunday morning, therefore, I am easily Google-able for preachers in a pinch. I am certain that I have preached in congregations all over the world from people who have cribbed me. I’m not bothered about that. Steal all you want. All preaching steals from others’ ideas. If you hit the ball out of the park, no one asks about the brand of the ball.

Preaching online is interesting because I have a repository of ideas that I can reuse, plagiarizing from myself. I want to major in Advent and minor in Lent (that was a joke). Doing pretty well with Advent this year, even though it starts with apocalyptic text and dials down through the period. They are the hardest to relate to people and I trip on what to say about them. It’s easier to skip them and focus on the Gospel. The red letters are the easist.

I feel like I really understand where Jesus is coming from, because we are so alike in personality. He has to be solitary to be an amazing preacher. He wants children to be a much a part of the vision as adults. In short, he is one cool dude. Hipster Jesus is my favorite Jesus. He’s just so Portland it hurts.

Speaking of which, I saw a hipster Santa picture that made me laugh. It said, “I only deliver organic coal.”

I forgot to wear my Portand Timbers jersey today. They won the MLS cup and I am so proud and hurting that I’m not there to celebrate. I never got to sit with The Timbers Army at a game, and it’s a life goal. However, going to Portland is not. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. It’s got a bridge on it rather than a bird.

I would rather spend my money on the friends from Portland that can’t afford a trip to DC. One of these days, I’m going to get Volfe and Bryn out here for fun and “shelanagans” (see what I did there?). It’s another life goal to walk arm-in-arm with Bryn on The Mall.

And on that note, I have to run for the train. Love you miss you mean it. Have a good day at work! I will.

Right now I am doing restoration on my iPhone and iPad, because I have no idea what is causing it to fill up so fast. I think it’s that podcasts are being automatically downloaded in the background, so I switched to Stitcher Radio for them. I can just download the one I want to listen to on the Metro instead of downing them all. I also re-downloaded the U2 album that comes with the iPhone, because it’s not automatically installed anymore. I could listen to it over and over, and I do. The Miracle of Joey Ramone is a great song, no matter how mad people got over the “wasted space.” I am also fond of “Every Breaking Wave.” I suppose that if Apple wants to take up space on your iPhone, U2 wasn’t a bad way to do it. I remember that there used to be a U2-themed iPod, as well. Really regretting the decision not to get one of those……….

I need to go shopping after work, and I really don’t want to. I hate the crowds of people, and I’d rather just come home and crash. However, I am running out of basics like milk, and Lord knows I need that. A chai does not happen without it. Neither does macaroni and cheese. I am really stuck in that “social interaction needed to maintain isolation” hole. I don’t have time to go to the grocery store when the crowds are at a minimum. Even with Klonopin on board, I am not the best in a crowd-like situation unless people I know are involved. When I get into crowds, I tend to suit up and the hilarious mask comes out, but it doesn’t really feel like my authentic self. It feels like The Leslie Lanagan Show.™ She is someone that is likable and friendly, while on the inside I am trying my dead-level best to escape. I haven’t found a way to be my authentic self in a crowd, but it’s coming. I’m just not there yet. It’s one of the parts I miss about being married to Dana, because she ran interference extraordinarily well and knew the exact moment when I was done. There is only so much togetherness I can take.

I have so much going on in my head because of my ADHD that it’s hard to process my own thoughts, much less take in anyone else’s simultaneously. It’s too many browser windows open, because my sensory perception is so high. I would rather be lost in my own head in the privacy of my own room. I am insular to a fault, literally. The pendulum has swung too far, and I find myself actively avoiding social interaction, except with the people closest to me. Maybe this is normal as you age, and maybe it’s not. Whatever it is, I don’t like it. Going out and doing things just feels like a gargantuan task instead of a minor hassle.

I am glad that I share my office with only one other person. I’ve said it before, but I just become more and more grateful every day. There’s not really any noise, so when I’m working on something, I can focus just as well as I can at home. Alert Logic was an open office plan, and it made me crazier than I already am, which is saying a lot. 😉 Aaron says it’s gotten even busier since I left, which makes me even more grateful to be in a quiet office in a quiet neighborhood. The only thing that ever interrupts me is the cracking and popping of the tin roof when it expands and contracts.

I forgot my headphones today, and I wish I hadn’t. At least when I get my laptop, I’ll have speakers. I need something to interrupt the quiet, like playing Ray Lynch quietly as I work. I’m coding today, which makes me extraordinarily happy. It’s quiet work that will yield visually sumptuous results, which is right up my alley. I’m learning a lot about e-mail marketing and how to catch your eye when you open it….. eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back.

It’s interesting telling people what kind of job I got, because in the first few seconds their eyes glaze over. Apparently, nerding out is insular as well. Actually, I can explain what I do better to my youth group than I can my own age group, because they grew up in the age of coding and a lot of them are doing it themselves in school. If I ever have questions, I have several resources on Sunday nights. It’s a cool feeling, watching them make their way in the world.

Last night, someone mentioned me being single and I said, “yes. I am single and I don’t have any children. I find it easier to have other people’s children.” One of the moms said, “it’s always nice to have a place to drop them back off.” My sentiments exactly. However, one of the littlest girls in the children’s choir had a solo on Sunday and my ovaries exploded.

I have gotten over my fuzziness from my sleeping medication, probably because I was able to down two cups of coffee in record time because it was cold. I make a full pot, turn the heat off immediately, and set it out to cool. Then, I take the carafe upstairs. I drink it black with no sugar if it’s cold. Therefore, no calories and extremely refreshing.

It gets me going for the day, but I try not to overdo it. No amount of sleeping medication will put me out if I drink too much caffeine, a lesson learned over and over………….. You’d think I wouldn’t forget, but I do.

In fact, I’m going to chance it and have a cup right now. You know that thing I was saying about not being fuzzy anymore? I think I just felt another wave. Maybe it’s the Sudafed. Whatever it is, I’m going to get rid of it.

I need to restore my hardware.

I have about 15 minutes before I need to leave, so I hope something brilliant comes out before then. I’m not so sure. I’m fully dressed and I look ok from the outside, but my brain is still fuzzy from the sleeping pill I took last night to ensure I got to bed on time. I am engrossed in Covert Affairs, and the temptation to watch “just one more” is strong in this one. I decided it was better to be a little fuzzy when I woke up than it was to accidentally lose track of time by hitting “play next episode.” I know me. We’ve met.

I’m drinking cold Starbucks Christmas blend and slowly the fuzz is wearing off as I make the preparations for beginning my day. Backpack is together, I’ve had a shower, and I am contemplating breakfast… although I don’t know about that because I am not actually hungry. I rarely am early in the morning. I know I need to eat breakfast, but at the same time, it’s hard to shove food in my face when my whole body is rejecting the thought. Just about the only thing I will eat whether I am hungry or not is an Egg McMuffin, which reminds me that I need to go and get the stuff to make them. Making them at home is much more fun, because I put Sriracha and apricot jelly on them.

Today I think I will grab a granola bar on the way out and just be done with it. Tomorrow, maybe some Egg-os. What could be more Chrissmassy than waffles? I’ll take mine with extra butter. Bonus points if you got that reference (Thank you, Herb) 😛

I watched Doctor Who yesterday and the Internet was all “this is so touching” and I was all like “this is so boring.” I am not a fan of Capaldi. I have tried so hard to like him. SO. HARD. But Matt Smith left such a gaping hole in his absence. I’m just ready for The Doctor to be fun again. Capaldi is kind of a grouchy old man, and while that is not out of character for him, the “baby giraffe in a bow tie” had me straight trippin,’ boo. Cool points out the window. Bonus points if you get THAT reference.

I am also not a fan of Clara, and I’m glad that she’s moved on. There are so many companions I’ve liked more, and no one could replace the gaping hole left in my heart when Amy & Rory left, either. The scene where Amy has to choose between her husband and her best friend leaves me in a weird place. You’ve read this web site. We’ve met.

Last night was youth group and the kids’ Christmas party. The funniest moment of the evening, and I can’t remember how it came up, is that Mark (pastor of Takoma Park Pres, the church we share youth group with) said, “You know Jason Moran? Can I touch you?” I haven’t seen him in over 20 years, but yes. He was a senior when I was a freshman, and he was outstanding even then…. one of those musicians you knew would hit it big because his raw talent shined even as a kid. For those not in the know, Jason is probably the most famous for writing the score to the movie Selma.

And on that note, my 15 minutes are up.

 

 

 

 

 

What I Know for Sure is that my heart clenched when I realized it was Diane’s birthday as I woke up. At family Christmases with Diane and Susan, no Christmas decorations could go up until then. 😉 Her birthday parties were always fun and filled with laughter, and I’m glad that I got to experience them. I choose to focus on the light she brought into my life because if I focus on the darkness, I go into this space that only I know. It’s scary and dense with emotions that I don’t want to feel, so I don’t. It’s too hard and too messy to contemplate. I would rather see her in my mind’s eye as the young woman, just a girl and her guitar, singing Jesu Bambino to a packed house that I met when I was a kid and my eyes were wide with wonder… so simple and beautiful it brought tears to my eyes. The rest is locked away, and only Sarah (my therapist) has a key.

Leave it alone. Don’t touch it. Call an adult.

What I Know for Sure is that when I was walking home today, a carload of kids in my youth group passed me and yelled “HI MS. LESLIE!” as they went by and my heart overflowed with joy. I smiled bigger than I have in a long time, and those feelings carried me. The weight on my shoulders melted away and I, in that moment, was perfectly happy. There are really no words for how amazing my kids are. It feels good to give back, both to my community and my church.

What I Know for Sure is that feeling of safety and security that letting go provides me. There is hope and promise all over it. Moving forward, one step at a time, is the best work I’ve ever done. It challenges me to be better than I was the day before, and what that means to me is a moving point on the z-axis of life.

What I Know for Sure is that I am succeeding in my quest to become the dreams I have for myself. I am reaching up………….

Floor to feet, feet to head, head to God.

And, as always, praying on the spaces in between.

Amen.

The way people shop for babies today is, in a lot of ways, a reflection of what Christmas has become. Millions of babies have been born and have thrived without wipe warmers, which, you can argue with me here but I believe is one of the more superfluous things on a needs list. I’m not a parent, so of course my frame of reference is different. But it stands to reason that there are still babies being born without them that thrive because they are not caught up in the American consumerism driven by “the baby crazy.” The baby crazy is real and it’s deep. In-laws are particularly good at it with their need to one-up the other in terms of gifts. However, the baby is happy with clean clothes, diapers, and perhaps gnawing on your phone (or your finger). The baby is happy with a simple layette.

But we prepare for both holidays, the coming of the Christ child and the coming of our own, in a critical mass of “buy ALL THE THINGS.” Or perhaps it wasn’t that much different in Jesus’ day. I mean, what on earth would a baby want with gold, frankincense, and myrrh? Perhaps frankincense and myrrh are the modern-day wipe warmer. Gold would at least have ensured Jesus’ safe passage home because Joseph and Mary would have had the money to buy all the things they needed to carry a baby on the road. Gold would have been the layette in this scenario, because it was a concrete thing that the baby would actually need in order to survive. Without money, Mary and Joseph would have had to rely on the kindness of strangers to provide for them. Gold gave them the security to provide for themselves and make the trip home more comfortable. It would have been interesting to see what they bought with it……. what the mother and father of a savior bought for their kid as if it was any different than what we would buy for our own. I mean, they already knew their kid was special. Did they treat him any differently? There are so many questions that the Gospel does not answer, like how the gold was used.

In today’s Old Testament reading from Malachi, we are given these words:

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years.

Perhaps the message of the Gospel is not that Joseph and Mary had physical gold, but that Jesus was the gold. The Jews were hoping that someone would come to save them from their incredible misery at having been kicked out of their homeland and exiled by the Babylonians. We see through the prophets that Jesus fits the description. He is a shoot from Jesse’s tree, a direct descendant of King David, whom the Jews held up as their last great leader. They were convinced that if they could find someone like him, God would be pleased enough to deliver them from their distress. The Gospel writers were sure that Jesus was the answer to their prayers, given the words on a page that turned into “Jesus’s baby pictures.” Jesus was  the winning lottery ticket for that sect of Judaism, and it is what separates Christians from modern-day Jews. We believe that we have found the Messiah that the prophets said would come. Other sects of Judaism are still waiting. This is not to pass judgment; everyone can believe what they want. It is just to illustrate why we are different, not to call anyone out.

In order to fulfill the prophecy, Jesus had to go through his own refining moments. In order to become the temperer, he had to be tempered. He got offers from Satan that tempted him and he had to resist… and how is this any different from the hell we create for ourselves today? The point of sending a savior into the world as a human baby was that Jesus could experience what it was like to be fallible and have all of our own flaws and insecurities. He had to distill himself from hundred dollar baby booties and wipe warmers into a layette. He had to distill himself from frankincense and myrrh into a gold that could provide not only for his own family, but for ours.

Luke says this in no less than six different ways. Ever the doctor, his joy was in pragmatic proof and not touchy-feely mysticism. He is the only of the Gospel writers to include a formal introduction, and in today’s reading, it is the proof he thinks everyone needs to accept that Jesus is IT. Jesus is the distillation of hope and joy that we need to be saved from our own iniquities.

He starts with setting Jesus into a Palestinian history.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius

Tiberius was the Roman emperor in power, like the President of the United States.

when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea

Similar to the governor of Maryland in terms of political structure.

Herod was ruler of Galilee

Similar to a mayor.

his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis

Also similar to a mayor.

Lysanias was the ruler of Abilene

Also similar to a mayor. These three regions comprise what is known as the “tetrarch.”

during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas

Caiaphas was the high priest, taking over for Annas. We can compare them to modern-day bishops. However, Annas was no less politically involved in the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of the Jews. Think of how much George H.W. Bush influences his sons to get the picture.

the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness

Ahh, here we go. Now we transition from all these powerful rulers into a nobody… an itinerant preacher lost in the woods most of the time.

To me, this proves that God does not call the powerful and mighty (most of the time. King David was a badass.), but the disenfranchised and broken. People that were tempered into greatness rather than starting out that way. People who, by all accounts, did not fit the image that, well, anyone would expect. In this season of Advent, we are called to temper ourselves. To wait for the Christ child by turning into the darkness and seeing how much light we can shine into it, bringing forth our own greatness as we tear away all that stops us.

It is never a command by God or by Jesus. It is an invitation. In these moments, I turn to John, the Gnostic Gospel. It is, for all practical intents and purposes, the Gospel where God is felt rather than known. It is the difference between seeing God with your eyes and seeing God with your heart.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

Believing in the power that Christ’s light has to offer is acknowledging that as a fallible people, we are attracted to the darkness that hides our sins instead of the light that releases them.

It is a slow, painful tempering process that does not take one Advent of your life, but all of them. To accept light is not one-stop shopping. It is the purchase of the layette rather than the wipe warmer for as long as you are alive. In modern terms, it would go something like this:

In the year 2015, when Barack Obama was the president, and Larry Hogan was the governor of Maryland, and Muriel Bowser was the mayor of DC, and Michael Curry was the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and the dean of National Cathedral was The Very Reverend Gary Hall, God called you.

You.

Buy the layette. Give the baby what he needs. It might not change Jesus, but it will certainly change you.

Amen.

I got to text a bit with Pri-Diddy this morning, and I said, “who knew that writing words was so hard?” I was talking about writing content for Advent. Writing words is hard, especially when you’re writing for as broad a theological spectrum as my audience attracts. Everyone from Evangelicals to Social Justice die-hards, the category to which I belong and yet, try not to exclude the other side. In taking the Bible seriously, but not literally, I see a galaxy of images not available to me anywhere else in my life. They are pictures that mold me into a new creation one step at a time, as long as I interpret the words of Jesus into what I think he meant… which, fortunately for me, a lot of people think the same way I do so that I know I’m not coming out of left field with allegories that preach, but do not reflect. It’s the difference between measured, well-conceived responses to scripture based upon thousands of years of exegesis and not molding the Gospel to fit my own ideas of what it should be……… or in other words, just making shit up.

The Bible is what it is.

However, prevenient grace that passes all understanding is not necessarily shown to me through Christ himself, but the people around me who practice it. Harry Emerson Fosdick, former pastor of the historic Riverside Church in Manhattan, once said that every good sermon must either begin in Jerusalem and end in New York, or begin in New York and end in Jerusalem. I see my friends and family the same way. They are walking examples that I can tie back to my understanding of how grace works. For me, they begin every good sermon that ties back to the way Christ’s grace does not follow us, but is ensured by going before. There is nothing we can do to separate ourselves from the safe haven Christ has to offer, but we are so human we attempt it, anyway. They are the people that for me, begin in New York.

I hold up my dad and Argo as examples of this kind of grace. They have both struggled for years over things that I’ve done and things that I have left undone, but there has been nothing that has separated me from them. They offer me grace even when I don’t deserve it. Argo and I may not have a working relationship, but at the same time, grace overflowed when I did something so wrong that I cringe at the memory of it and yet, hate did not win out. Grace did. How you exit a relationship is every bit as important as how you begin one.

I have such a clear picture of how grace works when I think of them. Their grace allows me to see how big mine can get. When I get angry with people, how quickly can I forgive and let grace flow from me? How quickly can I get past the hurt and into the idea that there is nothing they could do that would separate them from my love and care, the way it was shown to me?

In this season of Advent, I am looking at myself and how the mess I’ve made can turn to clay. We’ll talk more about that as I write my Advent sermon for this week, because the Old Testament reading is about tempering fire, the same idea as the beautiful Joan Szymko setting in the link.

One of the most profound things I’ve ever heard my dad say was when my stepsister (mother of Wi-Phi) asked my dad to do her wedding. He talked about wedding rings being tempered by fire just like marriages. I cried at that one, because holding Dana’s hand, I knew it was true.

It is my work to do, this getting rid of an enormous thunderstorm of emotion surrounding being divorced from someone that I thought would be the love of my life, and in a lot of ways, still is. The fight(s) over Argo being the “other woman” were ridiculous, because that passing infatuation was not reality. Love, grace, and mercy were the things I wanted from both relationships, that they would settle and make room for each other in my life. Infatuation passes, while love does not.

I have let go of the people in my life who thought it was crazy to feel this much for someone I’ve never seen, only heard…. and even then, only through her words and never her voice. Words on a page have power, and those who doubt it are the crazy ones. I could see more of Argo through black and white words than I could glean from a hundred cups of coffee. She let me into places within herself that couldn’t be duplicated in any other way. It was sacred through the sacrament of sitting and writing out thoughts, beliefs, and hope for the future. Through words, we had our own tempering fire. I believe I learned more through her anger, in some instances, than I learned from her ever-present well of joy.

When we “clicked off safe” and gutter sniped, they were direct hits on things that needed to change. I learned a new term from the TV show Covert affairs. On the show, when people are given sensitive information, it’s called “reading you in.” It is the perfect analogy for letting Argo into my heart. I read her in, even when words were hard, mmmmmkay………………..

Praying on the spaces.

Waiting for the baby.

Awaiting all that tempering fire has to offer.

Amen.

There is some relationship between the hunger for truth and the search for the right words. This struggle may be ultimately indefinable and even undecidable, but one damn well knows it when one sees it.

– Christopher Hitchens

I am sitting in silence after reading these words. Looking back over my own is frightening to an alarming degree, particularly in my private letters to Argo. I proved to myself beyond a shadow of a doubt that I didn’t deserve her. The blessings of her apologies and forgiveness don’t recede into the background, and I know for sure that we’re good. At the same time, though, memories haunt my dreams and I don’t know what to say to calm the storm and let the sea be still.

I don’t know what to say to Dana, either, which is good because I doubt she’d hear me out, anyway. I think I have received all the information, bad and good, that I’m going to get from her. It is okay- she doesn’t owe me a thing. I don’t hold out hope or expectation of resurrection, but I do talk to her in my dreams at least once a night. How could I not? She has been my best friend since 2004.

On, ironically enough, Easter.

There are no words to express how wrecked I am at how the relationship ended, and my grief is unparalleled to anything I could have imagined. At first, the excitement of moving and getting settled here had me busy enough to forget what it was like to love her day in and day out. Excitement melted into regret after a few months, and I realized that I had to learn to live my life without regretting so much. Forgiving the past, yes, but acting in a way that there wouldn’t be regrets later on in the first place. I couldn’t act out and say “I’m sorry” over and over again. People shouldn’t be expected to forgive that much……. but they have over and over again as I try to fix what’s wrong with me and fail because I didn’t wait long enough for the right words to come.

I said words whether they were the right ones or not.

The remembrance I get of it is pain so great that my computer vibrates with it when I really look at my own soul and try to extract the sludge I created. I am so hard on myself because honestly. I expected better of me and I’m disappointed in me. That is slowly changing as I move further away from all of the fights and tears, living in such a way that I intentionally give myself more peace every day that I remain true to both myself and the world around me. Love was a dopamine addiction that I had to extract far enough away that I could see it. My drug of choice since I was a teenager and no less potent than crack.

It may not be that way for everyone, but right now, it is for me. It is becoming the past, but the future is not here. I struggle with limbo, of wanting to be free and knowing in myself that I am not. I intentionally stay away from most people because I do not want an explosive connection right now. I want to reconcile the past and how the past became the present and what will be when I am well and healthy.

It is the most important work I’ll ever do, because I realize that it has taken me years to get even this far. I didn’t realize how insidious emotional abuse could be, how it could wire my reactions both hot and cold… and reaching for what I knew were the wrong words and saying them, anyway. I’ve said the wrong words long enough, and the past few years have been cries into the wilderness of myself. The parts that are untamed and rough. The parts where the vicious animals live.

With Argo, my reactions were cut down to wet cat claws extended. I can’t believe that I ever thought there was a wall between us, because there wasn’t. I created it out of nothing. She loved me ferociously- like a mountain lion carrying a cub through the woods and I could not accept it for what it was- a gift of enormous proportion. I reached back into my abused nature and mutilated it until it was unrecognizable to both of us. I loved her, too, but it didn’t show. I only told her I loved her and didn’t act like it.

I don’t mean infatuation. I mean the kind where if she was sick I’d be the first to volunteer to go to the drug store in the middle of the night. I mean the kind of love where a broken heart by a boyfriend or a pulled muscle while working out or a long day at work where other people are stupid automatically means showing up with chocolate and bacon. I can’t even pretend to know what’s going on in her life, but I would if I’d showed up then.

But I didn’t. I sat and seethed in my own unhappiness, taking it all out on her. I should have listened more and talked less, cooked instead of eating, served instead of leading the charge downward. As the old saying goes, “I didn’t say it was your fault. I said I’m going to blame you.” That’s it in a nutshell. The crazier my life felt, the less I felt in control of my surroundings, the more Argo’s words came across as designed to hurt even when they weren’t. Sometimes, they were just succinct truth that I didn’t want to hear. Blunt assessments for which I was unprepared. The Hippocratic oath I thought I knew went out the window, and I fell on my face. The road rash is still healing on my cheeks, burned by bitter tears at what would have been had I not been so insular and egocentric.

If losing Argo can be compared to falling on concrete, then losing Dana is open-heart surgery. There are no right words for the ways in which her absence permeates my life. It is on the front burner, all day, every day. I wish I could write about her as easily as I do everyone else, but I can’t. Those feelings are so far down that I’m only now beginning to access them. They’re a river that touches everything, as much a part of me as taking in air. I rage that Dana let a passing infatuation trump 12 years of being my best friend, even as Argo and I both tried to calm her fears. I knew that my infatuation was a byproduct of abuse, and not reality. Love was reality… for both of them but in completely separate locked boxes, even unto me.

The difference is that I could show Dana I loved her each and every day. Saying it might have lost meaning, but going with her to the doctor or picking up the groceries didn’t. With Argo, there was no way to bridge the gap between saying and doing. With Dana, it was everywhere. She was, in the very best sense of the right words, my world. I ran from that break-up like a house on fire because I couldn’t look at her without seeing her as I always had. Living in the same house re-enforced the idea that we’d work it out eventually. I couldn’t keep emotionally distant, and knew that physical boundary was what it would take to break that connection. Dana is not a writer. There wouldn’t be a way for us to connect over the Internet the way Argo and I had, because Dana’s wordplay is in person. You have to show up to see it. Her right words aren’t on the page, but in nuances too great for black and white.

I just stopped showing up with both of them, and time is too young to tell whether it can be fixed with either. I only have control over my own decisions, and that is to try as hard as I can to love them for who they are, instead of who I think they are.

And maybe those are words right enough for everyone.

On my way home after an hour at work because I need to go to the passport office in DC. I’ve already filled out the documents that State needs to process my app, and in order to get paid, I need the receipt of a passport app by the 8th. It’s inconvenient, but not as impossible as I thought previously. Plus, I’ll get a new passport photo and I’m feeling particularly cute today.

That’s because yesterday turned out to be fabulous even though I was mired in memories of years past. #nailedit in terms of working hard and singing for joy. Ingrid wasn’t there, but it was ok. The music was.

I feel like a baller sitting the back of the car typing away on my Bluetooth keyboard. I could get used to this.

My birthday mesage this year was singing instead of writing. It turned out awful because I was laughing and singing at the same time. I still sent it because no matter what, my accompanist deserved recognition. 😛 Sam is the best. I love her. And not Sam from home. Sam from church. I have two.

It’s awesome to feel awesome again. I love me. I’m such a riot when I want to be.

It gets better. It does. I wasn’t all that sure before, but I believe it now. Looking back over my old entries and seeing how sick I was and how far I’ve come pleases me.

I love DC. “State-“ing it for the record.

Again.

It’s only lunch and I have already had a full day. First it was taking the wrong train and having Uber bail me out. I got here on time, but it was still stressful. I’d had a dumbass attack at Metro station and gotten on the silver line by mistake (I’m on the orange). Then it was the admin office saying they couldn’t take copies of my documents, I had to have originals. Honey badger don’t care my wallet was stolen. Rightfully so, but a pain in the ass. I don’t know what to do except get a passport rushed to me. So far, the only quote I’ve gotten on that is $350.00. #fml

I’ve downloaded all my coding apps, but I don’t know why since the only one I really use is Notepad ++. It color codes to separate code from content and makes my whole life a lot easier. There are also a lot of plugins that help, like Tidy. If you haven’t heard of Tidy, you haven’t coded a web site. we all use it. It’s a thing.

Now I can’t find where to reinstall Office, and everybody is gone. I do have access to the web apps, though, which are surprisingly robust. Still, though. Just annoyed that I can’t find it on my own. When I go to the regular Microsoft download, it says I can’t add that version to my account. So I’m waiting for everyone to get back so I can get started on this e-mail checker thingme. I just need to validate, oh, like 7,000 e-mail addresses to make sure they’re receiving from us and/or spelled correctly. It’s amazing how many gamails there are mixed in.

Not surprisingly, there’s a large bounce rate on aol addresses… I mean, who the hell has an aol account anymore?

Old people.

The last time I had an AOL address, I had just gotten my braces off.

I have a love/hate relationship while the office is empty for lunch. I’m free to do what I want, because it’s my lunch hour, too, and I’d rather blog than go out. I also hate that there’s no one to ask questions which I invariably have because it’s only my second day. I’m still walking into the wrong office thinking it’s mine at least twice a day.

Looking forward to choir practice tonight. Stress relief in a major way. Ingrid makes everything better.

No, seriously.

She makes me laugh and vice versa. I just miss the fact that no one knows what a Wayne-approved hymn is. Bridgeport choir is something I’ll miss for the rest of my life. It was fun while it lasted, and I remember it all the time, especially while singing the same music on the opposite end of the country.

I really miss preaching, too. I got a lot of good feedback and I loved being in front of the crowd, especially one that is involved in active listening to the point that they remembered my sermons better than I did when I didn’t manuscript first.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said of preaching that if you have something important to say, write it down. I should have, because now I can’t remember what I said when other people sure do. 😉 Preaching without a manuscript is so much fun, but not necessarily my style because afterward there’s always a lot of things I wish I’d said and forgot. But preaching without a manuscript is in some ways, a lot easier when you’re speaking along and realize you’ve accidentally flipped two pages at once and not noticed.

But they have.

Chuck always said that my unmanuscripted sermons were the best ones. I wish I could tell you what they were.

Bah dum pum…………………. Jesus!

 

I made it to SBUX by 7:00, having a venti coffee of the day. Unusual for me because I normally like tea, but as predicted, I couldn’t fall asleep last night because of all the coffee I’d drunk at work. I went to bed around midnight, and vowed to get my little butt out the house ASAP in the AM so that I’d definitely be tired by the time choir practice was over. I’m really digging all of the Advent stuff Nae picked for this year, but I think I am coming down with a cold, which definitely tempers my excitement.

Actually, I’m not sure whether it’s a cold or not. I’ve been so stuffed up for so long that it may just be allergies. That being said, both Samantha and my office mate have colds, so I may have something on the radar. The gift that keeps on giving. Sheesh. At least as a doctor’s kid, I am an expert on colds by now. Rule #1: There’s nothing you can do for it.

I generally just take Sudafed and Humibid unless viral becomes bacterial down the road. You know, the same crap I take every day for allergies? Maybe it’s time to up my game and see an allergist. We’ll see. I don’t have enough time right now to go to a doctor’s appointment, anyway.

Excited for what the day will bring, because everyone in the office has met me. I just can’t get there early, because I don’t have an ID badge or a key to let myself in. Starbucks is the perfect “hang” until I catch my train. When I get settled, I have a lot of work to do. Several accounts need attention, and I’m excited to flex some SQL muscle. SELECT from, bitches. 😛

I may also get to do some HTML/CSS, and that’s exciting in and of itself. I love web coding. It makes me happy because something creative comes out of it. I don’t do any coding on this web site, because I made the executive decision that I didn’t want to pay for server space. That may change once I have money in my pocket, because I can’t monetize anything on WordPress.com. If you see ads on my web site, that means I’ve moved to my own server and have installed Google Adsense or something similar. I don’t *need* to make money from this web site, but having a stream of income that is totally leave-it-alone sounds appetizing.

That reminds me of a gun safety commercial they used to run in NE Texas when I was a kid. I don’t know if it was national or not, but it was this good ol’ boy saying that if you find a gun, “leave it alone. Don’t touch it. Call an adult.” Rules for life, really.

Leave it alone. Don’t touch it. Call an adult.

Starting to say, “oh, wait. That’s me.” We didn’t have youth group last week because of the holiday, but we will this week, and it’s one of the highlights. The kids are so perfect in their light, and it doesn’t hurt one bit that they love me, too. We’ve decided on a mission trip for this summer in Atlanta. We have a couple of free nights, so I made a big deal out of telling the 7th grade boys about “The World of Coca-cola.” I haven’t been there yet, and it’s a life goal. Sodas from all over the world? Yes, please.

I don’t know if I can go or not, because I don’t know how long I have to be with the company before I can use my vacation. However, I think I accrue two to three weeks the first year. I remember that it was more generous than the standard, but not by how much. We’ll see. If I go, I will need a vacation from my vacation, because that’s a week of working hard all day and sleeping on the floor at night. When I was a kid, Diane cracked my shit up by asking me how “Communist Camp” was. I laughed until I cried.

Laughter is a big deal in my life right now. Focusing on the blessing of laughter removes me from situations in which I feel sad or angry. Focusing on the ways that people who’ve hurt me have also made me laugh keeps me from dwelling on the hurt and focusing on all the ways they’ve enriched my life.

Although holidays are the hardest, and today is one.

Thinking of my family and friends today in order to keep moving, one foot in front of the other. As I have said before, peace takes shoe leather, and I hope I’m putting enough in. On some days, I know it. On others, grief and sadness at both the way I’ve behaved and others have reacted to it threaten to overtake the way I’m trying to live in the world. The trick is putting on music that makes me feel good, like listening to Aqua and remembering “dance breaks” with Drew in the kitchen at Biddy’s.

Right now, Alice Russell’s cover of “Seven Nation Army” is playing overhead. It’s a throwback to better days, and I am grateful for the memory. Music is such a huge factor in my mood and behavior. At work, I listen to a playlist on Spotify called “Deep Focus,” which keeps my attention and encourages me to keep going with my work when I think I cannot take one more second. Because I am ADHD, deep focus takes work. The temptation is to get up and walk around, but I try to limit that because disrupting myself leads to forgetting where I left off.

I learned in the hospital, though, that my ADHD isn’t as bad as I thought it was. Most of the symptoms that I experience are also symptoms of PTSD, and occupational therapy really opened my eyes to it. When old tapes threaten to take away my thoughts of my future, I know how to combat them rather than just sitting in them and letting my stomach get all twisted in knots.

Ironically enough, the thing that helps me is remembering that Diane did make it. She did survive the years in which I was so alarmed. She rose above it in order to become a success. Whether I was a part of that, I’ll never know and I’m okay with it. But at least I don’t have to worrry about her anymore. She’s fine and I can let go, blessing and releasing all of my “Kid Fears” (an Indigo Girls song for those who wonder why it’s in quotes).

It’s time to get on the Metro. Check you later. Love you miss you mean it. 😉

It’s nice to come home after a long day’s work and relax, which for me is sitting on my bed with my laptop and telling you all about it. I share an office with one other person, which really cuts down on the ADHD spazz factor. When you can hear everyone in the entire building talking at once, it leads to one of two things. Trying to keep up with every conversation in the room, or complete isolation with headphones and white noise. I have done both, and this is much better.

It also feels really good that this is the right fit, and I landed on my feet solidly. It wasn’t a bad decision to move to DC, and now I am certain of it. It’s not that I was wavering before. It’s just that I didn’t know how long it would take me to get a job, get settled, make those kinds of roots. I knew it was a bad decision to move home 15 years ago, but after Sept. 11th and my divorce from Kathleen, I was wiped out in terms of both fear within and without.

I had a fun memory on the way home… fun and tragic, that is. The radio announcer mentioned that they were giving away Wizards tickets, and I told the Uber driver my Wizards story. My tale of woe with the Wizards is that Kathleen and I went to a game courtesy of XOM. I was taking pictures all over the place and my camera battery died. Not ONE MINUTE LATER, Michael fuckin’ Jordan walks in, dressed to the nines with his unique spiffiness. I was so mad that every time someone brought up the Wizards in conversation, I’d just get this look on my face… the one that says, “oh, if only…..” The Uber driver was like, “what happened to your phone?” I said, “this was 15 years ago. I didn’t have a camera phone!” Oh, that aged me right then.

I also thought of Randy and Kristen, because I couldn’t not. They were my rocks during my time at XOM, and I miss them not living close more than anyone else that I met back then. There are so many funny stories from that era which I will absolutely not share with you under penalty of accidental death and dismemberment… mostly because they’re not my stories to tell. The ones that are mine to tell really aren’t that funny. It was a weird time in my life, but one that shaped me. Obviously, or I never would have thought of moving back. It’s so funny that most of the people I’ve talked to are thinking about moving somewhere else, and I am the one saying, “are you sure? You’ll regret it. I sure did.” I think I am more myself here. I am a native Texan, but my heart bleeds for DC when I’m not here. Even in Portland, when my DC stories would come up I’d just get this look on my face…. the one that says, “oh, if only…….” Dana and I like to pretend that we were both in the same theater at the same time when Wallace Acton was Hamlet at the Shakespeare theater.

Wallace Acton. I wonder what he’s up to now. Dana and I agree that he was the best Hamlet ever. I wonder if the night we were talking about Hamlet was the same night we came up with Omelet, Prince of Henmark, with Yolkphelia and Shellonius. We should have taken it on the road. One day I’m going to have to write out the stories I remember from all the years Dana and I doubled each other over in laughter. Our conversations were always like tennis matches, and I miss it so fucking much.

It’s a good thing we didn’t know each other back then, though. Kathleen and Dana, to my mind, would not have gotten along. I remember flying across the country to take Kathleen to meet Diane and Susan, and Kathleen and Susan getting into a fight because Special K was such a picky eater. That would have been a dealbreaker for Dana right there.

I know Dana. We’ve met. 😛

As I move into my own future, it’s amazing to be able to let go of anger and just remember the good times I’ve had and the great things to which I am looking forward to creating. 2015 is one of those years that I’m just glad to be almost done with, you know?

I’m sure you do.

Here and accounted for, although only one other person is, and she didn’t know who I was. I decided to Uber in on the first day just to make sure I was on time. I was 20 minutes early because I’m contraflow traffic to the office. Bliss. It really only does take 20 minutes, and I was out the door by 8:15. I got here first and there was no coffee made, so I made it.

Oops.

That was the first mistake. Not knowing how much coffee to use. You could stand a spoon up straight, but with enough CoffeeMate and sugar, it’s tolerable. As an added bonus, I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep until Thursday.

This is so exciting. People are starting to walk in and I’m doing the classic “hi, I’m Leslie. I’m new here” patois. So far, everyone has been young and in jeans. I am in black dockers, a Smithsonian t-shirt, and my Ralph Lauren striped sweater (the go-to when I don’t know what to wear). I’m also wearing red patent leather Dansko knockoffs I got at Payless. All in all, a great outfit but doesn’t necessarily fit in.

Maybe I was born to stand out. Here’s hopin.’

Praying for myself to be calm, cool, collected- and able to pass on my excitement to others without being a total spazzbasket. Tomorrow I think I will wear jeans and Chuck Taylors. However, you only get one shot to look good in your ID picture, if they put a picture on it.

There’s a Christmas tree in the lobby, so whenever I get nervous, I look at it and start intentionally waiting for the baby… kind of like that classic therapist image of trying to quiet a candle in your mind.

Between waiting for the baby and waiting for someone to show up that knows who I am, expectation is all around.

Amen.

Time is passing by slowly as I tick down the hours until I go to work. I’m excited and I can’t wait to jump in. I’ve missed having a team, working on projects together and then maybe going for a drink afterward. I don’t know yet what kind of environment it will be, and I am hoping for the best. The owner of the business certainly impressed me with his letter, and the person who interviewed me was awesome as well. I love that in this job, they want my visionary capability instead of trying to stifle it. I am much better in a creative role than a technical one, but I can do technical when I’m needed. I’m just grateful that it’s not my only definition. Yes, I am a geek. But I am also great with ideas.

The idea of figuring out who I am has helped me the most. I am more secure in my vision for myself, in both what I do for a living and in writing, my career. I know more about what I want out of life and what I am willing to sacrifice for it. I know my strengths and weaknesses. I know the fire I am capable of creating, both the fire that tears me down and the fire that tempers me, remolding me into a new creation.

I know more about love, and what it means to me in a working definition of marriage, friendship, and family (blood and chosen). I miss the day-in, day-out of being emotionally close to Aaron, Argo, and Dana… but I have recreated family in DC that is just as precious to me as they are. At the same time, I have learned more about why I needed to move away emotionally from them (not so much with Aaron, who will always be one of my “lesbros,” but you get the picture). I couldn’t find myself without a great amount of silence, as I have right now, sitting here writing to all of you.

It’s been a hell of a year.

Today it is raining and cold, 41 degrees to be precise. I am sitting at my desk wearing lots of layers, but soon I will retire to my bed and watch TV with my electric blanket on H until I warm up enough that my fingers have blood in them again. I just started a series called “Covert Affairs” that is about the CIA. I have no idea how realistic it is, but the characters are great and it’s action-packed so that I forget everything around me and just enjoy the story. It’s a lot like Alias in execution. The characters all struggle with the dissonance between their real jobs and the amount of lying it takes to create the world they present to their families… and are as lovable as Sydney and Francie.

The weather is so dreary that I might fall asleep, but I’ve had enough coffee that I really don’t want to take a nap and will try to avoid it at all costs. If I take a nap, I will not be able to fall asleep when I’m supposed to and it will throw off my schedule (again). No one wants that. I am better-equipped when I go to bed early and get up at 5:00 or 6:00. I am a morning person, and writing as the sun comes up is one of my greatest pleasures. I don’t have to be in the office until 9:00, so that’s a solid hour of writing until I have to leave for the Metro station. I am planning to stick to that schedule as long as possible, rather than writing into the night.

I am also the jackass for whom “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” was written………………

Praying on the spaces, though. I want my inner thoughts to match my outward behavior, and am doing a better job of it than I ever have before. I am leaning into the person I want to become, rather than the person I have been in the past.

I didn’t love her.

 

I’m starting to make a list of the things I want to buy with my first paycheck, those things I’ve put off buying since I’ve moved and only sort of need but would make my life a whole lot easier here. They’re all small because I am, again, trying to live simply. It’s things like new ink cartridges for my printer so that I can print out a few photos for my room. It’s amazing how expensive ink is, but in a digital world, how often do I really need my printer? In the entire time I’ve lived in this house, I have printed one document because it was needed and one document just because I wanted to write in the margins on scripture. That’s it. That’s the grand total. And technically, it’s not that all the inkwells are empty. Just the black one. But the printer will not print, even though C, Y, and M (Cyan, Yellow, Magenta) are all full.Operating systems, man…..

I also need some new light bulbs, so I want to splurge and replace all six with CFLs so that I never have to change them again. Like I said, tiny things that will make life easier, but nothing extravagant. I’m still debating on whether I need a car or not, and that debate will continue for quite a while, for two reasons. The first is that I’m not that great a driver (that fucker came out of NOWHERE). The second is that I don’t want to pay for or maintain a car. I don’t want to have to finance a car and I don’t want to have to empty out my savings if something goes wrong with a used one. If Volfe were here, I’d have no problem with plunking down a couple of thousand (literally, not figuratively) for a car, because I’d have someone to spend my Saturdays with fixing it up and/or doing maintenance). The last time Volfe and I worked on a car, it was me assisting him as he installed power steering in Dana’s car on our driveway in Houston. And while I said that I assisted, mostly what I did was make him laugh and hold things.

In Portland, we both had little Nissan pickups (his is named Moriko and mine was named Shirley) that we loved beyond all measure. The funniest thing that happened with Shirley is that Volfe freehanded some graphics on one side of my truck and ran out of spray paint, so the truck had splash graphics on one side the entire time I owned it.

The alternative side is that I am a total gearhead and I LOVE CARS. Love them. It doesn’t matter what kind, although I am partial to old Mercedes Benz, because when I lived here before, I had a 1988 190 E that I literally drove into the ground. I didn’t wreck it, it’s just the the repairs became  worth twice the value of the car. The hardest part was being sentimental enough to want to pay it, but not foolish.

It would also be nice to have a transportation mode in the winter without having to wait for the bus. But I’m not stupid. The cost of riding the bus and the Metro is infinitely cheaper and wiser for me, because I do the same thing on the Metro that I do while I’m driving- listen to podcasts the whole way. They’re free and brain-engaging, way more so than music. I put an MP3 player on my Christmas wish list because my phone is running out of space with all my apps to hold podcasts and music, plus I can’t stream music and podcasts on the Metro. I want something small on which I can install Rockbox and an expansion card when I need it. In other words, nothing that’s tied to the iTunes store in any way. Plus, MP3 players are so cheap now. It’s what happens when you want a gift from the ’90s… although the exception is old iPods. Those are expensive because they come with up to 160 GB of storage, but the main reason I don’t want an old iPod is that most other MP3 players come with a radio and an expansion slot. Beat that with a stick. NPR, holla! DC pleasure- listening to NPR while walking by NPR. In the beginning, when I first got an MP3 player, the radio was why I chose the Zune over the iPod. I have never regretted that decision, because even though the Zune was less popular, I listened to NPR more than I listened to anything else, and it came with 32 GB of space, while for more money, iPods only held eight. iPods held nothing for me.

iPods and the iTunes store were created in a moment of undeniable humanness when Steve Jobs didn’t include an optical drive on the iMac. It was a garbage dump of a situation, paraphrasing Jobs’ biographer, Walter Isaacson, because people didn’t have a way to rip their own CDs onto their computers, which to me, created a different problem- namely, having to buy the album again in a different format (guess I’ll have to buy The White album again…), but consumers didn’t seem to mind, so that’s none of my business.

Sometimes, people are dumb. Even me. I’ve seen me do it.

 

 

 

This year the Gospel for Advent starts with a bang. Before we begin, I want to present the whole thing.

Luke 21:25-36

Jesus said, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

I am giving you the entire text because there is a troubling paradox to explore. How does this picture of The Son of Man coming in a cloud of power and glory fit in with the image of the Nativity? Aren’t we supposed to be waiting for a baby? In this scripture, as in life, justice and joy are inextricably interrelated.

Jesus was preaching to a people that had been systematically broken down long before he was born. The last time that the Jews felt they’d had a good leader was King David, and they were waiting for someone like him. While waiting, they were violently wrested from their homeland by the Babylonians and in despair that Israel would ever be great again… and then a prophet appeared with words of hope:

Jeremiah 33:14-16

The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The LORD is our righteousness.”

These are words that Jesus surely would have read, because he quotes Jeremiah almost verbatim in his parable of the fig tree. He uses the imagery of knowing summer is near by talking about “sprouting leaves.”

In so many ways, we are in that place, waiting for hope. Bombings are happening all over the world. Police brutality comes to light seemingly every day. Women’s health is threatened by lawmakers and yesterday, a gunman who shot a police officer and two hostages in a Colorado Planned Parenthood. There were fights in many malls across the U.S. as people shopped for, of all things, Christmas gifts. Transsexual people are being killed in what seems like brutal sport. Some members of Congress say that the minimum wage is high enough, and yet nowhere in the entire country is a two-bedroom apartment affordable for someone who makes it. Anonymous has threatened to release over a thousand names of a still-active Ku Klux Klan around the anniversary of the Ferguson shooting. We are bombarded with local news of robberies, murders, and anything else that falls under the “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality.

In this way, we are also a systematically broken-down people, waiting for signs that things will get better, just like the Jews hundreds of years ago. We can identify because we can see it… hear it… smell it. Violence touches all the senses for the people directly involved. The rest of us feel helpless as we watch.

In beginning Advent, we are called to look for our own shoots of green, sprouting in the midst of tremendous conflict, and Jesus is asking us to be on alert for them. He doesn’t explicitly state it, but to me the underlying message is that the more people there are alert for signs of hope, the more chance that peace has to reign.

Pregnant women are the best at it.

Signs of hope stir within their own bodies at an alarming rate as they don’t just look for hope… they feel it. As the baby moves and grows and flutters and kicks little videos of what their new person might be like take over their thoughts in both dreams and wakefulness. Watching and talking to pregnant women imbues conversation with possibility. We give baby showers to share in their gift to the world.

As their partners and friends, we give gifts to honor a new life and the new hope it brings. We are lifted from our own despair, if only for an hour or two.

The timing of the coming of The Son of Man is not for us to know, but being alert for the good things that life has to offer is. I believe that Jesus talks about not letting your attention get pulled away by “dissipation and drunkenness” not necessarily as a judgment, but advice. You know the ways in which you check out of life and let the good things pass you by. So does he. In that time and place, there were just as many ways to check out as there are now. They were just different in that they didn’t have Candy Crush Saga. The fact that we are content in life to go to work, come home, have a drink, lather rinse repeat has not changed at all.

We, as Christians, are tasked not to wait for hope, but to create it.

We need the consolation that Jeremiah gives in not saying that God might come, but that God will. But we cannot hang our hats on that one precious day. We create our own futures, and whether that is one of darkness or light depends on the decisions we make for ourselves.

There is no message of hope more explicit than a brand new baby, but we are asked to look for all we can find.

In the 1850s, Europe was hit with what is now called The Great French Wine Blight, so named because France’s vineyards were hit particularly hard, with estimates that up to 40% of their grapevines were infested with phylloxera. It nearly destroyed the French wine industry until a Texan named Thomas Volney Munson provided Mustang grape rootstock for grafting to the city of Cognac, making ancient grape varietals that had been used in France for hundreds of years resistant to phylloxera as well. For his work, Munson was given The Order of Agricultural Merit (Ordre du Mérite Agricole), an award second only to the Legion of Honor (Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur).

Thomas Munson literally caused new shoots of hope to spring in France, and to this day, Cognac is a sister city to Denison, Texas, where Munson’s work is housed.

The grape that Munson used is called Mustang, and it grows in the wild… just like hope.

Hope is found in the wild, but as Christians we are called to cultivate it, graft it onto our pain so that new shoots are allowed to grow. If there is any judgment from Jesus in this passage, it is that our decisions matter. Are we bringing light into the world, or are we living in darkness by choice?

As our literal darkness grows longer until the solstice, we are given a chance to turn inward and evaluate the choices we’ve made with our lives and whether we are waiting for hope or bringing it.

I’m buying a TARDIS onesie. What about you?

Amen.