Time To Begin Anew

Well, I became overwhelmed and distracted by other things. Life got away from me. I wish I could report that this is a novel experience for me, but "life gluttony" appears to be my favorite sin.
One option would be, of course, to simply give up on the blogging idea. But words call to me, and I find myself honing my sense of my own vocation, being clearer about what my abilities and joys actually are. Sure, the dishes still need to be done, and classrooms still need to be kept cleaned, but there needs to be room for what is truly important.
So, today, on this second Sunday of Advent, I begin again. I read, and I write. I'm going to write every day, for actually I have found that I am most faithful to daily disciplines. I'm going to share some of what I'm reading: engagements with all kinds of texts.
For today, here is a poem Tracy Keenan, our minister at Covenant and my friend, shared with me last week. I find it reverberates still:

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, "Christ Climbed Down"

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas trees
and no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck creches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit / and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagon sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
with German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
for everybody's imagined Christ child

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carollers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary's womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody's anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable
and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest
of Second Comings

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I did a really terrible thing last week. I wheeled around, going out the back door to my car, to a daughter at least as stressed as I was, and I raged something like the following: "Do you know what Christmas and your birthday are becoming for me? The season when I can't possibly buy enough to give you what you want! The season when I worry about money every minute."
Oh, my. Well, it's true that the season of Advent is a akin to Lent: a season of preparation that involves confession and repentance. Apparently, I decided to sin boldly in order to give myself more opportunity to repent. My poor daughter. It's enough for her to be responsible for her own life, but to make her responsible for the mess inside me is a bit much.
I'm good at railing against consumerism, but I let it get its hooks in me. I become entangled in some absurd religion in which shiny things assure emotional connection and mother-daughter intimacy. How foolish can I be?
So, I read this poem and this scene from my life, and I repent. I "turn" to another way of being. I choose life. I remember the words of Christian mystic Meister Eckhart: "We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born."