Christmas thoughts from Maria von Wedemeyer

Maria von Wedemeyer was theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer's much younger fiancee--they became engaged shortly before he was imprisoned in April of 1943. She was a brilliant person in her own right and a good writer. In celebration of the Christmas season, here are some words of Maria's from a letter to Bonhoeffer in Tegel prison in 1943:

"Isn't there bound to be a rekindling of the desire for holy tranquility and universal peace? I couldn't help thinking so last night, while walking home through the dusk with my little tree. The snow glistened underfoot, and there were countless stars in the depths of the sky overhead. All that is Christmas originates in heaven and comes from there to us all, to you and me alike, and forms a stronger bond between us than we could ever forge by ourselves." Love Letters from Cell 92, p. 138.

Christmas in Barnesville

Only three days late ...

We had a lovely Christmas ...

We went to ecumenical Christmas Eve services organized by the Barnesville Ministeriam at the Presbyterian church, where the Rev. Andy Wood is the pastor. We love Andy and he feels like our friend because he hangs out with Quakers. Ela and Bill, who are both very talented musicians, and who used to work at Olney, performed on the cello and whistle. Bill makes his own whistles, which look like piccolos. Needless to say, Bill and Ela were wonderful. The whole service was lovely-- the storybook church with stained glass windows, the traditional Christmas carols .. Joy to the World, Silent Night... and readings about the birth of Jesus ... the glow of lit candles at the end ... very "tender" in the Quaker sense of the word. They even rang the old-fashioned bell at midnight ...

Barnesville was pretty and idyllic on Christmas Eve, with the lit wreathes and big stars made of white lights attached to the lampposts along Main Street, the road glistening. Even the lopsided, decorated Christmas tree with colored lights on the corner added a touch of whimsy.

Christmas day was nice and I think (hope) everyone liked their presents. I liked mine. I read The Financial Lives of Poets, which I loved, except that (male) author treats women as objects--I felt like saying, come on, already ... is there anything more to the fictional wife than a "tight bod" and "hot bod" and that she's "cute" and that other men find her "hot" and that the protag. wants to have sex with her? And the other surface things: she likes to shop because she has "issues" from her childhood and she's good with their young sons (which makes him jealous because he wants the attention)? What is she like as a person? What's in her mind and her soul? And all the other women in the book are the same: "hot" Amber the HR woman, and the son's hot second grade teacher whom he wants to ... you know .. and the "hot,' "Nordic" blond Bea who .. guess what he wants .... and it's simply depressing that in an otherwise great book, where the men are immediately drawn as fully human, and yet there's not one woman who is more than a body. It wasn't deliberate either, I don't think, as he goes to pains to make this fictional hero sympathetic. But that's my rant.

Sophie's flight in from Baltimore was delayed so we had a big rush getting to Jane and Clyde's for Christmas dinner. As Jane said, after two years, it's a tradition! Bill and Ela also came and there was more music. Clyde, who is a retired music professor, played the piano, Jane sang (beautiful voice), their daughter Susan played the flute and Ela and Bill again played the cello and whistle. I lack the musical gene, so I listened. It was a lovely, old-fashioned event in the big high-ceiling living room--we even had a fireplace--and I don't think I can remember ever having had such a musical Christmas, filled up with so many Christmas carols. And I was thinking how nice it is that we all share a cultural heritage of Christmas music: People from farflung parts of the country can gather and we all know the same songs ... Something to think about. I like to think the music touches people with some of the true, pure sweetness of Christianity at its best.

Transformation: Inward of Outward?

Marshall Massey made the following comment in response to the blog on Amish Grace and Quakers: To adopt the [Amish] practices is, I think, to mistake the outward for the inward. Friends have historically had their own avenue to humility — the avenue of quietism, a stilling of our selves inspired by a powerful recognition of our own fallenness, and by a sense of our tremendous every-moment dependence on our Lord. It is to this, and not to outward tactics, that Friends need to turn.

Christmas, because of its garb, is a good time to think about outward wrappings and inward presence.

During Christmas, outward wrappings are more distinct than during other times of the year. Our houses are often transformed with trees, wreathes, advent calendars, pine boughs, candles, eggnog, mistletoe, creches, beautifully wrapped gifts and other signs of the season. Often our touches are old-fashioned or nostalgic--an idealized 19th-century village under the Christmas tree, a touch of a Nutcracker in either our music or a wooden replica of Tchaikovsky's figure, a viewing or reading of The Christmas Carol. We associate these outward signs with inward states:

--The Dickensian Christmas represents conviviality, family harmony, good spirits, fellowship. We are longing to be surrounded by healthy community and loving family.

--The shepherd and magi Christmas represents the conjoined simplicity and grandeur of the holy, the sacred made incarnate on earth, the sacred available through the everyday things of life. It is God's love alive and available in the here and now. We long for the sacred in life. We long for an extended season of goodwill to all men and women. We long for a just world.

--The trees, the pine boughs, the candles, etc., those elements borrowed (or stolen) from the pagan, represent our love of the living things of the world, our longing for light and life during this darkest period, our longing to incorporate earth love and joyfulness into the sacred.


During the Christmas season, we hope that putting on the outward form of what we long for will transform us inwardly--individually and collectively-- into what we wish to be. I think primarily this happens unconsciously--we don't think "I'm putting up this creche because I want all babies in the world to be treated kindly" or "I'm drawn to buy this colorful print of Dickensian carollers because I want to live in a more convivial world." But I do think we long for a world where everyone is cared for, community is strong, the material goods of the world flow abundantly, the earth is protected, and joy abounds.

Of course, we know that many marriages fall apart during the Christmas season. Many children can't come home, because no matter how beautiful the packaging, the underlying poison is too deep. We know the world is a highly flawed place. If anything, the beautiful packaging of Christmas can underscore-painfully- how far we are from the ideal.

The great question is: Can the outward form change the inward person--can the dress transform the soul? Some say that the great distinction between Christianity and the other two religions of the book, Judaism and Islam, is Christianity's persistent belief that the inward soul of a person can and must be transformed, that in fact the salvation of the world can only occur when people undergo the soul transformation --a new way of seeing--that leads to the true outward change ... of everything. The other religions, it is said, put more faith in outward changes--following laws and a set cycle of prayers, fasting, etc.--for softening or least ameliorating, the hardness in the human heart and thus engendering change.

Quakers have always come down hard on the side of the primacy of inward transformation, seeing the outward forms of the faith as "counterfeits." The early Quakers, as we know, saw the rites of the church as allowing people who participated to believe they were godly people without transforming their lives. They saw the rites of the church becoming an end in themselves, not an avenue to transformation. The Quakers swept away these rituals to open room for the essential, to put people in the unmediated presence of God with faith that this would result in world transforming change.

But we Quakers use ritual, and I would argue that sitting in stillness is one of the most rigid rituals of all. Coming from a different tradition, I tend to see the cultural ritualism of the English all over the faith--try introducing the tiniest variant or "programming" into a meeting for silent worship. So my questions is: what privileges silent worship over other rituals?

Also, like Marshall, I believe inward transformation is the key: I believe in inward to outward, not outward to inward. The most beautifully trimmed Christmas tree in the world will not magically mend broken hearts in a family. On the other hand, is there a transformative possibility or quality to the outward? For instance, many people think some transformative quailty was lost when the Roman Catholic sisters began adopting "civilian garb" and the church moved from the grandeur of the Latin Mass. What do you think?

George Fox: Ponder in the Heart

But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 2:19)

"And you may see how Mary wrapped Christ in swaddling clothes, and how tender she was of the heavenly birth, conceived by the Holy Ghost. And must true and tender Christians, that receive Him in the spirit ... she kept all the sayings that were spoken of Christ and pondered them in her heart. And so should every good Christian." From Mind the Heavenly Treasure: Thoughts for each day from the Scriptures and the eight volumes of the writings of George Fox", compiled by Gary Boswell.

Here again, we see the thoughts of early Quaker George Fox expressed through concrete imagery. Here, he draws us to visualize and dwell on Mary's "tender" care and clothing of the infant Jesus, advising us to be as tender in our thoughts as she was in her physical care for a fragile infant. Here, the vulnerability of Jesus is laid bare. Do we tenderly cradle his beliefs--in forgiveness, mercy, love, peace, joy, abundance, compassion--or do we dash his infant's head against a rock?

It also strikes me that Mary ponders things "in her heart," fusing together the intellect and the emotions. In her body, the embodiment implied by her pregnancy and childbirth, she also grounds God in the physical. The infant Jesus stands for ideas that don't make sense--which are dismissed as impossible, as fantasies, as for "some other time," in the cold light of pure rationality, but which did make sense for the here and now to Fox and his followers and which do make sense when we enter the upside-down kingdom today. They speak to the deepest longings of our hearts. They are possible here and now.

I visited a mosque a few years ago. It was a beautiful mosque, unlike the others I had visited, which were basement rooms in office buildings. This mosque was light filled and open and empty, with a deep, thick tawny Oriental rug on the floor. It had a stark, sacred feeling. Afterwards, our guides told us that Jesus was a revered figure in Islam and recounted a story from the Quran of the infant Jesus, under a date tree, speaking, in a miracle, to tell those denigrating Mary as a fallen woman that she was a virgin impregnated by the Holy Spirit. From birth, he protected his mother

I thought at the time that in the Christian faith is a birth story lean in miracles--a visit by an angel, a virgin conception and a choir of angels breaking good tidings of great joy to a group of shepherds. But Jesus, the center of the story, is simply a human baby born in very humble circumstances. He is protected by his mother, a model of how we protect our faith with gentleness, mindfulness and nurture, a model of how he needs our care, how he needs us to be his body. Also, an infant can't survive with partial attention--it demands our dedication.

Are we self-centered: Blessings and gratitude

Blessings and gratitude have been much on my mind this past year. Possibly as a result of the economic crisis, more people seem to be stating what they are grateful for and calling out their particular blessings.

Individual blessings are no doubt good and in times of economic distress, it can be useful to remind ourselves of how grateful we are to have houses, jobs, and health insurance while all around us people's lives fall into ruin and chaos.

At the same time, it can come across, even when sincerely and humbly meant, as a tad self-centered to celebrate one's own good fortune in the midst of the carnage. It is good to have a roof over one's head, a job and access to health care, and better yet to be grateful for them, but at the same time, it's a sign of the sickness in our society that not everybody has these things. What I often hear is a gratitude not centered in a context of abundance but in a context of scarcity. What I hear is not gratitude that we collectively are prospering but gratitude for my individual fortune. "I" am so grateful to have what others don't.

How would it sound if someone were to stand up in meeting and say: "I am so grateful to have air to breathe," if, just a few blocks a way, people were choking and gasping and possibly dying from lack of air?

What good is a blessing if others don't share in it?

I am convinced that God's true blessings are meant for everyone. When the Bible says the sun shines on the good and the evil alike, it points to the paradox of rewards but it also describes how God gives. God rains down blessings on us in great abundance. Indiscriminately. Not just on the "deserving," by whatever arbitrary measure we may devise to determine that, but on all people. Maybe all people are deserving in God's eyes?

The forces of evil would try to hoard those blessings for the few. But at the point, they get turned into something spoiled, like the manna from heaven the wandering Israelites tried to hoard. I don't think, for example, it's a blessing, in and of itself, to live in a huge house when others are homeless.

Things that are blessings for the few can linger and rot. When we think of haunted houses in the popular imagination, for example. we think of large old Victorian dwelling, with flapping shutters askew and inside, cobwebs festooning the once-fancy woodwork. Or we think of ancient castles. We seldom think of haunted huts or cottages.

Yet we live in a world that routinely encourages us to hoard the blessings for ourselves and our group, be it our own children, our faith groups, our cities, towns, counties, states or countries.

When the English ruling class started to enclose what had traditionally been common grazing lands, lands available to promote the common good and common prosperity, trouble ensued. Today, some don't care that water and air, traditionally freely available, at least in this country, have become polluted. There's money to be made by selling the clean versions of these-now--commodities.

As we contemplate Christmas and the birth of Jesus, it's integral--not simply a pretty embellishment-- to the story that he was born to bring grace to all people. He is a universal blessing. He brings a hope for peace and goodwill to all.

The challenge I am taking up is to try to be thankful for and to ask for blessing for all people. If I am grateful for a job, a home or health insurance, then I want that for everyone. If I deserve it, so does everyone else. I ask why isn't that blessing raining on everyone? What more can I/we do to ensure it?

When I think of the blessings I would most like to spread, they tend to be more of a spiritual nature: I would love everyone to have loving relationships, goodwill, peace, joy, beautiful surroundings, health, etc. But I also recognize that we are incarnate, material beings and the above spiritual needs are nurtured by physical security. Of course, we can have all these things in terrible circumstances--and the saints among us carry love, peace, joy and all the rest into the darkest dungeons--but most of us are not saints.

This is a roughly written piece, as I try to process these thoughts. I recognize that a crude equalitarianism is not necessarily a blessing either, though I think it might come closer to God's vision than what we have around us. Certainly we don't want to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator but to bring everyone up to a comfortable place. I keep thinking of John Wesley's dictum: earn as much as you can, save as much as you can, give as much as you can. Do we agree with that? How can we take what we have--our blessings--and make them more of a blessing to everyone?

Christmas in Barnesville

I was talking with my new friend Sally on the phone last night and we agreed it's a wonderful thing that a group of us all arrived here in Barnesville at the same time.

Tonight, Christmas Eve, we will all go to hear Clyde (and our Olney friend Ela), both of whom are musical, at a Christmas Eve service at the Presbyterian Church in town. On Christmas, we will all get together at Jane and Clyde's 100-year old blue frame house just down from the library for Christmas dinner. All of these activities will include our teenage and young adult children (except for Sally's; her children are far away). Even Sophie is home, having returned from her visit with her boyfriend Lucas's family in Yellow Springs.

I'm appreciating Christmas in a place where there's little to buy and little to do. Downtown Barnesville looks not too different from downtown Bedford Falls (circa 1946) in "It's a Wonderful Life." Maybe a little quieter. The town has hung Christmas decorations from the street lamps on Main Street. You can still pull into an (unmetered) parking space in front of the store where you'd like to shop. While there are a straggle of stores with separate parking lots as you head east toward my end of town--some fast food "joints," a Save A Lot, Riesbecks, Dollar General and Rite Aid--there's nothing like a strip mall, mall or arcade of shops. Downtown Main Street shopping could be lifted straight out of the 1950s. For me it's a delight to live in a land time forgot. (As an aside, I'm rereading Emma for my reading group in Maryland and last night was charmed by a streetscape. Emma is waiting for her friend Harriet to pick out ribbon and so steps outside to watch the activities. One is a boy urging a donkey down the street (you won't see that in Barnesville but horses and buggies you will see) and another is a group of children staring in the bow window of the bakery looking at the gingerbread. That last image struck me as more Victorian or Dickensian that Jane Austen-like, but it was charming.)

All our snow is gone, but the grass has a golden cast and we still have some reddish leaves on the trees outside our south living room window. Plus the view of the red barn with the green roof.

I keep telling people, half jokingly, that Barnesville is still in the 1970s. That's part of what I like about living here. But where ever you are, feliz navidad.

Christmas Chronos

My cyber-friend Peggy, the abbess, blogs about two different kinds of time, one more temporal, one more eternal. In the book Blessed Unrest, (Peggy, if you're reading this, could you explain your two times?) Paul Hawken names four types of time, borrowing, I believe from Stewart Brand's book, The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Repsonsibilty: 1. commerce time, the most rapid and changing time, which Hawken calls the dominant time frame of our time, 2. cultural time, which moves and changes much more slowly (for example, he says, the Russian Orthodox church was largely unruffled by the 72 year interlude of communism and picked up its liturgy as if nothing had happened after the fall of the Soviet Union), 3. governance time, which, he says, moves faster than culture, slower than commerce, and perhaps mediates between the two, and 4. what he calls "earth, nature and the web of life," which moves far move slowly than the other three.

As you might imagine, Hawkin contends that the dominant commerce time of our culture, with its breakneck pace of change, is dangerous when not tempered by other, slower understandings of time.

I read an article the other day in the New York Times that said that more people were buying crafts from small, independent vendors or making crafts for Christmas, and that, in fact, Michael's was seeing an increase in sales in these hard times. That gave me a hope that there's perhaps a grass-roots rebellion against living constantly in commerce time. Crafts handmade by oneself or another person, dearly take more time and infusion of self than a factory produced product. The Times predictably framed this switch to crafts as a money-saving trend, but I wonder if there is something deeper going on, as while crafts may be cheaper than some forms of ready made consumption, they're not the cheapest way to go, at least not if you are buying from an artisan or purchasing supplies from MIchaels.

But to get back to the beginnning: it's Christmas and for all the glomming on of commercialism and countless forms of pressure, at its core, this holy day has a timeless quality. Quakers hoped they could infuse all days with such a gentle, loving sense of the presence of God, and that is a worthy dream, but at least we have one such day. Through the birth of a baby, foretold and celebrated by angels, shepherds and magi, all joyfully proclaiming a new order, we touch the eternal, a time even deeper and more lasting than that of the earth, which will, in its time, also pass away.

My question, along with yet another merry Christmas, is this: how do you personally get yourself out of "commerce" time? And, are you buying or making crafts? I actually bought hand-crafted goat's milk soaps as Christmas gifts.

Christmas

"You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler.
The wicked foe pulls all of them up in his dragnet;
and he rejoices and is glad,
Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and burns incense to his dragnet,
for by his net he lives in luxury
and enjoys the choicest food.
Is he to keep on emptying his net,
destroying nations without mercy?" Habbakuk 1:13-17

Of course, Jesus calling Peter and Andrew, fishermen, to become "fishers of men" jumps immediately to mind. Jesus calls his disciples so that they can oppose the people who devour others for their own gain. This adds a social justice dimension to the fish as a Christian symbol. The fish--the little people--get a loving ruler, Jesus, who protects them from the wicked. There's a sense of lines drawn: Who will get the fish (us): those who bring death or those who offer salvation?

As I read the Christmas story while doing the Advent calendar with Will and Nick and Roger, I again see how oppositional it is. It offers an alternative universe and a transformed way of viewing the world. Yes, there is the Roman emperor and other kings and princes, who rule through warfare and violence, but we have a prince of peace. Secular princes may bring terror but our prince brings goodwill. Our king, according to Mary, stands for the oppressed and the humble. In all of this is a complete challenge to an order based on material wealth and violence.

The peace testimony--God's commitment to peace--is underlined in God's rebuke to the proud in Habbakuk: "Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed."

Jesus built his kingdom on peace, love, joy and humility.

"One of the greatest risks, I think, of living in a secular world ... is something I might call the Woody Allenization of everything. Too much reason. Too much self-awareness. Too much blah-blah. Too little wonder, and marvel and faith ... " Judith Warner, NYT, 12/23/08

The Christmas story gives us the gift of wonder, faith and miracle. Merry Christmas.

Christmas

"You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler.
The wicked foe pulls all of them up in his dragnet;
and he rejoices and is glad,
Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and burns incense to his dragnet,
for by his net he lives in luxury
and enjoys the choicest food.
Is he to keep on emptying his net,
destroying nations without mercy?" Habbakuk 1:13-17

Of course, Jesus calling Peter and Andrew, fisherman, to become "fishers of men" jumps immediately to mind. Jesus calls his disciples so that they can oppose the people who devour others for their own gain. This adds a social justice dimension to the fish as a Christian symbol. The fish--the little people--get a loving ruler, Jesus, who protects them from the wicked. There's a sense of lines drawn: Who will get the fish (us): those who bring death or those who offer salvation?

As I read the Christmas story while doing the Advent calendar with Will and Nick and Roger, I again see how oppositional it is. It offers an alternative universe and a transformed way of viewing the world. Yes, there is the Roman emperor and other kings and princes, who rule through warfare and violence, but we have a prince of peace. Secular princes may bring terror but our prince brings goodwill. Our king, according to Mary, stands for the oppressed and the humble. In all of this is a complete challenge to an order based on material wealth and violence.

The peace testimony--God's commitment to peace--is underlined in God's rebuke to the proud in Habbakuk: "Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed."

Jesus built his kingdom on peace, love, joy and humility.

"One of the greatest risks, I think, of living in a secular world ... is something I might call the Woody Allenization of everything. Too much reason. Too much self-awareness. Too much blah-blah. Too little wonder, and marvel and faith ... " Judith Warner, NYT, 12/23/08

The Christmas story gives us the gift of wonder, faith and miracle. Merry Christmas.

Winter before Summer

"And let us not be weary in doing well; for in due season, we shall reap, if we faint not." (Galatians 6:9).

"For the husbandman waits patiently, after the seed is sown; there is winter before summer comes ... So live in patience and peace."

From "Mind the Heavenly Treasure," writings of George Fox

Fox is advising us to follow the slower but more fruitful rhythms of nature in what we do, not to expect instant results and to have a view of productivity as a long term endeavor. This is contrary to the world's frantic pace and demands, but we have a choice or so it seems.

I had a lovely week at home in Maryland as well as visiting in-law family in Pennsylvania. Now I'm back to Ohio. Some of my companions, especially e-mail companions, are in a winter funk because it's cold and dark, and I am too. So I am thinking about how people --or so we are led to believe--knew how to enjoy the season in days gone by, with festivity and hope and prayer and all those good things. Peggy is talking about Advent on her site, the Abbess (see it on the right) and Bill is reflecting in his Reflections (also to the right) on what he is grateful for. What do you do for this season?