Sledding Vol. 2

We visited my parent house recently

All Good Things Must Come To An End . . .

This weekend we took our Christmas tree down. In our house, the Christmas tree goes up the weekend after Thanksgiving, and comes down New Year's Day. I can say with confidence that this is officially and predictably one of my least favorite days of the year. There are many reasons for this:

1 - The tree itself. For about 4 weeks the tree, once decorated, brings light and joy into our house and is a reminder of very good things. It's pungent fragrance bombards your senses. The tree is the centerpiece of our Christmas celebration. Each year we go through the same revered family ritual of bringing out old, cherished ornaments while carefully choosing new ornaments that will join the pantheon. Each ornament has a story and a specific meaning to us, and we're very stingy about new ornaments going up. If they lack the beauty and character of what we already have they don't stand a chance. The tree is the focal point of tremendous sentiment and nostalgia.

By the time the tree comes down on New Year's Day it's deadness hangs off the boughs like Marley's chains. The needles explode off the branches as you remove the strings of lights, which come off with far less care than they went up. Then you're faced with the important task of deciding if the current light strands will make it for another Christmas. If you choose to keep a strand that is unknowingly close to death, it might burn out on next year's tree after it's already been decorated. This presents a frustrating and time-consuming situation, so it's best to just pitch any strands older than one Christmas. After the lights come off, the tree will end up being thrown out the front door into the yard, with a grunt and perhaps a curse. Merry Christmas!! I'm sure it's amusing for my neighbors to see me burst out of my front door wielding a dead Douglas fir over my head. The needles and sap eventually get cleaned up, but it seems like every year I'm vacuuming at midnight.

2 - The music is over. Growing up my parents didn't play music much. My mom was a Kenny Rogers fan, but the Gambler came out rarely. But on Thanksgiving Day an unending flow of Christmas music poured out from the Realistic phonograph my parents owned. It was an autofeed record player, and it would stack 10-12 records on the post. Whenever the records finished rotating through, someone would flip the stack over and start it again. Among many of our favorites there was Jackie Gleason, Robert Shaw Chorale, Perry Como, Nat King Cole, Vince Guiraldi, Brenda Lee, Glen Campbell, Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby and of course Christmas Magic by Frad Waring and his Pennsylvanians. I've collected almost all that old music on CD or iTunes and it now resides my iPod. In our house now, the Christmas music starts when we hop into the van to make the 7 hr. trip to Grandma's in Jamestown, NY. From that moment Christmas music is played non-stop until the day the Tree comes down when it will go dormant once again until next Thanksgiving.

3 - The movies and decorations go back in the box. Each year we buy one Christmas movie to add to our collection. So far we have It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street (the original), A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Story, Polar Express, Christmas Vacation, Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, & Veggie Tales Christmas. This year we added The Preacher's Wife and The Bishop's Wife. Of course the more we add the more difficult it becomes to watch all of them, so we have to choose a select few. I still want to add The Santa Claus, Scrooged, Muppet Christmas Carol, Holiday Inn, White Christmas, Home Alone and Grumpy Old Men. Being committed to only buying one Christmas movie per year means it will be several years before our desired collection is complete.

4 - Goodbye to the lovely traditions. Let me list some of them, a lot of which have to do with food: making peanut brittle, sour cream twist cookies, chocolate buckeyes, egg nog w/brandy, Kara's decorated cutout cookies, nuts in the shell, mushroom sandwhiches, cheese and sweet dry sausage. Not to mention all the seasonal Christmas and Winter beer that abounds during that time. No wonder my digestion gets disrupted and my clothes don't fit anymore.

5 - Back to school. I've lived my entire life within the bounds of the academic calender. I currently work with college students and my daughter is in the first grade. So New Year's Day still means that school is right around the corner. It also means the end of college football until the fall, and that's a real bummer. So we go to bed New Year's night & every trace of our month-long Christmas celebration is gone. Within a day or two we're back at school and our minds are filled with the things of the New Year. It's still that way now.

So we look forward to another wonderful Christmas in 10 1/2 months time. I wonder what new ornaments we'll find for next year's tree, or what new beer I'll discover when the new winter seasonals are released in the fall. Who knows? Maybe none of us will be around for another Christmas.

Maybe Jesus' second advent will take place before then.

More later . . .

A six-year-old's story of the first Christmas

Tonight my six-year-old daughter Grace read me a story that she wrote. It's entitled "The First Christmas" Here's what it says in her words:

"Jess ws bron in belhem. Shepds brot the sepp. Wis men brot gld sive and fagstn. The wise men folod the star. Taet is yi we selbt Christmas. The fret Christmas."

Then she added a pencil illustration of the stable and the baby in the manger with his mother. Above the stable she drew a very large 6-pointed star. I told her it was exceptional (which it is).

She asked if she could read it to me aloud. This is her translation of what she wrote:

"Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Shepherds brought the sheep. Wise men brought gold, silver and frankenstein. The Wise Men followed the star. That is why we celebrate Christmas. The first Christmas."

It's quite a lot of fun to be a parent.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

More later . . .

Music, Mystery and Powdered Milk Biscuits

One of best music groups on the planet is the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band from Garrison Keillor's weekly radio program Prairie Home Companion. It's a simple five-piece band that can play anything, and play it prodigiously. The piano player in particular has earth-shattering chops in any style. They provide all the incidental music for the radio show in addition to 8-10 special tunes accompanying guest musicians and singers each week. The highlight of each week's show is an advertisement for Powdered Milk Biscuits where the band freaks out in a bluegrass/ragtime hoedown. They play a simple I-IV-V progression while trading fours and it blows the mind, especially when Richard Dworsky the piano player takes his turn. You can listen to the weekly sound byte on PHC's website: http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how God reveals himself to us. Fundamentally He's revealed Himself through the Scriptures and through the presence of the Holy Spirit that lives within us. What I'm thinking of, though, is the specific and occasional moments when God makes our hearts powerfully aware of His presence. I've had many of these moments, and they've always left a lasting impression. My search for understanding is not so I may conjure more of these moments, but so that I can more firmly grasp how I best develop connection with God. I'm thinking more and more that God uses different avenues and experiences to reveal Himself to different people. For some it's music, for others it's nature or books or relationships. Identifying how God has shaped my soul to best sense and engage His Spirit continues to grow in importance for me.

God has most often revealed Himself to me through music.

For example:

Last Sunday, I went with my wife to see Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God concert at our church. I was genuinely moved and impressed with both the music and the musicians. The depth of meaning behind the libretto, and the mastery with which those men played their instruments stirred me deeply. At several moments I was near tears, though I've heard the music dozens of times.

The reason I mentioned Powdered Milk Biscuits earlier is because God has often used those few short moments during that commercial break in Prairie Home Companion to shine a bright light into my soul. What's interesting is that there's nothing complicated about its form (a simple blues/ragtime), but it's done so well that it speaks deeply to me almost every time I hear it.

This was true of the December 14th episode in particular. Their special musical guest that week was Chris Thile, the vocalist/mandolin player from Nickel Creek. He played a solo cover version of the White Stripes song "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground". I was in the car returning from church when I heard it and it literally blew my mind. I was stunned how a soloist with a mandolin could do something so profound and so penetrating to my soul. I freaked out in the car I was so filled with the Spirit of God. Then right after he finished, the Guys All-Star Shoe Band played Powdered Milk Biscuits with Chris Thile and I was so excited that I disturbed another driver who witnessed my enthusiasm--no joke. What a gift from God!

A famous missions story is told of Rev. E. P. Scott, a missionary to India in the 19th century, where he was caught by a murderous band of tribesmen who were closing in on him with spears. Knowing he was going to die in a few moments, the missionary took out his violin, closed his eyes and began to play and sing "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name". When he finished the song he opened his eyes to see that the tribesmen had dropped their spears and were weeping. Scott spent the remaining years of his life with these people, sharing the Gospel of Jesus with them. Was it the power released from the music that so keenly changed the hearts of those men? I believe it was.

I remember my college chamber group singing "If Ye Love Me, Keep My Commandments" by Thomas Tallis in the vault of Lincoln's tomb. It's a sublime piece and when we sang it in that circular granite sepulcher, God shone His light brightly among us. It was a moment never to be repeated, but forever impressed into my soul. I felt as if I was swimming in sound and somehow hearing colors.

Another time when I was 19 yrs. old I was at home alone listening to the Hallelujah Chorus from The Messiah. I had sung that piece dozens and dozens of times in choir, but that particular time when I was alone and listening to it, I began to weep uncontrollably. It was so odd and out of place for me to do that, I didn't quite know how to feel about it. That was one of the first times I experienced that.

Recently during one of the most difficult times of my life, God used a song called, "The Silence of God" by Andrew Peterson to reveal Himself to me. My wife and I had just lost our baby and I was having a really rough time. Listening to that song, God revealed a piece of Himself that I desperately needed that day.

So I surrender myself to this deep desire and longing I have to hear and to play extraordinary music. By surrendering I avail myself to God's familiar avenue through which He reveals Himself to me. But this means that I will suffer a bit when I hear or witness great music. My suffering comes from wanting desperately to participate with those joined together in musical community, but knowing that I won't be able to. I must create my own community, and hope that God will reveal Himself in the midst of it. I can't be a part of the Square Peg Alliance, but I can pray for people to join my own alliance. Maybe that will happen someday. If not, I still believe that I'll hear from God, I just need to listen carefully and invite Him to show Himself.

More later . . .

Lake Effect Snow

“Are you okay?” I ask Nathanael, my son. He’s four years old. From the bottom of the hill he’s looking up at me, his face and neck covered with snow. His first run down the sledding hill ended with a soft and rolling crash, leaving him splayed like a starfish. After a moment he finally determines, “I wanna go again!” Quickly he stands up and starts the long climb to the top. His older sister Grace has already made her way back up. She doesn’t need my help sledding anymore. She already has two winters on her younger brother.

As Nathan fights the smoothness and pitch of the big hill, I take a moment to look around me. It’s the day before Thanksgiving and we’re visiting my wife’s grandmother in Jamestown, NY. Jamestown is about an hour south of Buffalo in the very heart of Lake Erie’s snow belt. This means that there is always an overabundance of snow from early November until the spring. Tonight is no different. There is at least a foot of snow on the ground and it’s perfect – cold enough to pack, but not so wet that it soaks through your snowsuit.

It’s just dusk and the lights from the streets and the parking lots around us reflect brightly so that it’s not really dark out. There’s a soft, amber glow to everything so you could sled all night if you wanted. It’s the same glow I remember from my childhood playing outside in the snow under the streetlights. We always had lots of snow when I was a kid growing up in Northeast Ohio. Looking around I notice the snow has gathered thick on the branches of all the trees creating a soft canopy covering the houses and sidewalks beneath. There are ten or twelve different families on the hill surrounding us by their laughter and screams of delight as the kids surf down the huge hill in ones, twos and threes. Some are on discs, some are on toboggans and one teenage kid has an old Flexible Flyer. One brave father allows his two young sons to lie down on top of him as they cruise down on their bellies. At a glance it looks like today's version of a Currier & Ives print—folks young and old enjoying the fun and frolic of the fresh, fallen snow.

Grace soon finds a friend named Crystal and she’s off to go up and down the hill without us. That leaves me to give all my attention to my boy Nathanael, and I’m all in. His little 35 lb. frame is made for this, and my somewhat larger frame seems to be holding up. The more trips down we make, the more Nathan’s confidence grows. Soon he wants to hit the big ramp the teenage boys are using with their snowboards. We try it. We crash. We laugh. Inwardly I know that I’m going to be in some pain the next day, but it’s a pain I’ll gladly endure. I also know that we’ll be returning to Grandma’s warm house later where hot chocolate and warm baths await. Grandma's hot chocolate has amazing healing powers.

This is a good moment. It’s a moment that makes any preceding not-so-good moments worth it. It’s a moment that will stick with me for a long time: My boy learning the pure joy of sledding in the perfect snow from Lake Erie, the promised hot chocolate and the forging of lifelong remembrances.

A good moment that is mine.

More later. . .