SLOW : andrew dowsett : collected musings
Some
days are dark days. You were never supposed to carry the weight of the pain of
the world; but you can be a stargazer: one who looks, intently, for signs of
light in the darkness – and who redirects their life to follow the light, and
so to carry the light.
Whenever
we are rudely reminded that we dwell in the long shadow of death, may we seek,
follow after, find, revere, and point others to the light that came into the
world in the incarnation of Jesus, God-with-us.
The
Third Sunday of Advent has long been associated with joy. On it, we read the poet
Isaiah’s joyous vision of a parched land transformed by the coming of the
rains:
‘The wilderness
and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing…
‘Then…the tongue
of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water…
‘A highway shall
be there,
and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not travel on it,
but it shall be for God’s people;
no traveller, not even fools, shall go astray.
No lion shall be there,
nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk there.
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.’
Isaiah 35.1-10
About
thirty-five years before the birth of Jesus, Herod the Great built a fortified
pleasure dome a parkrun’s distance (5 km, 3 miles) south-east of Bethlehem,
with commanding views over the ancient road known as the Way of the Patriarchs.
On a man-made hill, he raised four towers, the largest being his penthouse.
Beneath them, a great reception room, and Roman-style bathhouse. Below that, an
enormous pool – Hollywood did not invent the pool party – and ornamental
gardens, the edge of the desert transformed by water brought in by aqueducts (‘What
did the Romans ever do for us?’). At a superficial glance, this was a
fulfilment of Isaiah’s vision, the burning sand become a pool. (I have stood in
the bottom of that pool, now long dry, the burning sand reclaiming its own.) But
Herod co-opts the vision of Scripture – of holy writing – to justify absolute
power. It will become an early warning system against ambassadors sent from a
distant court to pay homage to the ‘newborn king of the Jews.’
The
co-opting of faith in service of authoritarian control, in favour of wealthy
men who play out obscene excess behind closed doors while the common people struggle
under the weight of injustice, can never bring forth joy. Joy is that profound
experience of being caught up in something bigger than ourselves – of a deep
sense of connection with our neighbour, with strangers, with nature, the
universe, God. It is impossible to know joy whenever we intentionally separate
ourselves from other people, from those who are different – inferior to us in
our own eyes.
We
live in days when, on both sides of the Atlantic, we see agitators promoting
the anathema which is Christian Nationalism. This is the false fulfilment of
Herod the Great (Make Herod Great Again). But joy has always waited to be
found, just as clouds wait to pour out their precious rain on the desert.
Tomorrow
– the third Sunday of Advent – we will hold our annual Nativity at St Nicholas’
church. We have invited everyone to come dressed as their favourite character
from the story – it does not matter whether we have one Mary or fifteen (the
Gospels are full of women called Mary) because there is room for everyone.
Nativities
– retellings of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus, usually pitched for children
and popular in primary schools – remain reasonably familiar, and poorly
presented. Famously, they involve Mary & Joseph turning up at Bethlehem on
the very night she will go into labour, desperately going from inn to inn
seeking a room, being turned away by innkeeper after innkeeper, until a kindly
one, deeply apologetic at having nothing better to offer, let’s them sleep in
his stable. Nothing could be further from what the Gospels actually portray.
Jesus
is born in the home of a relative of Joseph, who, some time earlier, has returned
to Bethlehem with his bride Mary, from her father’s home in Nazareth. In
keeping with custom, a newly married couple (that is, having completed the
legally binding contract of betrothal) would expect to live with the bride’s
parents for the first twelve months of their life together – Joseph may well have
been working for his father-in-law by way of a dowry – before the bride was
taken to live in the home of the groom’s parents (marked by what we would
recognise as a wedding feast). There is not space in the room allocated to the
couple – Luke uses a term we might translate as ‘guest room’ and definitely
should not translate as ‘inn’ – for Mary to give birth, attended by female
relatives and town midwives, and so Jesus is born in the main, shared living
space. He is then washed and wrapped tightly in bands of linen – all he has
known so far is the confines of the womb – and laid in a stone depression
hollowed out to form a manger in the dividing point between the lower end of
the home, where animals slept at night, and the upper end, where the humans
slept. Luke makes a point of describing he manger in detail, perhaps because it
is a relevant detail for the shepherds (possibly a particular manger in a home
known to them) but also because he is foreshadowing the stone shelf in the tomb
where Jesus, wrapped in linen strips, will be laid following his crucifixion.
The whole town of Bethlehem – the ‘city of David’ – rejoice that God has at
last restored the fortunes of the house and line of David – though their joy
will turn to sorrow within a couple of years, when Herod orders the massacre of
every male child of two years and under in and around Bethlehem.
This,
then, is a story set firmly in history, in the history and cultural practices and
hopes and expectations of a particular community. It is a story of hope and of
joy, albeit a story that will not run smoothly, because there will be powerful others
who contest the story.
And
the invitation is, where do you find yourself in the story? Not as a shepherd
or as townsfolk or relatives, but where does the story resonate with your life –
lived in a very different culture?
Where
will the God who broke in there and then, break into your life here and now?
Once
upon a time, many years in the past, there lived a young man, in a valley in a
city built on seven hills. Each Sunday, he would get up bright and early and make
the short walk to the house of the young woman he loved, stopping on the way at
the boulangerie, to pick up two fresh-from-the-oven pains au chocolat, and at
the tabac, to collect a Sunday paper, stuffed with weekend supplement sections.
Then they would sit and drink coffee and eat their pains au chocolat and read
the supplements, before walking up the hill to church. [1]
On
a street between where the young man and the young woman lived, a street that
ran parallel to the one with the boulangerie and the tabac, there was a gift
shop. The kind of shop you could not walk past without looking in the window,
for something new. The kind of shop you might turn into, at any time of year,
and find the perfect gift to hold onto, to give a friend or relative when
Christmas came around. The kind of shop that has, in cities up and down the
land, been put out of business by online shopping.
These
days, it is perhaps harder to find the perfect gift, in good time in advance,
not only because we have withdrawn from the physical world but because the virtual
world shapes us for immediacy. But the perfect gift might be in your hands:
your own, undivided, presence the best present you have to offer (and, you don’t
need to give a gift to everyone you know or have ever met; don’t need to be run
ragged by the season of More Invitations Than You Can Possibly Accept).
Advent
invites us to slow down enough to be present. But also, to plan in advance. Not
for the Christmas that is upon us, but for the days and years and times ahead. Advent
reminds us that the first coming of Christ – his incarnation – was a plan set
in motion from before the creation of the world: God’s desire to be one with us,
to be one of us, to unite heaven and earth. To savour the anticipation of
seeing our surprise and delight. Might we rediscover this for ourselves?
[1]
I know the young man and the young woman, though they are no longer young. They
married, and he brings her coffee before she gets out of bed each morning – not
only on Sundays – but they no longer live close to a boulangerie where people
queue out the door waiting patiently for the oven to be opened.
Is
your Christmas tree up yet? At this time of year we make room for Christmas
trees in our homes, gardens, businesses and public squares. As I have walked
around my parish delivering Christmas cards, I’ve seen Christmas trees of all styles
– including stylish minimalist branches, painted white, with a few brightly
coloured baubles – and sizes.
In
the symbolic universe of the Bible – in the imagination of the poets who wrote much
of what has been handed down to us – trees stand for a person or people.
The
poet Isaiah imagines a creative act of God – of the god who first created the
world and everything in it – establishing a whole, diverse ecology of trees in
the wilderness: cedar and acacia and myrtle and olive and cypress and plane and
pine (Isaiah 41:17-20). It is a vision of a new way of being human, rooted in
quietness and rest, in trust in the God who waits to meet with us, who waits
for us to grow weary of the noise, the drivenness, the distraction of the city –
of our physical and virtual, external and internal architecture.
And
it isn’t a monoculture, this new way of being human – this vision of the
Church. There are many different types of tree: some tall and thin; some
spreading out a broad canopy providing shade; each with its own properties –
this one is good for burning, for fuel; this, for building; this one, for food;
this, possessing healing in its bark, or leaves.
This
year, I have witnessed something of a fulfilment of Isaiah’s vision – biblical prophecy,
biblical sense of history, is both cyclical and linear; its poetry speaks to
events down through the ages – this year. Men and women seeking something that
the world cannot give, searching for it in the wilderness of our long-abandoned
churches. God is planting trees, creating something beautiful in its diversity.
And
this Advent, the trees we make space for in our homes might just point us to
this joyful reality.
‘Are
you feeling Christmassy yet?’ If not, that’s quite alright. Christmas – as Rend Collective sing* – is not a feeling. Christmas celebrates a truth – a reality
that Advent points to – that ‘In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from
on high shall break upon us, To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the
shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.’** In Advent we
hold on to the hope that the dawn is on the way, and at Christmas we celebrate
that it came and will come again. The dawn tells us that the darkness in our
lives does not have the final word; but it does not deny that the night can be
bitterly cold.
*We
are playing Rend Collective’s ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / Hallelujah’ before
all our Christmas services this year. Check it out on your music streaming
service of choice.
**vv.
9&10 of The Benedictus (The Song of Zechariah) which is ‘normally said’ at
Morning Prayer.
One
of the great themes of Advent is joy. (It is especially associated with the Third
Sunday of Advent, also known as Gaudete Sunday; and this year, JOY is the overall theme for Advent across
the Church of England nationally.)
The
author Brené Brown describes ‘joy’ as ‘sudden, unexpected, short-lasting, and
high intensity. It’s characterized by a connection with others, or with God,
nature, or the universe. Joy expands our thinking and attention, and it fills
us with a sense of freedom and abandon.’
(Atlas of the Heart, p. 204)
I
know too many people whose marriages have fallen into messy divorce. (That is
not to pass judgement: marriage is hard. I am aware that singleness is also
hard, but the point is not comparison; the point stands: marriage is hard.) I
know far too many people whose lives have been touched by the death, by
suicide, of someone close to them. I know people who are living, this
Christmas, with end-stage terminal illness. People who have lost a much-loved
family pet. (this is no small thing.) And this is not to look for the wider
catastrophes of climate collapse or war that uproot and remove families from
their lives and confront the watching – perhaps receiving – world with our own in/humanity.
It is common to the human condition that we dwell in darkness and in the shadow
of death.
Joy
does not deny or dismiss this reality. Rather, it is under these conditions
that joy is utterly essential, strengthening us to face our lives. For we do
not face life alone, beneath a dispassionate void, but with the God who chose
to become God-with-us in the birth of Jesus. He is the light that shines in the
darkness, the light that grows, incrementally, to noon-day sun. But the dawn,
the dawn sky, will take your breath away.
In
our home we build up our Christmas decorations slowly through Advent. One of
the pieces that comes out on the second weekend is a German wooden Christmas
carousel/pyramid. Heat rises from candles to drive propellor blades that spin a
nativity scene – slowly at first, then faster, building up momentum. In truth,
it can be mesmerising, quite relaxing to look on.
But
spinning around is not relaxing. And I am aware of an Anxious Generation,
driven to distraction, unable to embrace stillness – to enter into the rest
that God holds out to us. I am also aware that there are some in this very
generation who are ‘returning’ to church, in search of God; returning to a
place left behind by their parents’ (and perhaps grandparents) generation,
drawn by the call of deep rest in a very fast digital moment. A generation who
need to rediscover how to be quiet and still – on the inside – and in this
Advent can help, as we discover the God who waits for us to wait for him.
One
of the things many Christians do in Advent is read the poetry of the prophet
Isaiah, who lived and wrote some 600 years before the birth of Jesus. At
Morning Prayer today, we read these verses:
‘For thus said the
Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:
In returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.
But you refused and said,
‘No! We will flee upon horses’—
therefore you shall flee!
and, ‘We will ride upon swift steeds’—
therefore your pursuers shall be swift!
A thousand shall flee at the threat of one,
at the threat of five you shall flee,
until you are left
like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
like a signal on a hill.
‘Therefore the Lord
waits to be gracious to you;
therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.’
Isaiah 30:15-18
I
learned recently that for some young adults (dubbed the Anxious Generation) at
least, Advent calendars are a source of anxiety at being expected to remember
to open a door / eat a piece of chocolate every day for twenty-four days. This
is no joke, but an expression – and indicator – of the levels of anxiety, over
performance and in relation to simple, daily tasks or habits, the younger
generation live with – and if not for any given member of that cohort, likely
for people they know personally.
This
is a tragedy, because Advent practices are not meant to be burdensome. They are
about building a sense of expectancy – flexing the muscles of hope – not hyper-vigilance.
The Church has been waiting, actively, for Jesus to return for two thousand
years. It is not possible to remain hyper-vigilant for any extended length of
time (let alone millennia) but grace-filled habits train us for healthy lives.
Whereas in Lent we might abstain from chocolate – a simple practice of learning
to say no to immediate self-gratification; simple, but hard in an age addicted
to both dopamine hits and sugar – in Advent we might embrace the discipline of
receiving a gift.
Advent
anxiety prevents us from entering into Advent. For me, the weekend just gone
was a full one, with our parish church patronal festival, marked by the St
Nicholas Fayre on Saturday, two services on Sunday morning, and a Christingle
on Sunday evening. In the need to attend well to these things, I did not need
the added pressure of writing a daily Advent calendar post. And so, I made the
choice not to have to do so. To leave it – this thing I have done every Advent
for twenty years – until tomorrow. To extend grace to myself, just as grace has
been extended to me.
Today
(6th December) is the Feast of St Nicholas, sometime Bishop of Myra, patron saint
of children and sailors, defender of both orthodoxy – believing ‘rightly’
(faithfully) about God – and orthopraxis – acting ‘rightly’ (faithfully) in
accordance with what we profess to believe. And the saint for whom the parish church
I serve as vicar is named.
The
parish church of St Nicholas, Bishopwearmouth, was dedicated as a place of
worship ten days after the declaration that, for a Second time in just over two
decades, we were at War. A declaration of another kind, that, however uncertain
the world we live in, Christ is our hope. Following in the footsteps of Nicholas,
as he followed in the footsteps of Jesus the Christ (the one sent by God to
deliver his people from oppression), the ‘charism’ of this church (charism: the
particular gift God has given this church to serve their neighbours) is to be a
safe haven for those experiencing the storms of life – for those ‘lost at sea’.
This is a place, and a community, I long to see filled with the joy of children
and of people of all ages who have dared to call out to God to deliver them.
The
Feast of St Nicholas always falls in Advent, provides a moment of joyous
celebration (our patronal festival, however we mark it, which this year
included the St Nicholas Fayre) in the approach to Christmas, and – if we allow
it – recalibrates our lives to Jesus.
Photo:
me, dressed as St Nicholas, on his feast day.
Advent
has its own flavours. Some years ago, Jo came across a recipe book of German
Advent biscuits. Apparently, there is a German tradition of serving plates of
mixed, home-baked biscuits to anyone who visits your home in Advent. Neither of
us are German, but Jo lived there for a year, and we both enjoy visiting Germany.
So, Jo decided that she would take up this tradition and bakes a couple of
different batches of biscuits each Advent weekend.
Both
of my grandfathers fought against Nazi Germany in the Second World War; but
their grandchildren and great-grandchildren have known friendship. The prophet
Isaiah foretold the birth of a child who would be known, among other titles, as
the Prince of Peace; and Christians see that hope fulfilled in Jesus. In a
world were peace seems distant, we are called to hold fast to the hope that in
him, all will – one day – be reconciled. In the face of todays’ seemingly
intractable conflicts, we remind ourselves of where peace has overcome hostility.
Could something as simple as sharing biscuits help us to do this?
Hospitality
is central to the Christmas story. Joseph brings his expectant wife, Mary, to
the home of a relative. Social convention requires the relative to welcome them,
but the space in the home (sometimes a separate room, sometimes an end
partitioned off by a curtain, sometimes a shelter on the flat roof) where travelling
guests might sleep is either too small for Mary too labour in or is already
occupied – further evidence of hospitality, extended to another relative or to
a stranger, for social convention required hospitality be extended to both.
Who
might enter your home this Advent? And what might you serve them?
In
our home, we build up our Christmas decorations slowly through Advent, bringing
out a box on each of the four weekends. It begins with just a few changes: a
figurine of a pregnant woman, symbolizing Mary, placed on one end of the
mantlepiece, with an attending angel; our Advent calendar opposite. I bring my
wife a mug of coffee in bed every morning before we get up (itself another
ritual) and on the first day of Advent we swap out our usual mugs for ones we
only use in Advent: simple markers. The tree does not go up until week three.
In
this way, we build up a sense of expectancy, ready to celebrate Christmas when
it arrives – a twelve-day feast; we are not sick of it all by the afternoon of
Boxing Day, desperate to pack everything away for another year.
But
this might also help us to wait expectantly for Christ’s return: recognising –
learning to recognise – that Jesus breaks into our lives in many often small
and accumulative ways; that the victory of justice and mercy over exploitation
and oppression is not, usually, dramatic – and yet, little by little –
gradually – comes around again and again.
Advent has its very own soundtrack, a mix of songs in
a minor key, filled with longing for the light, and stirring carols focused
more on Christ’s return than on his first coming as the Babe of Bethlehem.
I love more traditional Advent carols, like Hills
of the North, Rejoice and People, look East. But in recent years, my
go-to Advent playlist has included the albums Advent Songs (2021) by The Porter’s Gate; and Good News (2016) and the earlier In the Town of
David (2006) by Ordinary Time. Check them out.
I have a memory of a childhood Advent calendar. Card,
with (probably – here, my memory is shaky) a picture of the hills around
Bethlehem for backdrop. Doors opened carefully, re-opened year after year. Each
one revealing a picture, depicting some character or item relating to the
nativity, and a verse from the Bible on the back of the door.
These days, the Advent calendar on our mantlepiece is a
wooden box, with twenty-four doors that lift upward, not to the side. Behind
each door, Jo hides a piece from a jigsaw of an icon from the Church of the
Nativity, for her, and a fairtrade individual ‘taster’ bar of chocolate, for
me.
The practice of opening a little door every day
through Advent, a door that is linked to the story of the incarnation, might
shape how we open larger doors. So far this Advent, I have opened my front door
to a neighbour, shut out of her own home and in need of help, and to delivery
drivers, dropping off Bibles I had ordered for friends who are exploring faith.
The vicarage doorbell is loud – I cannot adjust the volume, and it makes me
jump whenever it rings. It does not predispose me to welcome those who come to
my door. Yet the Advent calendar might resist that move; might predispose me to
see Jesus coming to my door in the face of a neighbour or stranger. Coming to
me, in need or in response to my own need. (In the Gospels we see Jesus ministered-to
by others and ministering to others.)
Warning: mention of suicide
The Advent candles are not the only candles we light
in our home throughout Advent. We also light a frankincense & myrrh candle.
One of the smells of Advent, along with cinnamon biscuits—for smell connects
deeply with memory and so has a key role in keeping traditions alive—is frankincense
& myrrh. Two of the three gifts (along with gold) presented to the infant
Jesus and his parents by the magi/wisemen/kings.
This is a dark time of year. The sun does not rise
above the horizon, here where I live, until 8.00 a.m. (by mid-December, not
until 8.15 a.m.) and sets mid-afternoon.
These are dark times, at the best of times. Not a week
goes by without news of another life taken in violence by its own hand. Lives
that have run dry of hope, carrying a burden of pain they just don’t think they
can continue to bear. Tragically, often longing to be reunited with family
members who have died too soon, carried away by illness or accident or suicide.
For some, this darkness, this void of despair, is
evidence against the existence—or at least the efficacy—of God, of a god who is
good and loving and strong. And yet, for others, it is in the darkness that
Light and Love shine most brightly. How, then, might we side with the Light and
Love?
Those gifts—made to a child who all too soon will find
himself a refugee, his peers butchered by hardened soldiers at the orders of a fragile
king—just might hold a clue, a key. Incense, symbol of prayer rising; prayers
rising, even when we can find no words. And myrrh, used to prepare a body for
burial, a final act of tenderness, of kindness, of dignity; and though these
days embalming is undertaken by professionals, we still might embrace the
bereaved with tender touch.
In the darkness, we light a frankincense & myrrh
candle, and breath in what it means to wait, until our eyes adjust, until the
clouds pass over and the stars are revealed, fierce pinpoints of light in
blazing glory.
