Advent Reflections 2018

Advent is about waiting. Waiting for something wonderful to come to us in the form of a Savior. Someone to come and save the world from chaos, death and destruction. When I look around at the state of the world today--the destruction, violence, fear, hate and despair--I sometimes lose hope. Where is Jesus? The truth is, Jesus is right there beside me, patiently waiting for me to turn to him and ask him to help me through this life’s journey. He is right there beside you too. Hebrews 13:8 (NIV) says: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” This verse speaks hope to me. Jesus taught us how to love and loves us still, more than we could possibly comprehend. This was true yesterday. It is true today. It will be true for all time. He doesn’t just love us when we’re “making good choices” and “being good Christians”. No, Jesus’ love is even bigger than that. He loves me—all of me—even the parts of myself I am ashamed of, the parts that are broken, and the dark corners of my heart. He loves me completely. He loves you completely too. Jesus brought this love to the world when he came to us as a baby in a humble stable. Love is what will save this world. When we choose love over fear, we change the world. My prayer this advent season is to slow down and focus on choosing light and love every day, and to share that light and love with the people I interact with. A lofty aim, I know, but Jesus was with me yesterday, he is with me today, and he will be with me forever, and Jesus is with you too.

After reading some of my past posts, it would appear that I only write when having a difficult time. I suppose when things in life are going well for me, I am content to simply enjoy it without the need to express how I'm feeling. Today is one of the dark days. So here I sit to write about depression. It is a difficult affliction to deal with. It doesn't show on the outside. I'm not actually sick with accepted forms of illness. A cold or flu is easy to understand and treat. The symptoms of clinical depression are a bit more difficult to deal with. Today is January 4th, 2015. I have always struggled with the beginning of a new year. Everyone wishes us all a Happy New Year! The term is full of hope and promise. I only feel despair, grief and apprehension. What will life throw at me this year? What calamities will I have to overcome? Will I have the strength to deal with the terrible things that will happen? All I want to do is hide away in my room. I don't want to be around other people. It's the strangest feeling to be in a room full of people that I know care about me, and yet feel completely alone and hopeless. Exhaustion doesn't begin to cover how it feels to put on a happy face, and pretend for the world that all is well with me. People don't really want to know how terrible I truly feel. It's hard enough for me to face the reality of what I feel, so why on Earth would I burden someone else with it? Bobbie McGarey, a former Pastor of mine, told me to be gentle with myself. I didn't grasp what that meant until I started paying attention to what I was actually telling myself. Things like, "What's the matter with you?" or "Why don't you just snap out of it?" or "Look at all the wonderful things and blessings you have. You shouldn't feel this way!" I would NEVER say these things to another person, and yet it was okay for me to say them to myself. It's difficult to remember to be gentle with myself. Perhaps that's why I write when I hurt. It slows my thoughts down enough to pay attention to what I am saying inside, so that I can silence the critic and embrace the gentle mother instead. I still consider myself an optimist, but it is so difficult to overcome these dark, hopeless feelings. I know I won't always feel this way. I know that at some point I'll be able to reach down and find my hope, my light, my peace. Today I will be gentle with myself and allow myself to hurt. To miss my little boy. To feel sad that another year is over, and that another year is here, without some of my loved ones to share it with. Today I will write of pain. Today I will cry in despair. Today I will breathe deeply, and I will reach out to God, and I will run to Her, like a chick runs to her mother hen. I will allow God in, to cry with me, to wrap love around me and comfort me. I'm glad I slowed down enough to write today. It made it easier to feel God's love, and grasp onto hope. Amen.

Well, here I am sitting in my pajamas in the dining room, looking out to a cold, overcast Mother's Day. I have had a difficult go of it this Spring, with missing so many dear ones. Both sets of my grandparents, my uncle, my brother and my son. I never used to understand why my Nain, (my mother's mother) would insist that we have tissues in church. Now that I have lived through some tragedies in my own life, I understand. Church is the place where I go to meet God, even though I know that God is with me always. It is in the quiet of worship that I am able to listen and open myself to the Spirit, and it is in worship that I invariably will weep by feeling the Spirit touch me personally and hear what God wants me to hear. I do try to hold things together while sitting in the choir loft, but I have a whole fist full of tissues stuffed into my black folder, just in case. I actually made it through worship today without getting too emotional. Now here I am, back at home with the lovely gerber daisies Gene got for me for mother's day, sitting in my pajamas trying to feel a bit of hope. It's been harder than usual to shake off my sadness. So here are some things that happened to me to help bring me some of that hope. We were driving home from Johnny's 6th grade choral concert. There had been many downpours throughout the day, and the rain was just letting up as we pulled into the driveway. It was dusk out, and the headlights caught something in the bush at the end of the drive. I was thinking it was a bird, so I backed up and shone the headlights into the bush again. Sure enough, there was a little grayish bird sitting there among the leaves. I worried that it was injured, so when we got out of the van, Johnny and I went down to where I had seen it to see if it was still there. I approached it slowly, crooning to it, and slowly crouched down. I reached out a finger, tentatively so I wouldn't scare it or hurt it further. It allowed me to stroke its back. Worried that it was somehow hurt, I went into the house to get a flashlight so I could see it better. Alex and Matthew came out with me. I shone the light on it, and was able to determine it was a fledgling Robin, because of the speckles on its reddish, brown chest. I crooned to it some more, and was able to stroke its back again. Its feathers were still downy soft with brand new adult feathers on top. Just as I was wondering what to do, whether to see if it was injured or sick, it fluttered off deeper into the bush, showing me that it was just fine. As I was walking back into the house with Alex and Matthew, it struck me. Here was a bird, a Robin fledgling, allowing me to stroke its back. I have always attributed birds with Andrew, and Andrew sending me signs that he is still close to me. I wrote the Robin Poem before I lost him, and read it at his funeral. The poem speaks about Robin Fledglings, (I posted a copy here in my blog), and here was a Robin fledgling allowing me to stroke its back. As I walked back into the house, I whispered a "thank you" to my boy for sending me his love this Mother's Day weekend. On Saturday I was tidying up the dining room table, and as I lifted an empty grocery bag, a penny fell right into my hand, from out of nowhere. Whenever pennies appear, I think of them as pennies from Heaven, and I know I needed some this weekend. The other sign happened to me while sitting in the choir loft this morning, listening to the children's message being delivered by a friend of mine. She was speaking about how her mother loved her and she had objects that demonstrated her mother's love. A clock, because her mother always wanted her to be on time. A Bible, because her mother wanted her to learn about how much God loves her. A dishrag, because her mother wanted her to be responsible and do her share to help get work done in her family. The object that struck me most, though, was a story book. She used the story book to show how her mother wanted her to get a good education to help her make her way in the world. That wasn't what struck me, it was the book itself. She help up the story book, Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling. My Nain always had read us stories from this book when we went to visit her house. As I looked at the book, I knew somehow that Nain was with me, and that she knew the sadness in my heart, and was telling me that she was there. I know it would be easy to dismiss these as coincidence, or just me making more out of something than what was really there...but I choose to think that these are messages from those that I love and miss, helping me along my journey to grab onto hope and love. I think the veil between this world and the one that comes after is thinner than we think. When we are open to them, we are better able to see the signs that those we love and miss are right there with us. God abides, and loves us. Thank you for sending me hope this weekend. Amen.

To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time. ~Clara Ortega. If your sister is in a tearing hurry to go out and cannot catch your eye, she's wearing your best sweater. ~Pam Brown. I’ve had many thoughts about what I wanted to say about friendship and my sister since I was asked to speak today. I suppose the best place to start is the beginning of the best friendship I’ve ever had, and probably ever will. My sister was born in Bradford, PA, on a cold day in February. February 14th to be exact. Years later, on a sheet of butcher paper hung in the hallway of my dorm at UNH, someone posed the question, “What was the best Valentine’s Day gift you ever received?” (We didn’t have Facebook or Twitter back then.) I picked up the sharpie marker and wrote without hesitation: My sister. Still true today. (Sorry Gene.) I remember my Grandparents bringing me to the hospital where Kymberly Elen was born. I couldn’t go in to visit, as I had a terrible cold which later turned out to be chicken pox. (A very good thing I didn’t go in!) I remember my grandmother entertaining me out in the snow of the parking lot with a snow shovel, carrying me around like it was a sled. I remember my mom waving to me from a window. I was three years old. As my sister grew, so did our friendship. Another early memory I had was getting into trouble for getting into the playpen with her. (She had all the cool toys!) I suppose that feeling stayed with me into our teenage years, as she always had the cool clothes! We invented a game together. I would dutifully pick up the toys she would toss out of the playpen and put them back in, at which time she would toss them back out again. I remember exclaiming to my mom, “She’s playing with me Mommy!” When we were older, we would make up all kinds of imaginative games that we played outside during the summer. We had a special place under the trees in our front lawn that we transformed into our playhouse. We both had baby dolls we would mother and our bikes were our cars that we ran errands with. I had always imagined that we would grow up and do all these things for real, and in some ways I suppose we have. Interestingly enough, I remember one of the baby dolls Kymmie had we named Matthew, and this baby doll had tons of hair like my Matthew did when he was born…well I guess he still does now too. Most of the games we played as kids involved being mothers and our pretend families were the most important thing to us. We never really played at having jobs or anything like that. It’s interesting to me simply because family is the most important thing to us both now, and being mothers together has been an incredible journey. She is one of the best mothers I know. My sister remembers a story that I also remember, but it made a big impact on her. We were going to a friend’s house to play Barbie dolls, and she tripped and skinned her knee and crushed the front of her Barbie doll. I brushed the dirt off of her knee. She was in tears, mostly because the front of her doll was smashed in. I told her, “Don’t worry, we’ll just pretend she had breast cancer.” It made her feel better and we continued on our way. We’re pretty good at finding a way to make the other feel better in a bad situation. Another story I love to tell is when we were living in Bennington, VT. My sister and I were waiting for my mom and brother while they went into a bike shop to pick up my brother’s bike. Jeremy had been waiting outside and had been picked on by a school bully. It made me so mad. This bully began circling the car while my sister and I waited for mom. Kymmie was freaking out in the backseat. “What are we going to do?!” I had a plan. “Watch this.” As the bully came around the front of the car on his bike, I quickly opened my door and he crashed into it, falling down on the pavement. He got scared and rode off, leaving us alone. Nobody messes with my family! I wasn’t always such a sweet protective sister. I could be quite manipulative and always wanting to have my way in our childhood play, and later on in life as well. I remember once we were staying the summer in between college semesters at my grandmother’s house in upstate New York. I wanted to go see my boyfriend in Philadelphia but didn’t want to drive. (I still hate driving to be quite honest!) I begged and begged her to drive me, but she had her own plans and they didn’t include driving all the way to Philadelphia to spend time with her sister and her sister’s boyfriend. I threw a tantrum (I was really good at them) and beat up a wall over the whole thing. It’s one of our favorite stories to this day. Kymmie and I are pretty good at laughing at ourselves. I had always been the older sister, offering advice and guidance, until our roles were reversed when we had our first children. She had Kyra 6 weeks before I had Matthew. I remember talking to her over the phone and crying because I had no idea what I was doing and I was basically a hormonal mess. She calmed me down and was able to be the one to offer me some advice and guidance. It was comforting to have her say, “Oh that’s normal, Kyra did that too. You could try this, it worked for me…" She dropped everything and came to take care of me when we lost our son, Andrew. The only words I remember hearing from her when I spoke to her right after it happened were: “Hang in there Cyndi. I’m coming. I’ll be there. I’m coming. Hold on.” I needed her, and she was there. Period. She was my protector then. Even through that terrible summer of tears, we were able to laugh together. She saved me. A few years later, when we lost our brother, I did my best to be there for her. I remember lying in bed with her when she arrived in SLC that night, rubbing her back and saying over and over, “I’ve got you. You’ll be ok. I’ve got you.” Again, in spite of excruciating pain, we were able to laugh together. I have so many stories that I could go on and on. Most of my favorite stories to tell are Kymmie stories. The bottom line is, I have always felt that I have a best friend in my sister. She knows all about me. She knows my faults, and she knows my strengths, and she loves me anyway. I’m there for her, and she is there for me. I’m blessed to say that I have had her for a friend for 41 years now. She is creative, funny, goofy, loyal, loving, and quite simply one of the best people I know. My only complaint? She lives across the country in Florida and I don’t get to spend as much time with her as I would like.

Going to see the Dead Sea Scrolls with my parents, Matthew, Johnny and friends was an amazing experience today. We rode down in the van with Sally Keller, which was a treat in itself. I just love chatting with her. Then we had a private tour of the exhibit with a leading professor on the scrolls from BYU. Seeing the history of these artifacts was quite moving. To be near artifacts from the time of Jesus, was very humbling to say the least. I was moved.

I have had an interestingly spiritual week. On Monday I went to see the new movie, Noah, starring Russel Crowe, with the ecumenical youth group this past Monday evening. We went to Charlie's for ice cream afterward, and had a conversation about it. It was interesting to watch the youth think about the questions posed to them by Pastor Derek. The question of punishment being placed on generations of children after the sins of the parents was brought up. One of the youth asked, "Why would God punish a child? That's not fair. It's not the child's fault that the parents did something wrong." Pastor Derek made note of a New Testament passage from John 9:1-5. "As he walked along he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered, 'Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.'" The passage spoke to me, and I took it to mean, bad things happen to people. It is simply the way of this broken world where people are given choice. The choice to hurt others and take what they need at all costs. The choice to make peace and treat others with love and kindness. The choice to ride a bike without a helmet away from where mom said you could ride your bike. Bad things happen. People are born blind, or crippled. People struggle with depression, or autism. Life can be struggle after struggle, and it can be terrible and it can also be beautiful. The bottom line is, this man was born blind just because. The part that struck me was, "he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him." In other words, his faith and his healing is an example of God's love and power to work in our lives. So perhaps, my journey of pain and grief can be turned around and can be changed into a story of strength, healing and hope and how God has worked in my life. I do hope that God can use me to help other people along their journey through this mixed up, broken world. If that is the case, then God can take what is horrible and painful, and turn it around to work hope and love into the world through my story. God's love and power (God's works) can be revealed in my story and journey. A truly humbling and hopeful notion. "God's works might be revealed in him" God's works might be revealed in my story... Thank you for speaking to me through the people I come in contact with and through your Word, God. Continue to guide me, Lord. I trust you, I love you. I'll do my best to listen for your voice. Amen

Song Lyrics that I love

This is a song by Fort Atlantic that I love, and figured that I would post them here. Let Your Heart Hold Fast, by Fort Atlantic All my days are spent All my cards are dealt Oh the desolation grows Every inch revealed As my heart is pierced Oh my soul is now exposed. In the oceans deep In the canyon steep Walls of granite here I stand. All my desperate calls Echo off the walls Back and forth Then back again. To believe I walk alone Is a lie that I've been told. So let your heart hold fast For this soon shall pass. Like the high tide takes the sand. At the bitter end Salt and liquid blend From the corner of my eye All the miles wrecked Every broken step Always searching always blind. Never fear, no never fear. So let your heart hold fast, For this soon shall pass, There's another hill ahead.