Journey To Christmas
Perhaps it was the cumulative years of writing Advent sermons, gradually building up such a vivid sense of anticipation, that a creative outlet of joyous expression was bound to happen despite the tremendous adversity that lay ahead in my journey...
Apparently, you can count on the biased CBC to mock Christmas. But the comic rant decrying those auto-generated carol playlists does have a point. Malls + holiday songs do not equal cheer. Rather, for me, they stir a rising cynicism like the 4 progressive stages of hypertension! The antidote is a necessary exercise of deeper reflection in response to the frenetic consumerism and the tinney holiday trappings of secularist attempts to replace Christ, the very reason for my joy in celebrating this season.
I do love Christmas. This is the season for imagining what is possible, for dreaming new dreams, for hoping beyond hope. But someone observed that it is also the season when hope can be hardest to find, dreams hardest to believe. The days draw short, the nights are long and the air turns. Expenses may loom at a time when resources are scarce. Separation, grief, loneliness, and depression are no strangers to the season. Hope may be in short supply during this time. We need the inspiring Christmas message of courage and trust in the face of uncertainty more than ever.
George Frideric Handel’s ‘Messiah’ (I had to Google the lyrics) is quite the extraordinary meditative journey; such inspired creativity! Other classic hymns help me find my way to the central message of Christmas -- peace, hope, love and joy -- such as ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’ and ‘O Holy Night’. Henry Longfellow wrote ‘I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day’ (in 1854) shortly after losing his wife in a house fire. Yet verses are so redemptive. It seems the best songs and poems that stand the test of time are the sweet fruit which buds from personal struggle.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died in Flossenburg concentration camp in 1945, wrote: "The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come."
Sidelined from pastoral ministry for years, I have been on ‘Long Term Disability’ (and I’m sure those who have prayed with me will agree it feels far too l-o-n-g!) due to a rare and poorly understood blood disorder. In addition to gradual organ damage, I have debilitating chronic muscle pain and fatigue.
More recently, I endured the onslaught of cancer and chemotherapy. At a follow-up appointment last week, my specialist looked up from my thick file to bluntly tell an attending student doctor: "And it nearly killed him." Never had I heard it put quite like that. Just a few words describing such a long life-journey. In fact, it had all been so intensely arduous I completely forgot that I’d even composed a series of 24 daily Advent poems a year before, until I received a Facebook Memory notification.
Last month, Rev. Bill Gibson (former PAOC BC/Yukon District Superintendent) read a rather spontaneous autumnal poem of mine and asked if I could come up with something creative for a Christmas Eve service.The surprising result (see the YouTube link at the end to share) is a revised multimedia compilation of these intensely packed 17-syllable, 3-line Haiku poems (meaning ‘listen’) into a theological meditation on the wondrous message of the Incarnation of Christ.
At once my shortest sermon ever, yet it also feels like this could be a book in-the-making of daily Advent reflections -- maybe with the addition of thematic paintings to accompany all of the scripture references. There is just so much mystery to ponder. As Bill Gibson asked in his sermon last Sunday: Can you imagine God in a dirty diaper? How’s that for a book title! I was going to go with ‘The Journey To Christmas’ (but I’m sure that has likely been used before -- if not, I call dibs.)
Someone sent me a screenshot of this provocative nativity scene set up outside a Claremont church in the US, at a time in the country when refugee families seeking asylum are unwillingly separated from one another at the border. Can we even begin to imagine the desperation behind such journeys? (Inside the church, a second scene depicts the nativity figures reunited.)
We all need to undertake an urgent spiritual journey each year in December to make room inside for the message of the nativity narrative. For, just as the most well-known refugee family in the world could find ‘no room’ to stay in Bethlehem before they fled to Egypt, so our own hearts can become too overcrowded (and even too hostile a place?) for Christ to enter in and truly abide with us.
Columnist and author, Lucy Neeley Adams, writes a moving devotional story about journeys, both inner and actual. She recounts her own transformational tour of Israel in relation to Bishop Phillips Brooks’ attempt to poetically encapsulate the vivid memories of his first visit to the Holy Lands in 1865. He tried to paint with words the sights and sounds as he approached the quaint little town of Bethlehem on horseback from Jerusalem to worship at the Church of the Nativity on Christmas Eve. The poem has since become a favorite hymn sung around the world at Christmas:
As pastors tend to do, Brooks delegated to the church organist, Louis Redner, the task of composing a so-called simple accompaniment to his poem for the children to sing. And, as any director of Christmas pageants can well relate, Redner worked hard to find just the right tune to fit the descriptive words. Facing the looming deadline he felt defeated; until the night before the Christmas service, Neely Adams tells how he was awoken from a fitful sleep and quickly wrote down music he almost seemed to hear: "When he joyfully presented it to Rev. Brooks he said, "I think it was a gift from heaven."
How many of us can lay claim to the resounding truth of this beloved carol in our own personal pilgrimage, mingled with shadows and revelation:
‘Yet in thy dark streets shinethThe everlasting LightThe hopes and fears of all the yearsAre met in thee tonight’As Henri Nouwen summarizes the Incarnation, "Jesus is the ultimate Wounded Healer.
- You are welcome to share the link to the brief video-narration of these Christmas poems entitled, ‘What Child Is This?’ https://youtu.be/XMmxQpX0Tdo
- A review by Rev. Bill Gibson: "What Child is This?, written and produced by Kenton Kutney is a creative retelling of the Christmas Story incorporating original verse, Scripture, music and imaginative art. Deep theological contemplation is conveyed in pithy, imaginative lyrics. The video is suitable for the Christmas season and particularly Christmas Eve. Ken’s many talents as artist, musician, theologian and communicator converge to create this inspirational video."
- Author contact info, links to original artwork, as well as other blogged articles and creative writing can be found at the newly launched website:
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