Mathilda's Ithemba

What beauty would be lost

were the caterpillar to refuse

to relinquish her earthbound life

in order to take on wings

and embrace the colours of flight?

What good would never come

to the garden,

        to the farm,

                to the field,

were the seed to refuse to die

in order that resurrected,

it may bear fruit in its stead?

What colours,

            What flavors,

                        What nutrients

thus would never come to be?

What harmonies

would never be heard

were the single note

not to die into song?

Life

without death

is meaningless.

Vapor

on the wind.

May we be the butterfly.

May we be the fruitful garden.

Let us be the song.

Enter resurrection.

Daily.  Truly.

It is already before you.

I don’t know that leaving social media behind necessarily counts as going into the wilderness, but here I go. 

Lent.

The holy season itself (those forty days leading up to Easter Sunday) brings us back to Jesus in the wilderness, where he spent forty days fasting, being tempted, and turning his back on those temptations; and it allows us to step, ever so softly, into his sandals.

In many liturgical traditions, as well as in some evangelical forms seeking to reconnect with such traditions in revived ways, Lent represents a period of sacrifice and penance for those forty days, leading up to the day when we remember fully Christ’s sacrifice, and ultimately, his resurrection.  “Sacrificially” giving something up for the forty days is a common Lenten practice in these traditions.  Previous years have led me to forego chocolate, coffee, television, etc.

Yet, in these last few years, for me, Lent has become that and something more than that.  I have come to see Lent as time to take something that I’m currently wrestling with, something I’ve been trying to think more deeply about, to see how it is affecting me in ways I don’t quite want to admit to, and to set that something aside in order to see it’s effects from another angle, in order to step back from my current misuse of said thing and step toward a life more fully reflective of Jesus.

This year, as the season of Lent approaches, I asked myself a simple question by which to select what to abstain from for forty days:  What do I want to give up the least?  What do I find myself making up the most excuses to cling onto? 

Asking myself these questions has brought me to realize that social media is the thing that I need most to discover how to utilize differently.  I have not always avoided the temptations that come along with using social media—thinking myself, and my silly little mundane thoughts and fleeting notions, more important than I am; creating an idol of myself, or rather, the self I long to be; lulling myself into a false sense of community and thus not investing myself as I should into a truer sense of community; entering into a culture of argument rather than conversation—and the list goes on and on. 

Glimpses of the damage that my misuse of social media is wreaking on my life have already begun to make themselves discernable.  I have already begun to see how my thought patterns have begun to change throughout the past few years since I first encountered Friendster, AIM and Myspace, then Facebook and most recently, Twitter. I’ve noticed it in my thoughts alone, as I’m driving along and think something, and then almost immediately think “that’d make a good tweet, etc.”  I’ve noticed it in my interactions with those around me, as I speak more and more frequently in messages rather than conversations.  I’ve even noticed it at home, as I sit in front of a glowing screen, transporting my mind, and ultimately my self elsewhere, away from my family, my deepest, truest earthen community, who are in the very same rooms my body is occupying.  When my wife—my inner-most layer of real, tangible, kingdom community—can come to me and ask why I don’t talk with her about many of the things I tweet, that she has to see them on my Facebook feed awhile after the fact, then something has gone terribly awry.

Even writing this note and posting it up on a weblog/Facebook is representative of this, but I feel I owe you some, be it ever so brief, explanation for my virtual disappearance in the days to come.  And I don’t know at present whether it will end at forty days, or if there will be some self-nuking going on, but I’m looking forward to thinking about it more in the days to come, and hoping to get into some more, deeper, real conversations with you guys, and figuring it out.

And if, for whatever reasons, you don’t agree with following the practice of Lent, or any of my musings, I’m okay with that.  But how about instead of leaving some little one line comment saying so, come and share a meal and some conversation with me instead.

        This week we light the Love candle as we come into the final week before Christmas.  For many, it’s also a time of frantic last-minute shopping, wrapping, and packing.  For Harold and I, it means a few days to relax away from the demands of work, before leaving on another whirlwind tour of family down in New York.  This will be our last trip until Rosemary arrives because traveling is definitely getting uncomfortable for me.  I can’t imagine what Mary went through, traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem on a donkey.  That was no short journey either; there’s a good 80 miles between the two towns.  You know there was traffic too with everyone traveling to their ancestral towns for the census.  I guess I shouldn’t complain about a few hours in a climate-controlled car. 

            Harold and I just finished our last childbirth education class this weekend.  One thing they told us over and over is to expect the unexpected.  We can make lists of birth plans but we honestly can’t know what it will be like until we are in the middle of it.  Every birth is different.  I’m sure if Mary had made a birth plan, it would have looked nothing like how it went down.  The most important thing is that both mom and baby are healthy. 

            I’ve heard many new moms and dads say when they met their little baby for the first time, their capacity for love increased exponentially.  When we are children, we love our parents more than anyone.  We say, “Mommy, look at me!” and try to make her smile.  We shout for joy when dad gets home from work.  As we get older, we learn to love our friends.  We make compromises so everyone can be included and have fun.  Later in life, we meet that special someone.  In a covenant before God, we vow to forsake all others and love that one person “until death do us part.”  We put the other’s needs above our own and create a home together.  We love that person with our whole heart.  Then that love creates a new life and an opportunity to love in a new way. 

            I remember Zach saying something after Gemma was born that I found super encouraging.  He said the love he felt for his daughter was above and beyond anything he had experienced before, yet it did not diminish any of those other loves.  On the contrary, his love for his wife, Kalen, actually increased as a result of it. 

            All throughout the Bible, God is referred to as a parent.  Jesus called Him “Abba” which means daddy and compared Himself to a mother hen, gathering her chicks protectively beneath her wings.  It seems that the greatest love we can experience in our human relationships may be the love of a parent toward a child.

            Now certainly, not everyone has had children, not everyone has been married, not everyone has even had a healthy relationship with their parents.  So how can we understand God’s love for us, when we have not experienced the human fulfillment of that love in our own relationships?  This is where a community’s expression of God’s love is so important.  I haven’t had my baby yet, but seeing other young families at Dwell shows me a glimpse of that love.  We can see reflections of God’s love all around us.  We do indeed experience it ourselves, though sometimes it is difficult to recognize right away.

            Once we have a picture of what God’s love for us looks like, then the next question is: what is our response?  As in all relationships, there must be both give and take.  We are not without guidance here either.  Jesus said that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbors as ourselves.   These are the greatest commandments.  We love because He first loved us.  We respond to His outpouring of love, grace, and mercy by offering our lives back to Him.  We then become vehicles of love, grace, and mercy in the world, transforming the world around us to reflect the glory of our Father. 

This week, know that you are loved and share that love with those around you. 

Merry Christmas.

—by my wonderful wife, Nicole.

          As we enter the third week of Advent, we meditate on the joy that comes through Christ. 

            I want to start by clarifying a little terminology. It is easy to get “joy” and “happiness” mixed up when we’re talking.  Happiness is a feeling that comes when circumstances are in our favor.  We love to feel happy.  This time of year, there are so many little things to make me smile.  Looking at my Christmas tree, all decorated and shimmering, makes me happy.  Knowing I’ll have a week off for Christmas to get the baby’s room set up makes me happy.  These are all good things, but they have little to do with joy.  Joy goes deeper, beyond our immediate circumstances.  It’s what we hold on to even when things get bad.  Here is where we realize that we are building on the previous two weeks.  The hope and peace we experience cause us to have joy.  There is a joy in waiting, in expecting, in hoping for that which is already here and yet still on its way.  I have a joy even now, through all of the back pain, my crazy emotions, the sapping of so much energy, and even through the fears that arise:  Will Rosemary be born healthy?  Will she have a safe birth?  Will labor last three hours or thirty?

            And when the wait is over, there is certainly a special joy, an infectious joy, in holding a new baby, seeing his or her innocence, and feeling all the potential that such a little life has. Every time someone brings a new baby to church, I see lines of women (and men) waiting to hold the little one.  Have we embraced that same anticipation toward Christ?  Do we experience the joy in seeing the potential of a life in Christ, not just for ourselves, but for our neighbors as well?

The greatest joy comes from knowing Christ.  It comes from knowing that even when the entire world seems against us, God is for us and loves us beyond our comprehension. Joy comes from recognizing that we are a part of God’s new creation, His redeemed people called to be at work in the world restoring the broken and bringing justice to the oppressed.

            I often wonder why God chooses to use people the way He does, instead of just doing everything Himself.  You’d think it would be more efficient, but I suppose it is His way of showing us how valuable we are to Him.  Even when He chose to come down to earth as a man, He chose Mary, an ordinary girl, to work through.  She became a vessel, containing God Himself, for nine months.  We talk about having the Spirit in us, but what a unique experience it must have been to have the Person of God within her.  I wonder if Jesus kicked as much as my Rosemary does. 

—

By Nicole Vance

        This week in Advent we light the candle of peace. 

            When we look around us, there’s not often much peace to be seen at first glance.  People are stressed out, having issues with one another, and being oppressed by big systems of commerce and government gone awry.  One look at the world news and you will see that the greater world is not in a state of peace either.   In fact, it would literally break a heart to read all of the news stories without a large degree of detachment.  We simply can’t take in all of the pain and heartache that is in this world.  But, even within the most broken situations, there is still hope.  Our God is a God who redeems, heals, and renews.  When we get down to the level of people, there are still wonderful stories of births, friendships, love, and healing.  This is where we find our peace. 

              When Christ was born, the world was just as turbulent as it is today.   The Romans were still in the midst of conquering and integrating surrounding nations into their empire.  There was a huge mix of ethnicities trying to co-exist under a foreign rule.  The Jews were no longer an independent state, but had also fallen under the control of the Roman government.  There were tensions abounding on all sides.  Most of the Jews believed the Messiah would come as a powerful political/military leader who would establish the sovereignty of Israel over the world.  What they got instead was a baby, born in a feeding trough, who would grow up as an artisan, and then spend his last years as an itinerant rabbi, only to be executed as a criminal.  Well, not only… we know the story doesn’t end there, there’s a good bit more about the Resurrection, Ascension, and coming of the Spirit.  But for those who were expecting anything from him, this was not it.  Even Jesus’ closest disciples asked him just before the Ascension if he was going to restore his kingdom to Israel, not quite understanding the vastness of His Kingdom that has come and is still coming and expanding even now.

            This week ties in closely with our last theme of hope.  The work of peacemaking has begun but is certainly not complete.  World peace may be a far off dream that only hippies and beauty pageant contestants believe is possible, at least in our lifetime.   However, relational peace can happen and is happening.  I see it around me at Dwell, where people of different backgrounds come together and love one another because of the unity that Christ imparts.  I see it when we gather our resources together to help get clean water for the Divine Hope Orphanage in Haiti.  I see it when our men and women volunteer their time in the Old North End bringing economic and racial reconciliation. 

            Harold and I have talked a lot about what it means to be peacemakers, as we believe this is what we are called to be.  There is a difference between being a peacemaker and a peacekeeper.  One is actively pursuing justice; the other is passive, just trying to not cause more trouble, and can quickly lead to apathy.  I’ll be honest; many days I am nothing more than a peacekeeper.  It’s much safer, easier, cheaper and I can just live in my own little world.  Some days I’m neither peacemaker nor peacekeeper. Some days I’m the problem.  But the world I want my daughter to grow up in is a world of peace, and where I can make a difference, I need to.  Christ came to bring good news to the poor and freedom to the oppressed.  He works through us today.  That is the Kingdom of God on earth and we need to be active participants in bringing that about.

—
By Nicole and Harold Vance III

This Sunday marks the first week of Advent.  This week we center our thoughts on the hope that the birth of Christ brings to us.

This week also marked my transition into the third trimester of my pregnancy.   Up until now, it seemed like pregnancy would go on forever and it wasn’t such a big deal.  I was fortunate enough not to get morning sickness and over all had a very smooth first two trimesters.  Now that things are further along, it’s getting a little more uncomfortable.   Sleep is rarely uninterrupted by back pain and needing to get up a million times to use the bathroom.  People have told me this is nature’s way of getting women used to being up all night with a baby, but it seems cruel to me to say that getting no sleep is a good way to prepare for more time with no sleep.  I think pregnant women should be able to hibernate during their last trimester.  This is just wishful thinking though.  It’s not something I can reasonably hope in.  What I can hope in, though, is being able to look into the face of my daughter as I hold her in my arms.  That hope is what gets me through all of the rough nights. 

As Zach talked about last Sunday, it would be foolish to desire another manger.  What’s done was done once and is sufficient.  However, growing up, I always thought Advent was about expecting baby Jesus again.  In my church, we always put on a nativity play and recreated the birth story.  There was a strange tension between remembering what had happened and pretending it was happening again. 

Hope always looks forward.  Our hope at Advent is not hoping that “Jesus will be born again this year, like he always is at Christmas”.  That’s just not how it works.  The hope we feel at Advent is certainly a result of that birth, though.  Romans 8 is a great place to read Paul’s reflections on the kind of hope we have.  He says it much better than I could, so I urge you to take a few minutes to read and reflect on this passage in your own bible or online:   http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%208&version=NIV

The hope we have is in the presence and coming of the Kingdom of God.  What does that look like in our lives? It looks like kids being mentored at Kids Alive.  It looks like a banquet for our friends living in the shelters of the city.  It looks like the community pulling together to help a family when they face a job too big to do alone.  It is knowing that when I face hard times, I am not alone, that there is a whole community bonded together by the Spirit of God ready and willing to do whatever it takes to help.  The Kingdom of God is here.  We can see it around us.  We are part of it.  We have hope now and there is more to come.  Much more.

—

By my wife, Nicole Vance.

            I love Christmas time. In fact, I am already sipping on eggnog as I write this and counting down the days until I can justify dragging out all my boxes of Christmas decorations.  Even my general aversion to snow softens between now and December 26th.

            This year however, I am gaining a new appreciation for the special kind of anticipation we celebrate as the Church leading up to Christmas; the time called Advent. Advent is the season in the church calendar when we take some time to marvel at and yearn for that which is to come.  We walk with our brothers and sisters in the time leading up to the birth of Christ.  We rejoice at what His birth began, the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth.  And finally we anticipate the fulfillment of that work when Jesus will return.  The four weeks leading up to Christmas are marked by different attitudes we can observe together as a community.  These are hope, peace, joy, and love.  In some traditions a candle in a wreath is lit each Sunday during Advent to recognize and meditate communally on these postures. 

            My husband, Harold, and I have been experiencing a lot of hope, peace, joy, and love lately as we are expecting our first child in mid-February.  It is a very different experience to anticipate the coming of the Christ child with this bulging belly, let me tell you. 

            Christmas time can often stir up a whirlwind of emotions in people, whether those are warm, fuzzy feelings or bitterness and cynicism.  We pregnant ladies are not exactly known for our emotional stability to begin with either.  What we are not called to during Advent is to put on a happy face every day or try and conjure up superficial holiday cheer.  It’s not about feeling a certain way.  What we are talking about here is something much deeper.  When I speak of hope, peace, joy, and love, these are the tangible experiences of God’s Kingdom.  These are what Christ offers us and, in return, what we offer the world as His body. 

            In the coming weeks, I will write more in depth about each of these four postures and what they might look like for us.  Stay tuned.

—

By my wife, Nicole Vance