Recreation of the Heart

I am reading “Spirit of the Cities” & in the essay by M. Shawn Copeland about urban ministry in Detroit, I found a quite deep set of questions I want to consider for myself:

Do I know what it means to make my own decisions? Do I know what I am making of myself in my daily choices and refusals? Do I understand that my liberty is the very delicate and fragile possibility of orienting myself in life for life eternal? Do I know what it means to respect others, to be in love with them? Do I know what it means to be a human person? Under what cultural and social conditions can human beings be truly and fully human persons? Do I grasp that conditions for human flourishing are the results of acts of human judgment and decision? Do I sufficiently grasp that the conditions for human flourishing are not something extrinsic, something pre-fabricated, something already out there now?

I’m thinking today about the life I’ve always dreamed of, what I’ll think about my life when I’m old, how this is a turning point of the direction of my life.

I’m thinking about dreams and how I don’t want a career. I’m wondering, what am I good at?

So I escape to this coffee shop, a haven in the suburban shopping center near the town where I grew up. It’s corporate, but it’s quiet. There are no demands. I can stare as long as I want, look confused, be…alone. I can see how these places have become sanctuaries for people everywhere when church for many has become meaningless noise.

I like the din of the heater, the conversations of people I don’t know and never will, the smile of the man sitting next to me —the anonymity of it all is refreshing.

I’ve never thought of myself as someone who has trouble at the holidays. How can you not be excited, I always used to think. Yet this Christmas, I found myself wandering through the colorfully lit streets in the midst of the holiday music, thinking–what is Christmas all about again?

Of course it’s about Jesus. Of course it’s about celebrating Christ’s birth. But how do we feel it? This Christmas involved a lot of trust, trusting that even though I didn’t quite get it this year, God was going to pull through.

And, then God did. At the Christmas eve service, when I was so tired, I could hardly stay awake, somewhere in the midst of singing all the songs, of lighting my candle, of finding the deepness of the “Silent Night” I felt alive again. And I went home happy to sleep, happy to awake Christmas morning, finding myself overcome by a realization of how precious life really is. My dog, my husband, my dad, my grandfather, my grandmother, my mom, my brother, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law…I could go on…their hugs, their smiles, their listening ears, their physical presence in my life are just hints of the Christ child who made holy our humanity in his birth.

During the snow-in of the weekend, I was blessed to not be able to go anywhere.

Blessed to be stuck at home–
decorating the tree
sledding on cafeteria trays
making shepherd’s pie

This Christmas will for sure be a white one. What remains to be seen is if we will keep waiting for Christ to come–will we “jump the gun” and celebrate Christmas now while we’re still traveling or will we continue on the road less traveled and wait till the Child arrives in Bethlehem?

There is a suffering, a serious reflection, and quandary of the soul that is almost necessary to receive the child.  After all, if Christ was born in a lowly stable…how will Christ be born in us?

I am speaking to myself, mostly. Slow down, Amy. Be ready for the King when he arrives.

I hear
the city
And it is beautiful

As the sun shines bright today
It shows our lives in a new light
The small things
The simple exchanges
In love and purity

Oh city
Holy city
Where Christ will reign
Soon and very soon

We receive the blessing that is to be packing up in the van, bike, or Metro and taking our gifts of warm food and clothes our gifts of love and care to You, however You are born to us this Christmas.

I am unsure of who I am.
I belong to God, the one who hears my cries

Oh, Father, Mother, I want to be free

Where does freedom take you?

I am free
In letting go
What I wanted most

In listening
To what I didn’t want to hear
And letting go
Of how it turns out

In listening
And being very quiet enough to hear
In letting go
Of being right

In listening
To the silence
Of letting go
of my ego

I am very certain that I have made some serious mistakes. Oh God, please don’t let me go. Please don’t let me go.

Ever since I lived in Kensington, Philadelphia the idea of Advent and Christ being born among us has been different.

I remember back to those days of people constantly knocking at our door in desperate need of food or clothing. I remember ice, unjust landlords, and a sense that God really did need to do something.

Especially for Mary. The woman who would beg on the corner, who was occasionally given a warm place to sleep in exchange for sex. Her alcohol addiction was just one of many things that made her someone…who needed a miracle.

So many people in Kensington needed miracles when I lived there. That is what it takes for someone to overcome their addiction to drugs.

I have memories of opening the door to empty faces, the faces of people who are just coming down off of a crack high. I remember the sad faces lit by the dim streetlight, their bodies shivering.

And me, not knowing…how to love
Not knowing
How will God make everything right here
Only knowing
How desperately God needed to make everything right.