Christmas Wishes 2012

Two years ago, when I was blogging during Advent, I was struck by how materialistic I found myself around Christmas.  A lack or scarcity (even a relative one) of, well, stuff certainly makes me think about stuff in a different way.  There were just more times during a day or week living in Nicaragua where I would think "it sure would be nice if I had..." compared to when I lived in the United States.

I do think that has changed a bit, over two years into living here.  I've gotten used to the things that are available, and have learned a little more about how to look for things that are harder to find.  But I also continue learning the lesson of how little of the stuff that still sometimes feels necessary to me, truly is necessary, or even important.  It's a lesson that I need to learn over and over again, because that feeling that these things are necessary, creeps back in over and over again.

I continue to be very impassioned about the work that Global Ministries does all over the world, and the model they use of partnering with churches and organizations who are in and of the country and culture in which they work.  It's really a gift to get to work for an organization I believe in.  So, a gift to Global Ministries in honor of our family would be very welcome.  A general, unrestricted gift helps them do important work around the world in a way that is responsive to changing needs and priorities.  A special gift to the Christian Mission Church of Nicaragua, the church we work with here, would also be very much appreciated.

I do, it turns out, have some materialistic desires as well.  Chief among the things I miss about life in the United States is chocolate. :)  So, fairly traded chocolate treats are always very welcome.  I still haven't adjusted totally to making do with things that are available in Nicaragua -- I tend to update my wardrobe in the U.S. (to the extent that I actually do that sometimes ;) ), and get books as well (even books in Spanish).  So I do have some very prosaic wants, most of which are really hard to get for another person (like a running bra...).

Mainly I am happy to be getting to celebrate Christmas with our families, and look forward to baking lots of treats because I know I will be able to find the ingredients!

Oh, Google... (and Gratitude)

I was reading the lectionary readings for the first Sunday in Advent, and the line from First Thessalonians 3:9, 

How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you?

called into my mind another line (Psalm 116:12):

What can I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me?

I like to think that the Bible often provides us with more questions than answers.  Life, too, often does this.  And I've been bumping into the quote from Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet about living the questions quite a bit on the internet lately:

...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

I actually think this approach is one the mainline churches at their best have to offer to the world.  I don't think we're supposed to find easy answers in church (or in life).  But asking, or better yet, living good questions, is something I think our faith can help us with.  And the Bible has some really powerful questions.

To me, the above verses are two versions of the same question, and it's one that comes up for me at times in life.  Life is so good, full to bursting with blessings, most concretely beloved friends and family.  How could I possibly say "thank you" enough?  The psalmist, acknowledging that God is the source of this goodness, seems to question if anything could be good enough to give back.  Paul seems to have the same feeling of abundant blessing, a heart full to bursting when he thinks of that community of believers in Thessalonia, and an awareness of how feeble our expressions of gratitude are compared with the goodness we have received. 

That is a question I would like to live out of -- the facebook "gratitude meme" was one attempt, and a useful one in that it made a daily discipline of looking for something to be grateful for.  It can really open you up to living in that space of feeling bathed in, overwhelmed by, the gifts of life.  

That is the serious part.  Here's where it gets hilarious:

When I was looking for the Psalm reference, I began typing in the part of the question I recalled:
"what can I return to the Lord"

Google thought perhaps I would like to know:
"what can I return to Walmart"

Oh, Google... you think you know me, and yet, you do not.