Show Your Work

Show Your Work: 15 December 2024

Jack fractured his humerus bone in a wrestling match, but we can’t see a specialist till next week. His friend, Max, broke his ankle in practice Friday. The coach is annoyed with both of them. They spent all Saturday at a tournament cheering on their teammates and cleaning up afterwards, and then, after going to Tipsy Taco with Max’s dad and to IHOP with some girls, they decided to have a spinach eating contest. Because, teenage boys.

Emma has blisters from her new ice skates, but loves them nonetheless. Mark has a persistent viral cold which, on top of the persistent swelling from his knee surgery, has him feeling pretty punk. I don’t think he’s slept through the night in weeks. Nevertheless, he spent the weekend doing house and yard chores.

My dog keeps following me around and farting.

The throughline for all of these snapshots is the vague and crescendo-Ing stress that December brings. Final exams and performances, holiday parties and gifting, unpredictable weather and end of year rituals. Everyone is probably walking around farting.

Earlier this week I was in a restaurant waiting for my friend and making a stealthy inventory of my fellow diners. One man near me looked nervous, a little out of sorts, and I wondered at him, “Who are you when you’re happy?” And then I wondered it about myself. Is who I am when I’m happy the normal me or an occasional me?

I think I am generally a happy person. But I definitely get locked in my head sometimes, spinning the to-do lists and the errand logistics and the meal plans and the work tasks together into a shroud. Perhaps a fellow diner would wonder at my disposition.

Am I happy this December? Often. But there’s always the faint whiff of unpleasantness from errands not yet accomplished, gifts not wrapped, holiday treats not baked, too many sweets and alcoholic beverages, too few workouts, meaningful meditations on the season put off for another day, and then another. And the grainy disappointment that I’m squandering the one liturgical season that best suits my quietly happy disposition.

Ah, Advent. Your emphases and lessons run exactly counter to the black diamond slope of year end. Not less but more! Not quiet but exuberant! Not subtle but glittery! Caveat: you can be melancholy if your lyrics tug at heartstrings; but otherwise, Santababy, show me the sparkle.

I aspire to an Adventy Advent.

It’s not till the lull around December 28th that I begin to feel the stagnant grudge of time. More than one year I’ve been sick— collapsing upon crossing the finish line. But I’m also often irritated that the contemplative part of the season passed me by. Maybe that’s why I lean into the 12 days of Christmas, why I’ve acquired a reverence for Epiphany. Maybe I’m just a wise(wo)man who wasn’t able to get to Bethlehem for the birth. Maybe I just need more time.

I think of the Christmas-to-Epiphany time like the magical two weeks following childbirth (which is, in truth, exactly what those 12 days are.) It’s the time when the beautiful, hard-won newborn, at least in my experience, sleeps a lot; sinking with a solid, comforting weight into your body; isn’t bothered by noises or distractions; nurses, charms, and slumps boneless back to sleep. Why did no one tell me to savor and revel in those 12 newborn days? It’s the advice I now give all expecting parents. Enjoy! It’s biology, not your awesome parenting, and time never favors you in this way again. (In fact, you’re heading into the season of Lenten sacrifice, which I (barely) remember as a blur of sleeplessness and poor hygiene.)

Luckily, liturgically, we get another 12 day miracle every year.

In the middle of the 20th century the staff of the Merriam Webster dictionary assembled a physical archive of more than 315,000 paper slips, one word per slip, typed and alphabetized in reverse spelling order. It meant that, for example, all the disciplines that end in -ology would be grouped together instead of appearing in different parts of the dictionary. You could make sure definitions were written consistently or study the relationship among words with similar morphology. Or you could use it as a rhyming dictionary. Now, of course, technology has negated the need for the meticulously hand typed archive. But the fact that the Backwards Index still exists in a Springfield, MA office basement makes me happy.

Sometimes if you know the answer the question suddenly makes sense.  That’s how I survived AP Calculus. I’d begin with the problem, but then get stuck a few steps into the proof. So I’d look up the answer in the back of the book. Working backward from the answer and forward from the question I could usually fill in the middle. And if I made sure to show my work then I usually got partial credit even when I didn’t solve the whole correctly. That’s how I got an A in Calculus. It’s also how I got a 1 (out of 5) on the AP Calculus test—no answers in the back. And no partial credit for showing my work.

I wonder how it might be to start at Epiphany and end with the first candle in the Advent wreath. Here are the magi arrived to comprehend the mystery, here is the dazzling star, here Mary pondering in her heart, here the fearful shepherds, here the new baby a miracle, here the trek to Bethlehem, here Mary’s Magnificat, here the angel’s visitation. Maybe I would pay more attention to the angel if I were already curious about that star.

But of course, I do know about both the angel and the star. I do know what to watch for and to prepare to be amazed. I still fall short every year; and every year I’m grateful for another chance.

Emma and I were both deeply moved by today’s worship service. Afterwards, we talked about the strange and wondrous feeling when a service seems directly meant for you. She’d never experienced that before and was appropriately awed. I said I hoped that someone felt that every week, and it’s one of the reasons we go to church, even when we don’t feel like it, to hold the container for the people who most need it that day. Trusting that there will be a community to hold the container for us when we most need it.

My friend, Leo, wrote this in a recent Facebook post, describing a composite holiday memory: “I did not realize how faith in a religion was also an affirmation of community and a place of being. In a foreign country, it was to ensure that at least once a week the language, the food, the history of war and rebuilding, the leaving of home, were all shared, even if only in a quiet way.”

Emma and I are embedded in a community hosted by our birth country, but, even as a native, South Carolina can often feel like a foreign country. Going to church is to become part of the container of our community, sharing affirmation and belonging, if only in a quiet way. How do we follow the incarnate God, the miracle about to be born again? Show up, be the container, give it another try, offer belonging, be open to wonder, show up anyway, start at the end and work backwards.

 Show your work.