Waiting with Hope and Courage

Today marks the beginning of Advent, one of the most beautiful seasons of the liturgical year. I have always loved the lighting of the Advent candles, the singing of O Come O Come Emmanuel. I love the preparations for Christmas. The anticipation. Decorating the home, baking cookies, and buying gifts. It's a time of year that makes me feel hopeful and excited.

I often imagine young Mary, pregnant and terrified. Sure, an angel visited her and told her everything would be great, that she was carrying the child Jesus. The King. The Savior.

But would knowing that make things easier? 

Was Mary filled with hope? 

Pope Francis said "Mary in that instant appears to us like one of the many mothers in our world, courageous to the extreme."

Courageous to the extreme. 

You see, hope and courage go hand in hand. 

Pope Francis went on to say that Mary "teaches us the virtue of waiting even when everything appears meaningless." 

These recent days (and the last few months) there are times when I've felt there was nothing more difficult than waiting. And meaningless? Some of this difficult time sure seems that way. 

But Advent? Advent is all about the waiting. 

Now Mary didn't just sit around and fret. There was work to be done - probably even more so back then than there is today. Her preparations were certainly different than ours. Traveling on a donkey while pregnant? Leaving your home? Not knowing the future, but knowing something very big was coming. That's some kind of courage and hope!

It's not like we're waiting in line, with nothing to do, although isolation and quarantine can sometimes feel that way. No, this waiting is more like expectation. Hope! 

We're waiting because we know what there is to wait for, and it's a lot bigger than the end of a period of isolation and quarantine. We're waiting for Jesus.

Regardless of the way we wait, Jesus will come. Christmas will come. We can wait and do nothing, as if standing in line, letting the whole world go by. Quarantined. Isolated. Alone.

Or we can wait with hope and expectation and longing. And while we wait, we prepare. 

So, decorate the house, bake those cookies, buy those gifts. Prepare the way of the Lord, for He is coming, and we need to be ready.

A Different Kind of Thanksgiving

Well, Friends and Family, we did it. We made it through Thanksgiving. Well, at least we made it through Thanksgiving Day.

For weeks we've been looking ahead to this day with trepidation. We knew everything was going to be different. There would be fewer chairs at the table. We wouldn't be traveling. Those who normally joined our gatherings would not be there. 

For some, it would be in total isolation. For most, just a smaller get-together than our Thanksgivings in the past. It was scary, and we were anxious. But we did it. YOU did it.

This morning I heard the stories of the different types of celebrations.

"I made my first turkey."

"It was just the four of us, so we all worked together in the kitchen, everyone helped. It was awesome!"

"I called relatives and friends I hadn't heard from or spoken to in years, just to tell them I was thinking of them."

"We ate dinner while zooming with our whole family. It was almost like being together!"

"We baked lefse, and then made Christmas cookies."

"We scrapped the traditional Thanksgiving feast and had a carry-out meal from our favorite local restaurant."

"We watched Christmas movies and sang Christmas carols."

"I put up the Christmas tree before Thanksgiving."

Hiking. Dressing up. Putting up the lights. Friends, we created a whole new set of memories!

And that gives me hope.

In the book, Think on These Things, author John Maxwell writes "Hope shines brightest when the hour is darkest. Hope motivates when discouragement comes. Hope energizes when the body is tired. Hope sweetens while the bitterness bites. Hope sings when all melodies are gone. Hope bring the victory, when no one is winning. You don't need a better environment. You just need more hope. It's the one thing in your life you can't do without!"

I wish I could say that we're through the worst of it, that there won't be hard days ahead. The truth is, there will be many. But we made it through this one. And that makes all the difference.

Adding Yeast

I love baking. It's one way that I feel like I can do something that people will enjoy. However, I have to admit that I usually don't attempt challenging recipes. In fact, I'm a little embarrassed to say that I've never made real bread dough. So although I make caramel rolls and cinnamon rolls, especially on holidays, I cheat and use the frozen bread dough, and then add in a few ingredients to enhance the flavor, and the calorie count.

Yesterday I decided that since Tom and I are alone for Thanksgiving (so no one else would have to know if I ended up throwing something away!), I would try my hand at homemade pumpkin cinnamon rolls. With yeast. And kneading. And waiting. And hoping that I did everything right and that the dough would rise.

There is a lot of symbolism in that paragraph. 

We spend our lives attempting. And kneading. And waiting. And just hoping that it will turn out all right, that we'll be okay, that what we hoped would happen, would happen. 

As I kneaded I thought about that yeast. The packet I used was called Active Dry Yeast. Now isn't that funny? I love that it's called "active". We are called to action!

If I hadn't put the yeast in correctly. If I hadn't waited for the dough to rise. If I hadn't waited again this morning for the second rise, I wouldn't have had delicious tasting pumpkin cinnamon rolls. 

But no matter what I did - the kneading, the waiting - it would've all been for nought without the yeast. 

And my life - no matter how I live it - has that one ingredient that will allow me to rise too. It's a really small ingredient, and yet it is the most critical. Just hoping without adding the yeast won't make my bread dough rise, no matter what I do. We need the action - we need the yeast - at the center of our lives.

Romans 8:11 tells us "...if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you."

All we need is yeast...and hope. And for that we have each other. Rise up!

Ice Fishing

If there was ever an illustration of HOPE it would have to be fishing. And an illustration of FAITH would definitely be riding in a vehicle miles out onto the middle of the frozen lake...and then spending the night in a fish house! Usually the ice is cracking and creaking, and it does take a measure of faith to be able to sleep soundly.

Almost once a year Tom and I have spent a weekend out on Red Lake or Lake of the Woods in the middle of the winter with our friends Jim and Candy. The men say we go there to fish, and I must admit that I absolutely love eating freshly caught walleye. For some reason it tastes even better when we're out on the ice in a -30 degree windchill! So the hope is that when we go fishing we will catch fish.

And some years we have caught lots of fish! One year we were catching so many that we weren't keeping any. Catch and release with every one. I asked Jim "Why don't we just leave? We can catch our limit and be in a nice restaurant in time for dinner?" 

But most years there's been a little more "fishing" and a lot less "catching". 

Regardless of our success, we have always enjoyed our time on the ice. We've also come home with many memories, some good stories to tell, and all kinds of inside jokes. What I've learned is that even though we go with the hope of catching fish, whether we catch them or not isn't important. What is important is the time we've spent with people we care about, the laughs we've shared.

Which brings me back to hope. 

Henry David Thoreau once said Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.  

This year as we look ahead to Thanksgiving and Christmas it's hard not to feel down. We're missing out on so many of the things we enjoy. It's all so different. Perhaps we're going fishing without knowing what we're going after. Perhaps we're planning for the holidays without taking the time to  prepare our hearts for what truly matters. So...

Let's add some joy and hope into our holiday season. Send that extra note to a friend. Bake all your favorite cookies. Decorate with every last piece of tinsel you can find. Play games with the kids. Sing your favorite Christmas carols. Make memories.

We don't know what the holidays will bring, but we know what we're celebrating. 

When you look back years from now on Christmas 2020 wouldn't it be wonderful if you could remember it as the year that Christmas was even more meaningful than it ever had been before.

Each year Chris Hawkey from KFAN radio posts a Christmas video. This year he talks about making Christmas 2020 wonderful. Listen. Enjoy.

What Else Can I Do?

On a snowy February morning my Dad had a massive heart attack and died very suddenly. Less than a year later, also in February, my sister (a young mother of only 33) passed away. Our entire family was devastated, but no one more than my mom. 

She always said that losing her husband was hard, but that it was hard in a way you could deal with. Many of her friends had lost their spouses. She grieved his passing, but was getting "back to normal" just as my sister's death occurred.

One doesn't expect to lose a daughter. It's not normal or natural. Kris was a mother of two young children. She had so much of life left to experience. It was really easy to be angry. This wasn't fair. It wasn't right.

That summer I was sitting quietly with Mom in her kitchen, sharing a cup of coffee, and probably ice cream. I asked her "How are you doing?"

And this is when she told me one of the biggest secrets of living a life of hope. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and she said "I just keep going on. I wake up every day and I do what has to be done. And every day, I've lived another day. What else can I do?"

What else can I do?

I've thought about that question a lot. So many people have survived through enormous tragedy. People living through the uprising in Rwanda. Men, women and children who survived years in prison camps in Auschwitz. Soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. When I read these stories of suffering and horror I am shocked at what the human spirit can endure. 

What do these people do? They just keep going on. Waking up every day, doing what has to be done. What else can they do?

And right now we're in this incredibly beautiful and joyous time of year, looking forward to Thanksgiving feasts, family get-togethers, holiday parties, Christmas concerts, and the birth of our Savior. 

And everything is different.

We're forgoing our gatherings, canceling our travel plans, and, if you're like me, feeling a weight of sadness because it's all so different. But we can do something: we can get up every day and do what needs to be done. We just keep going. 

If people who have suffered enormous losses can do it, we can too. And maybe, just maybe, we will find new little things to find joy in. A game with our family. A Zoom call. Decorating the house. A letter from an old friend. A Christmas carol on the radio. A Hallmark movie. Hearing once again the story of the birth of the baby Jesus. There is so much to celebrate in this wondrous season. And besides - 

What else can we do?

Lord of all Hopefulness

We called it the "all day" song, and it was my favorite hymn in college. 

Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,
Whose trust, ever child-like, no cares can destroy,
Be there at our waking, and give us, we pray,
Your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.

My goal in writing is to find hope and joy in life. When I wake up each morning, I have this amazing view of the lake outside my window. It's an incredible sight, made more beautiful I think when the seasons change. The fall colors are spectacular, the summer green leaves are lush, the snow-covered trees are sparkling! It's the reason I love to sleep with the lake-side blinds open; what a joy to wake up to! 

Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith,
Whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe,
Be there at our labors, and give us, we pray,
Your strength in our hearts, Lord, at the noon of the day.

Help me, Lord, to be active. To continue to labor even in my retirement years, and to continue to marvel at all I can do because of your gifts. Because I have more time on my hands I often spend it on social media. I find that social media, more than anything else, sucks the joy and hopefulness right out of me. I used to take so much pleasure in viewing the new babies, family updates, exciting vacations, and other news posted by my friends and family, but so much of it now is political and divisive. It turns my hopeful joyful mood into anger, frustration and sadness. 

Help me, Lord, to spend more time on activity and less time on social media.

Lord of all kindliness, Lord of all grace,
Your hands swift to welcome, your arms to embrace,
Be there at our homing, and give us, we pray,
Your love in our hearts, Lord, at the eve of the day.

Bless my family, Lord. My husband, our children, nieces and nephews, brothers & sisters (and their spouses), aunts, uncles and cousins, and all those people I consider to be family, even though we're not related. In this time of covid, when we can't embrace or even be together, help me to reach out and show your love in my heart. A phone call, a letter, an email. Remind me that even when we can't be together there are ways I can show love to these precious ones. 

Lord of all kindliness, Lord of all grace: help me to be kind and to live with grace.

Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm,
Whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm,
Be there at our sleeping, and give us, we pray,
Your peace in our hearts, Lord, at the end of the day.

Peace. 

I remember singing this on Wednesday night communions at Concordia, and thinking it was the most lovely sound I'd ever heard. A large group of believers, gathered together, praying and sharing and singing. 

One of the things I miss most during this time of covid-19 is singing. Maybe you do too. So, turn up the volume and sing along. I wish you hope and joy in your day, and as the day comes to an end, I wish you peace.

Traditional Irish Tune
Lyrics by Jan Struther, 1931

Faith

 Faith. 

There is no hope without faith. Without faith, hope is simply a list of wishes and dreams.

I hope that friend or family member who is sick will get well.

I wish a vaccination for covid-19 would be successful.

I hope people will be more kind once this election is over.

I wish we could take that trip we've been dreaming about.

Without faith, I'm grasping at straws. Without faith, listing out all these things I hope for can just throw me into the pits of depression. Just because I live with a hopefulness that a better day will come, it may not. And then what am I stuck with? 

Faith tells me that, regardless of what happens, God is on my side. No matter what, He walks with me. He gives me the strength to get through. He supports me, and lifts me up, and helps me to see that, even though I didn't get what I wished for, I can still live with joy.

I have my uncle's funeral bulletin from many years ago, and my mom told me that this poem was also on my grandpa's folder. Faith tells us all that God has promised to us:

God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through,
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

But God hath promised 
Strength for the day,
Rest for the labor,
Light for the way,
Grace for the trials,
Help from above,
Unfailing sympathy
Undying love.

I fully believe that living with hope and joy means living with faith. God loves us. What could be better than that?

Sunset

I have always loved sunsets. Don't get me wrong, sunrises are great. I just usually don't take the time to enjoy them (or I sleep through them!) But sunsets are beautiful...and they arrive at the perfect time of the day.

Tom  and I have been fortunate enough to do more traveling in the last 5 years. We have tens of thousands of pictures of our trips, along with all the other pictures we take throughout the year. Fall leaves, mountains, the lake, deer, loons, family. We take pictures of everything. But I'm guessing a thousand of those pictures (at least!) are of sunsets. 

Perhaps it's because we've traveled to spots where the sunsets are so visible: Florida's Gulf Coast, Mexico, Alaska, California, Canada...we've usually been able to catch a gorgeous sunset or two. 

It's funny how, when you photograph a sunset, you keep taking pictures every minute or less. You get every angle: kneel down, pose a couple in silhouette, try to take a selfie. You snap the beginnings of the sunset, each step as the sun inches to the horizon, every time a seagull, pelican or sailboat enters into view, just as it touches the horizon, and then, sometimes for an hour or more, the sky and clouds and stars, as the glow from the sun casts its light and color.

A sunset is a way of saying "Today is done. Tomorrow will be better." It's like my mom used to say: "Go to bed. Sleep. Things will look better in the morning."

On a particularly cloudy, rainy day, we often skip our pause to enjoy the sunset and just move on with our evening. And I remember very clearly the days we were stunned to see the sun peak out just as it hit the horizon, or not even see the sun, but be overwhelmed by gorgeous colors all across the sky. 

Sunsets are hope. Hope for a better tomorrow. We can't always see it, but the sun does set every day. It closes that chapter in our lives. It sets the stage for a new day.

Go to bed. Sleep. Things will look better in the morning. 

And here we are...