12 Days of Christmas

It is the 8th day of the 12 days in the Christmas season. The 8th day of celebrating the birth of Jesus, who is the light of the world. The world did not change immediately with his birth nor did it change immediately with his death and resurrection.
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For sure, light came to the world – but there was and still is plenty of darkness. How do we traverse the continued darkness in our world? Here is an excerpt from the chapter, “Whistling in the dark.” 

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I was starting to dwell on the “can’ts” of my life. Or, more correctly, the “can’ts” of Pete’s life. Pete can’t drive. Pete can’t carry things across the room, like a cup of coffee or our granddaughter, Julia. Pete can’t take pictures because his hands are too shaky. Pete can walk but not too far; Pete can’t walk to the restroom at the movie theater. Pete can’t walk on the beach. These little losses were creating a growing darkness in our lives. The losses weren’t just to his body, but to how we related to one another.

… Pete couldn’t open the door for me anymore; a small loss that took a little bit more light from our lives. Pete couldn’t help carry the groceries inside from the car. Less light. Pete couldn’t run errands. Less light. Pete couldn’t hug me while standing up. The darkness was getting so hard to navigate.

… The darker our lives got, the harder I found his illness and our relationship to navigate. It was at this point that I stumbled upon a book by Matthew Sanford called Waking. When Matthew Sanford was 13 years old, he was in a devastating car accident that killed his father and sister and left him paralyzed from the neck down.

… He began creating his healing story by listening to his body. But his body was silent. He said listening to his body was like walking through a dark room. When we first enter a dark room, we have to allow our eyes to adjust. And they do; our eyes adjust. We adjust. And then when we can see just enough to cross the room, we take a step.”

This logo for Amnesty International has captured my imagination this season - a light shines even when it is surrounded by barbed wire.

I heard Sanford encouraging me to listen to the darkness in our lives. Listen to the silence that is found in the darkness. Sit with the silence long enough for my eyes, my physical sight as well as my emotional understanding, to adjust to the darkness.

There was light, he said, even in darkness. Give it time. Be patient with the darkness. We would be able to cross through this dark place.

One of the darkest places in the Christian story is the empty tomb. In Luke’s gospel, the women enter the tomb expecting to find Jesus and he isn’t there. They tell the others, who don’t believe them. Peter, one of the disciples goes into the tomb to see for himself, “When he bent over to look inside, he saw only the linen cloth. Then he returned home, wondering what had happened.”

I can relate to “wondering what had happened.” When life does not go as expected, when the steps we thought we were supposed to take lead us to a dead end, when life throws us a curve and we can’t figure out what to do next.

Here is an excerpt from the chapter in my book called, Christians believe in resurrection.

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Christians believe in the resurrection. For sure it’s not an easy doctrine to believe. I mean after all, when was the last time any of us saw someone rise from the dead?

I remember sitting around with a few friends discussing the resurrection. We had all just lost a dear friend, Dave, to brain cancer. One of my friends asked us what we would do if Dave walked through the door? I said I would freak out—that is if I recognized him. (since remember,) Jesus’ friends didn’t recognize him when he showed up after his death.

While I was a chaplain, I watched a group of doctors resuscitate an elderly gentleman. Resuscitation is a gruesome act. It often involves broken bones and blood. While physicians monitored blood pressure and breathing, I monitored grief and loss.

Everyone in the room wanted to save life. I wanted death. … The doctors did not save this gentleman. He suffered yet another major heart attack. And his last minutes on earth were traumatic.

… For us, living with chronic illness was about managing losses. Pete started out using a walking stick… then a cane… then a walker, then a fancier walker…  There was a trajectory and it was a downward slope. It was slow moving, but it was moving in the direction of loss. Incremental, little losses one after the other after the other. ​When Pete and I could no longer do certain things or go certain places, we adjusted and sometimes those adjustments seemed bitter. I had grown to understand that bitterness was a sign that I was still trying to resuscitate.
I didn’t want the life we imagined to die. I wanted to try to keep it alive. I clung to the life we had. I clung to the dreams we dreamed together. But when our dream was dying, or when MS had taken Pete’s ability to walk, I wanted to have the courage to say, “Do not resuscitate.”
​… I wanted the faith needed to imagine resurrection instead of resuscitation. I wanted to be able to say, “Do not resuscitate that dream… Do not resuscitate that plan. Let it die. Wait for resurrection.”

Wherever you are in your life, with whatever dreams or plans you have - as you find yourself in darkness, my hope is that you will have the courage to stay in the dark long enough to wait for enough light to cross to the other side.

My prayer is you will believe in resurrection - believe that even in the darkness of the tomb, there is new life - a whole new life on the other side.