Thealogical Lady: A Blog

New Year's Resolution

12/31/2013

I've been on pins and needles waiting for this day to come, because this is the day I get to announce my resolve for the new calendar year.

Instead of making several resolutions, as has been my custom since Y2K, I'm making just one: I will memorize the gospel according to Luke (according to the NRSV translation).

This should take me about four verses a day. I'll post those verses here via a link to the Oremus Bible Browser for those who are interested. I may comment on the verses (or my process of memorization) as well.

This resolution is inspired by my friend, Cody, who memorized the gospel according to John (which is the longest of the four canonical gospels by far). I choose the gospel according to Luke because it has been my favorite of the four gospels for at least ten years. It is, more than the other gospels, a portrait of Jesus as one heals. Healing, or helping make whole, is an activity that I've been told I have a knack for, and I'd like to explore that part of my vocation through this task of memorization.

I remember one of my college English professors, a fiery, intensely intelligent, Irish Catholic woman, suggesting to the members of my English class that we should each memorize one literary work in its entirety. Dr. Colleran, I was paying attention!

Wish me luck.

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Flannery O'Connor's Prayer Journal

12/28/2013

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Edited by W.A. Sessions

One of Flannery O'Connor's journals, started when she was just twenty-one years old, was just published last month by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

It's a journal of O'Connor's ardent prayers to God. She prays that God will give her the grace to love God zealously and think of God at all times, rather than getting swept up and distracted by the glamour of the quotidian life and only giving pause for God during times of reading (people like Léon Bloy) and writing.

I find in O'Connor's journal echoes of my own evolving pleas to God. I remember writing my own longing-filled prayers to God, prayers that God would help me become my best and most talented, giving self (Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, as I learned to say from the Jesuits).

Looking back on the earliest years of my adult life, I see how open everything was--the whole world was at my fingertips, and all I had to do was pursue my interests with my whole heart and I would do well.

It was both exciting and hard on me when I realized, at the age of 19, that I was being called by God to ordained ministry. I remember telling my pastor this, letting him know that I thought I would pursue that call in the Episcopal Church. He, whose opinion I esteemed above virtually all others, warned me that to enter a different church was to take on a whole different set of church problems. I realized then that I wanted to stay in my own church and help transform it into what it was supposed to be: a beacon of Christ's radical message of hospitality and love.

I did a year of volunteer work with the Missionary Cenacle Volunteers with that in my heart. I didn't want to become the sort of theologian who was completely detached from the world of real people encountering God in the midst of genuine (i.e. non-academic) difficulties. Then, after earning my Master's degree, I did what any bright, theologically inclined woman in the Roman Catholic church might do--I went on for doctoral work, assuming that that would lead me to a position in which I could be positively and transformatively influential among both lay people and clergy within the Roman Catholic Church.

I went almost all the way there, and then God threw a kink in my plans. Her name is Anastasia, and she just turned three in October.

Then came another kink. Her name is Miriam, and she's a little over half a year old.

Then came another, in the form of my husband's new job, which sent us to the desert where neither of us ever thought we would move.

And if my devotion to the Roman Catholic Church hadn't been so strong for so long, I might never have become disenchanted enough with its backward regression to leave it. If I hadn't been so ready to leave it, I might never have discovered St. Augustine's of Tempe, which has become as much my spiritual home as any church ever has been.

I still shake my head at what I've gotten myself into over the last fifteen years. In contrast to my college years, I find myself prepared to let God let me where she will, while continuing to exercise my strengths and nourish into health my weaknesses. I am finally in a place in my life where I am safe, and Sisyphean struggling is no longer my game--bravery and radical acceptance of self and the Holy Other constitute the new game.

Let's play, God.

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On Leadership

12/27/2013

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When my friend Noach was helping bring this site into being, he asked me about folks he could contact to recommend me to others.

One of the three who responded was my classmate from St. John's School of Theology (Collegeville, Minnesota), Rev. Cody Unterseher.

When I wrote my post about leadership yesterday, I had forgotten about the recommendations tucked away on this site. I found the following from a person who was even more dedicated to the study of liturgy than I was, and who even knew about my church in Cleveland as soon as I mentioned it to him while at table in the St. John's refectory in August 2005.

Cody and I were both laypeople when we were at St. John's, and somehow we ended up in a stance of wary opposition to one another for most of those two years. Although I sang at his ordination to the diaconate in late March of 2007, we didn't really become friends until we had each been accepted into (separate) doctoral programs in liturgical studies. He was an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church by then, and his focus in all things was reconciliation in Christ.

He wrote this about me when solicited for the testimonials on this site:

I had the privilege of working side-by-side with Kate during our overlapping years at Saint John's School of Theology•Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota (2005-2007). During that time, each of us served a one-year tenure as Chair of the School's Student Liturgy Committee. In her time as Chair, Kate showed herself to be a competent, confident and collegial leader. Her ability to coordinate the Committee's efforts were exceeded only by her gift for enabling and equipping others to do the work with which they were engaged, in a non-anxious, non-domineering and non-threatened way. Everything needful was well done, without haste, without micromanagement, in a respectful atmosphere of mutual listening and creative consensus-building. The ability to lead in such a way is a real gift as well as a skill, and Kate has cultivated it as a faithful steward. In terms of practical ability, Michelle Kate is a most competent liturgist. She combines a commanding knowledge of liturgical history and liturgical theology, together with a refined sense of liturgical law and its application, and brings these to bear on her work in preparing for liturgical celebration. At the same time, and more importantly, Michelle Kate has a refined pastoral sense. She is able to listen to a community, supporting its members as they give voice to their vision and aspirations, and helping them to identify and prioritize needs and goals for practical achievement. In preparing for liturgical celebration, Kate has a strong sense of liturgical gestalt, and is able to harmonize musical selection, crafted and received texts, and worship space environment in a way that is at once humble and elegant.

As I said, it was a privilege to work with Kate; I would not hesitate to work with her again in the future, nor to recommend her wholeheartedly to others.

His kindness in remembering our two years together overwhelmed me. That was late in 2011. When he died suddenly from complications related to a brain aneurysm in April 2012, my world collapsed around me. I wept for months. I still weep for him.

I'm not into guardian angels, but I often have Cody (whom I fondly refer to as Codex) close to heart when I consider my future as a the( )logian and minister. In fact, I just found out that he was ordained to the priesthood on the Feast of the Archangels (also known as the Feast of St. Michael, or Michaelmas). He is indeed my own Holy Messenger (άγγελος), accompanying me from his place at the Holy Banquet. He and I were more alike than I ever imagined when we were in school together. That fact alone leads me to believe that I could indeed become a remarkable servant leader--just like the one he became.

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Forging a path

12/26/2013

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Photo by M. Kate Allen

My baby crawled for the first time today. Her dad and sister and I cheered her on wildly as if she had just hit a grand slam. (The first object she went for was a crinkly package of baby wipes; the second was a major league baseball. Yes, a little music and a little baseball confirm that she is our child.)

I feel like her--inching forward, reaching for that which I behold, struggling little by little with every bit of my strength to get where I'm going.

With her, it's a down-on-the-ground, whole-bodied struggle. With me, it's a battle raging within me over a single, burning question: whether or not I qualify as a leader.

(Weird inner battles, I'm good at them.)

I'm not an alpha female. I know women--amazing women--who are alpha types. I admire them, but I'm not one of them, nor do I have any desire to be one. This obviously precludes me from assuming any role of religious (ordained) leadership.

I still hear this call to leadership, though, which makes my eyes cross. Come on, Goddess. Non-alpha types don't make leaders. The whole notion is absurd. How can I be a leader when I'm the one who's always been in the background, observing more often than herding? When I've been told to my face that I'm not a leader? Leadership roles in my case seem (as my medically trained hubby would say) contraindicated.

Conveniently, I've never had to grapple with this before, because I've always belonged to a tradition in which I would never have to take seriously (or be taken seriously regarding) my call to religious (i.e. ordained) leadership. Now I'm about to be received in a tradition that does, and I'm flailing like my infant daughter. How am I supposed to get where I'm going if I don't have the juice to do it?

For fun, I decided to humor my Lady Goddess and google "characteristics of a leader." I found this list.

I am/do all of those things when it comes to something I care about and am deeply invested in. So...

Moi? Leader?

I'm not an alpha leader.

I'm a servant leader.

I lead by example. I'm dazzling and inspiring in a different way. Folks don't generally want to be me--they want to be around me. When I live out my (rather awesome) ideals, I am at the service of others, rather than in charge of them. That's how my leadership manifests.

I've just never formally thought of leadership, especially religious leadership, like that. Now that I see it at work at St. Augustine's, however--a context which has become my context, rather than remaining someone else's--it makes a surprising amount of sense.

Tune in again soon for more from the M. Kate Meets Her Vocation show!

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Christmas

12/25/2013

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Photo by Monty and Julie Carson

My daughter danced my parish into Christ's birth last night. That memory will remain with me for the rest of my days.

~~~

As part of my Benedictine prayer practice, I read the lections of the day according to the Book of Common Prayer. A portion of the first letter of John was today's second reading.

This line pealed out like holy bells: "[A]s long as we love one another, God remains in us, and God's love comes to its perfection in us." Sounds a little bit like the preaching of the new bishop of Rome, no? Sounds even more like the nudgings of Jesus. Where two are three are gathered in love, there is God.

There was God last night. There was God around our Christmas tree this morning. There is God now as we prepare our Christmas feast. There will God be as we lovingly greet familiar friends and strangers throughout Christmastide.

May these twelve days to Epiphany be filled with blessings and your own ongoing, Spirit-ed expressions of sacred love.

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Vigil of the Nativity of the Christ

12/25/2013

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Photo by Thad Botham

And with that, Advent is over. God is with us--Emmanuel--alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

I love Christmas. I love the radicality of the Christmas message that says God isn't so transcendent that God can't be flesh. I love the intimacy of this God who is both divine and human at once, and who teaches us--like the good rebbe he is--to be the same.

I am so grateful this night for hope fulfilled in the midst of so much doubt and despair. Light does pierce shadows, dispelling them. Goodness is stronger than evil, breaking it down with the power of gentleness. A godly child does make a worldly ruler tremble, displacing cunning selfishness with its own absolute reliance on the sacred other for survival.

The message of the incarnation is that we desperately, utterly need each other. Humanity and divinity meet in community and communion, not in isolation. God can't do this gig without us, and we can't sustain God's divine flame within ourselves without the companionship of others.

That's my daughter to the left. She is about take flight, one of God's own angeloi, standing before the holy altar at the feet of the infant Christ. She's just carried in a sheep, practicing for her future role as shepherdess. Later, she danced during the offering of the holy gifts, and I had the presence of mind not to stop her. I look at her and see an icon of the Christ, bearing glad tidings and preaching good news through her very body. She did tonight what you and I do for each other every day.

Merry Christmas to you, o holy bearers and birthers of God.

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An Open Letter to Those against Whom I Have Sinned: Advent, Week 4, Monday

12/23/2013

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December 23

O Emmanuel, Rex et Legifer noster, expectatio gentium and salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus Noster!

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, expectation of the nations and their savior: come to save us, Lord our God!

To those against whom I have sinned,

There's no easy way for me to say this, so let me start with the most important part:

I am sorry.

I have done you wrong, and I am sorry.

I have hurt you, and I am sorry.

For every time I had an advantage over you and used it to your disadvantage, I'm sorry.

For every time I threw you into a crisis of self-doubt and self-hatred, I'm sorry.

For every time I shouted at you, called you names, slandered you behind your back, excluded you, ridiculed you, and broke your heart, I'm sorry.

For every time I chose my own interest at your expense and obfuscated the truth, I'm sorry.

For every time I physically, mentally, verbally, and spiritually harmed you, I'm sorry.

For every time I tried to come between you and the ones you loved, I'm sorry.

For every time I chose the lazy way at your expense, I'm sorry.

For every time my words or actions invited you to act or speak in ways you regret, I'm sorry.

For every time I spoke or acted in any unkind, uncharitable, unloving way, I'm sorry.

For these words that will probably never reach you, I'm sorry.

For these words that you probably wouldn't believe anyway, I'm sorry.

For every wrong that I have forgotten, I'm sorry.

For everything I do in the future to convince you that I'm still as stony-hearted as ever, I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

All I have left to offer you is my open hands, waiting in emptiness to receive your undeserved forgiveness.

With broken love,
Kate

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O Rex Gentium: Advent, Week 4, Sunday

12/22/2013

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December 22

O Rex gentium, et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum: veni, et salva hominem, quem de limo formasti.

O King of the gentiles and their desired One, the cornerstone that makes both one: come, and deliver humankind, whom you formed out of the dust of the earth.

Advent has been longer this year for me than in any other year past. After all this anticipation, I find myself grateful that this year's Christmas will be quiet for my family. My desire for light is not the desire for commercial, clanging, self-absorbed brightness. My desire for light is one for something gentler--the sparkle in the eyes of my daughters and the joy in the eyes of my husband.

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O Oriens: Advent, Week 3, Saturday

12/21/2013

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December 21

O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae, et sol iustitiae: veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris et umbra mortis.

O dawn of the east, brightness of light eternal, and sun of justice: come, and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

A few years ago, I wanted to name my first child Aurora--not after the Disney princess, but after the rosy-fingered dawn.

Christ is sometimes imagined as Apollo, the bringer of bright sun-fire, but I imagine Christ as those fuchsia streaks anointing the darkness with chrismic light.

Today was also the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, the darkest day of the year. On this day I think of John the Baptist, whose feast day is six months prior to this day, on the longest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere). It's the day when earthly light prepares to diminish, the same way John prepares: "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).

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O Clavis David: Advent, Week 3, Friday

12/20/2013

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December 20

O clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel: qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris.

O Key of David, and scepter of the house of Israel, who opens and no one shuts, who shuts and no one opens: come, and lead forth the captive who sits in the shadows from his prison.

Keys open and lock doors.

I remember the day the doors of Historic St. Peter Church of Cleveland were locked, by order of the bishop of the diocese. I was standing outside along with my many fellow parishioners as our pastor followed orders. It was the closing of a tomb that had once been a stable. That day haunts me.

I have never understood--and I'm sure I never will understood--the bullying of that bishop.

Last night, while singing carols with the St. Brigid's Community of St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Tempe, I came across my very favorite Christmas hymn, written by Richard Wilbur. I asked if anyone knew it, and no one did.

It turns out that the version printed in the Hymnal 1982 is not the same version that I learned at St. Peter as a member of the choir early last decade. My usual search tricks failed in the effort to find a recording of it. The CD recorded by the choir (while I was studying in Berlin in 2002) is no longer for sale, either. Though the building is still there, and though the bishop was ordered by the Vatican to reopen its doors, the community that once worshiped there, the people who refused to be scattered, took roots elsewhere in the city, and there they remain, for the most part.

This is a beautiful recording, but it is not the one I learned in the midst of that beautiful community, and I can't help feeling tremendous loss as I listen to it.

Love burns in my heart for the community of St. Peter, that breathtaking icon of God. But even in my anger, my hope refuses to be extinguished.

A stable lamp is lighted
whose glow shall wake the sky;
the stars shall bend their voices,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
and straw like gold shall shine;
a barn shall harbour heaven,
a stall become a shrine.

This child through David's city
shall ride in triumph by;
the palm shall strew its branches,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
though heavy, dull and dumb,
and lie within the roadway
to pave his kingdom come.

Yet he shall be forsaken,
and yielded up to die;
the sky shall groan and darken,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
for gifts of love abused;
God's blood upon the spearhead,
God's blood again refused.

But now, as at the ending,
the low is lifted high;
the stars shall bend their voices,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
in praises of the child
by whose descent among us
the worlds are reconciled.

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O Radix Jesse: Advent, Week 3, Thursday

12/19/2013

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December 19

O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, iam noli tardare.

O Root of Jesse, that stands for an ensign of the people, before whom the kings keep silence and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication: come, to deliver us, and tarry not.

Thirty-eight years ago, my mother gave birth to my brother. This morning, my sister gave birth to my nephew. This afternoon, I purchased the cassock with which I'll be vested on Candlemas next year when I enter the Benedictine Canon community of St. Mary of the Annunciation as a novice.

All these beginnings--past, present, future--fill me with hope, love, and profound faith in the Divine Fire, the One who animates each of us with a bright, tireless flame.

The root of Jesse runs deep.

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O Sapientia: Advent, Week 3, Tuesday

12/17/2013

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December 17

O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodidisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviter disponensque omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

O Wisdom, who came from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come, and teach us the way of prudence.

When I studied at St. John's School of Theology in Collegeville, Minnesota, one of my favorite times of year to pray with the monks was in the last days before Christmas. December 17 was the day the O Antiphons, which famously make up the verses for "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," began. The chant tones for these antiphons were haunting, especially when played on the thundering Holtkamp Organ.

Now these antiphons come up during evensong/vespers/evening prayer for me at home. My electronic keyboard and fumbling fingers don't exactly emulate the sounds of St. John's Abbey, but praying in my little corner at home transports me right back to those tall, black choir stalls.

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Advent, Week 3, Monday

12/16/2013

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Yesterday the command was to rejoice, but today I remember that it is still Advent, and I am still waiting for the light to dawn.

A friend of mine--not a close one, but one for whom I cared very much--died today. He had blood cancer. He was one of the honorees of my Team in Training walk team back in 2009.

He was about my age.

Death is not my favorite companion. I don't like Death's bitter wine or unmoist bread. I could do without the heaviness of Death's blanket and the chill of Death's hearth. I don't want to see who dwells in the shadows under Death's roof. When Death enters my midst, everything becomes painfully sharp, and I ache.

Where is redemption in the endless moment that is fresh grief?

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Gaudete! Advent, Week 3, Sunday

12/15/2013

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Photo by M. Kate Allen

I made my oblation to the Benedictine Canon Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation this morning.

You know me--I like it when timing is more than a coincidence. The Prior of the OSBCn Community here in Tempe allowed me to schedule my oblation for the third Sunday of Advent, not only signifying a heart-opening beginning, which is what Advent is in relationship to the liturgical year, but also signifying a time of rejoicing. The Latin Introit for this Sunday is where Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, gets its nickname:

Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete. Modestia vestra nota sit omnibus hominibus: Dominus enim prope est. Nihil solliciti sitis: sed in omni oratione petitiones vestræ innotescant apud Deum. Benedixisti Domine terram tuam: avertisti captivitatem Jacob.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. Lord, you have blessed your land; you have turned away the captivity of Jacob.

Could there be a more fitting liturgical opening on the day of my entrance into this community?

When I pray today, I find myself saying in faith, Rejoice. Rejoice. The Lord is near at hand. She is near at hand, and you need have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by constant prayer, and with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to Her. Lady, you have blessed your creation and turned us from our deadening captivity.

It is a fitting day indeed. It is an empowering day. Today I committed to the regular work prayer, and I find in that prayer the freedom to transcend my self-concern. Each welcome from the members of my community was a tap-tap-tap on the still stony shell around my heart, bidding it to break free. To stretch out my arms, to enfold sisters and brothers and neighbors in love: these are my new tasks. What a strange gift. What a novel reminder of my baptism. What a poignant icon of the divine spark that finds fuel in my humanity.

I feel more fully myself today than I ever have in my life. Here in this place, accompanied by my family, my church community, my sister and brother Benedictines, and my holy cloud of witnesses from every part of the earth and God's heavenly banquet, I am home.

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Voca-tion: Advent, Week 2, Saturday

12/14/2013

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The Prior of St. Mary's of the Annunciation Benedictine Canon community has invited me into a conversation about how I'm hearing God's call to become a Benedictine Canon, and I find myself spilling over with words. When this happens (and it happens rather often, when I have something important on the brain), my best shot at organizing my thoughts is in writing.

First, a note about vocation: to hear your life's call is to discern your vocation. Consider the Latin root of vocation: voca-tion, voca, vox, voice. To hear a call is to hear someone's voice. But how do I hear God's voice?

What makes this a great question is that there is no straight or literal answer in my case. "God's voice" is a metaphor for the human voice. When God calls me, God isn't picking up a telephone in the heavens. When God calls me (or you, or Jesus, or anyone) God's doing something else. And since God's not doing the same kind of calling that I do, I'm listening to God in a different way than I would listen to someone else.

I shared with the Prior my confidence that the Canon life is one to which I'm hearing God's call. So if God didn't call me on the phone or text me or leave a note on my Facebook timeline or tweet me or comment on one of my blog posts, what did God do to inspire this confidence?

Fact is, it's not just about what God does--it's about what God does in relationship with me. Below I've identified four ways (though not the only ways) in which God "calls" me:

1) Through scripture. The life of a Benedictine Canon is one of prayer with scripture, especially prayer with the psalms. One of the ways I know God speaks through my prayer is that I change. My pace slows. Familiar words and phrases tingle in my skin and subconscious. The words both resonate with me and challenge me, but I am always safe in them, safe to risk opening my heart to them. This safety isn't related to the words of scripture alone, though--they're related to the way I join this community in praying them. Which leads me to the next three ways in which God "calls" me.

2) Through the rhythm of daily life. Benedictines pray a lot. When the bell sounds for prayer several times a day, Benedictines cease all else to pray together. In this regularity, it would be possible to feel trapped or shackled. When I pray during the regular prayer times of this community, however, I feel like I've entered the rhythm of a familiar household. Because all members of this community are held to the same expectation, it becomes a ritual as close to me as changing diapers, preparing formula, or playing with my daughters. It's necessary, it's beautiful, and even when it interrupts, it is a comfort.

3) Through the voice(s) of the community. This may be the biggest piece for me at this point in my life. It is clear that to be part of this community is to be equal to each member in dignity and respect. I am not regarded as lesser because I am a woman. I am not regarded as lesser because I am a lay person. I am not regarded as lesser because I am married. Each member brings her or his own gifts to the community, and those gifts are habitually lifted up, rather than quashed. The way each community member interacts with me demonstrates to me that I stand eye to eye with each one--not the same as any other, but loved and embraced in the same way as every other. God's presence manifests in these beautifully broken people.

4) Through my very body. Over thirty-one years, I have developed a keen sense of when I am safe and at home, and when I am threatened and in danger of harm. As a deeply sensitive body, when I enter a new religious situation or context, my entire self attends to whether my situation is harmful or loving. In this community my guard rests. Last night, when we were physically gathered together as a community, I prayed to the Lord instead of the Lady for the sake of unifying our voices in prayer. That unity did not threaten my devotion to God as Lady, but rather left an open door for that devotion. I trust that in this context that door will not be closed or locked, as it has been in most of my previous religious contexts. In this community, I am able to hold the diversity of the community close to my heart, without fear of it swallowing me into anonymity and dignity-destroying submission.

God doesn't call me the way others usually call me, but God makes her call known. I perceive God calling me to this community inasmuch as this community, like God, challenges me to transcend myself without losing my sense of safety or integrity. This community, also like God, accepts me as I am without first rendering me or others inferior. Finally, the rhythm of this community, like God's rhythm in my life, is familiar, persistent, and rich--like coming home. The call to enter the Canon novitiate is as audible and clear to me as the bell that sounds each prayer hour into being.

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Five Ways Advent is Like Potty-Training

12/13/2013

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Way #1: There’s a lot of waiting around. My kid became daytime potty-trained last week. We started potty-training her over a year ago. Advent’s like that—you only get to light one candle a week on your Advent wreath, or open one little door on your Advent calendar per day. The church hymns, if you’re in a liturgically oriented church, are subdued, like the mood of a parent thwarted by uncontrolled toddler bladders and bowels. If you’re super-observant, the Christmas tree doesn’t come home till Christmas Eve and the Christmas music makes way for the usual dose of Muse and Metallica (okay, that’s the music at my house, but you get the idea). “Fun” isn’t the first word that comes to mind in either case.

Way #2: It takes repetition—lots of it—to get the idea. Without our many-times-a-day repetition of “Do you need to go potty?” our kid just had no awareness of it, and oops! There went her diaper (or, worse, on the days we were foolish enough to dress her in it, her underwear). At my Anglo-Catholic church, we sing O Come, O Come, Emmanuel—several verses of it—every Advent Sunday to start the liturgy procession. Wait, what are we singing about? You mean Jesus isn’t here yet? You mean he’s still in the dark, nourishing womb of the one who bears him? Reminders of what hasn’t happened in the midst of everyone’s celebration of the it-already-happened do help.

Way #3: Rewards help. For a while we used potty treats in the form of little gummy fruit-flavored snacks. It didn’t really work unless our kid was hungry, though, so we shifted to a homemade chart for which she earned shining metallic stars. And you know what? Going square by square works! That’s what makes Advent calendars a raving success. My husband is especially fond of the ones from Trader Joe’s, loaded with chocolate. I’m fond of the Jacquie Lawson virtual Advent calendar, which I’ve received as a gift for the last several years. The wait for the lighting of each Advent candle on a wreath takes seven times as long—but oh, that moment when you finally get to light the next candle, multiplying the light that will eventually manifest as a bright, beckoning star!

Way #4: Taking time is kinder than a sudden total shift in reality. When I first got the idea to potty-train my toddler, it was right after I learned that I was pregnant with my second child. We wanted her to be potty-trained by the time the second one arrived, so I found a three-day fail-safe method on the internet that a friend had used. The author of this method said as long as her directions were followed to the letter, it would work for any age, period—in three days. She lied. And this mama wept and wailed before (and after) admitting defeat. The shift from Thanksgiving to Christmas (or the Fourth of July to Christmas) wrenches my heart like that. Really, I need time to prepare, and I need the experts to respect my need for time to prepare—like John the Baptist—for the birthing of the Christ in my world. If I take seriously what Isaiah writes, my lioness self just isn’t ready to lie down with a lamb. I need time to step back, shut up, and listen to the quiet, quieting voice of God, whether as the voice in my dreams or as a prophetic voice speaking out to me in waking life.

Way #5: The final reward, after all that waiting, is a little odd to talk about if you step outside the immediacy of the moment. The toilet is filled, the diaper at last remains dry. There’s nothing else you can think about, and you can’t stop squealing. If your non-parent friends could see you now! So the Christ-child is born and laid in a manger of animal hay to become food (“manger” means “to eat,” after all). Um, whose food? And did you notice that the child got swaddled swaddled like a mummy? Same way he’s going to be wrapped in the tomb thirty-three years or so down the line when he actually does die, and…becomes bread for the world? Birth and death. Death and resurrection. Birth and risen bread. Whoa.

Toilet-training is to Advent what Potty-Training Day is to Christmas--the necessary prelude to the main event. And you know what? The wait renders the main event absolutely glorious.

This post was originally featured at parentwin.com.

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Advent 2, Monday

12/9/2013

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Photo by M. Kate Allen

This past Saturday, my family hosted an Advent housewarming, and I found the wreath and berries you see to the left from Trader Joe's. A tiny wreath and a few tea candles make the passage of Advent time more pronounced, and the faint scent of pine reminds me of home.

When I was growing up in northeast Ohio, I was surrounded by evergreens. On Earth Day each year it was customary to receive an evergreen sapling from school to plant at home, and my family planted them. One of the most beautiful places in Ohio to see evergreens is Quail Hollow State Park in Hartville; another is the Jesuit Retreat House in Parma. Evergreens like those don't grow in the desert. Instead, the thriving flora of the Sonoran desert include Mediterranean olive trees, which would have been familiar to the eyes and hands and mouth of Jesus of Nazareth.

I miss my childhood home enough to buy an evergreen wreath that isn't native to where I live. Maybe next year I'll fashion my own wreath with olive branches and olives. Olive branches have always been a sign of goodwill, and olive oil is a sign of majesty, healing, and nourishment. Appropriate for the season that awaits the arrival of the majestic, healing nourisher, yes?

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Advent 1, Tuesday

12/3/2013

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Photo by M. Kate Allen

Tonight I began my evening prayer by lighting the candles of my family's menorah while chanting

O God,
come to my assistance.
Lady,
make haste to help me.
Glory to the Mother,
and to the Daughter,
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now,
and will be forever.
Amen.

I read the reflection of the day from St. Augustine's Advent devotional booklet, and then I turned to the light of the Chanukah candles. The rest of my prayer took the form of awe in that gentle light.

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Advent 1, Sunday

12/1/2013

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Photo by M. Kate Allen

Five candles alight in my family's menorah as the first day of Advent ends.

Advent tugs more insistently than usual this year. Slowing down seems necessary, but not for its own sake--not like last year when I was stressed out with worry and anxiety along with the usual ailments of pregnancy in the first trimester. This year I find myself calm, finally settling into this new life, this new place. My partner settles into his job as I settle into my new religious community. We are happy.

Our joy is spacious and green with vitality. It is because of this that Advent pulls on me as it now does. I am open to it. I am at home, ready to ritualize deeply.

I will make my oblation to the Benedictine Canon community of St. Mary of the Annunciation two weeks from now, witnessed by all who are present at the St. Augustine Gaudete Sunday liturgy.

The color for Gaudete Sunday is rose,
and by rose I mean resurrection,
and by resurrection I mean the glorified new life
of a broken, animated body.

I am a broken, animated body,
ready for glorying,
for
I am broken.
Broken, I can be shared as bread
When shared as bread, I am Christ.

As I approach my oblation, my vow of self-emptying and steady prayer, I find myself contemplating Jesus as fellow minister. Scripture says Jesus was thirty years old (Luke 3:23) when he began his ministry, and it's commonly held, though scripture is not explicit in this regard, that his ministry lasted three years. He was like me--young, but not too young to be wise. I feel such a kinship with this man, the one who lived and walked and preached, who spoke out radically from and against his tradition. My christology is low this Advent, close to the earth, gritty, deep.

In addition to my new prayer practice (which I believe may keep me away from much of my ordinary internet time), I plan to plant a garden. Here in the arid desert, in the bright mid-winter, something may actually grow.

I invite you to consider an Advent practice of your own, and to share it below, if you wish.

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O Oriens: Advent, Week 3, Saturday

O Clavis David: Advent, Week 3, Friday

O Radix Jesse: Advent, Week 3, Thursday

O Sapientia: Advent, Week 3, Tuesday

Advent, Week 3, Monday

Gaudete! Advent, Week 3, Sunday

Voca-tion: Advent, Week 2, Saturday

Five Ways Advent is Like Potty-Training

Advent 2, Monday

Advent 1, Tuesday

Advent 1, Sunday

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