Month: November 2018

Giving up Facebook for Advent

/ Beth Merrill Neel / 2 Comments

I know, I know – Lent is the season when we’re supposed to give things up to help us understand the nature of sacrifice and self-denial, so we forego chocolate or swearing and feel that much more holy for forty days.  Advent is the time when we are supposed to prepare our hearts to receive the Christ child once again. It is a time for contemplation, reflection, but not sacrifice or self-denial.

Pish-posh, I say.

Allow me to explain.

At the congregation I serve we have chosen “Joy” as our theme for Advent.  Yes, I know that joy is supposed to be the theme of one of the Sundays of Advent (the Sunday with the pink candle), but as our Director of Music reminded us, there is a palpable lack of joy in the world right now.  I confess that as I start to think about my sermon for the first Sunday of Advent, to preach on joy feels a bit callous.  How can we talk about joy when we spray tear gas on children whose parents are seeking asylum in  the U.S.?  How unfeeling is it to talk about joy when hundreds of people are still unaccounted for in the remains of the Camp Fire? I could go on. You could too.

But since, as Teilhard de Chardin once said, “Joy is the surest sign of the presence of God”, and since Advent is the season in which we prepare to receive the gift of the Incarnation, God-with-us, then joy will have its way this Advent.  And that has led me to giving up Facebook.

I don’t know if you do Facebook; chances are if you’re reading this blog, you may have found it because I posted it on Facebook.  So there’s that – if I’m off Facebook, you won’t know if I’ve written a few hundred words about my musings.  If I’m off Facebook, I will need to let my pastor colleagues know, because I do learn about pastoral care needs on social media.

But if I’m to be about joy this Advent, then I will give up Facebook because Facebook does not bring me joy.  It entertains, it infuriates, it updates, but it does not bring me joy.  I relish the number of comments I get; I envy friends and acquaintances whose lives are so much more beautiful than my own; I long to live closer to family and old friends.

Facebook is the emblem for a deeper dis-ease.  I fear my world is starting to revolve around “likes” and “views”, around how many hearts I receive on an Instagram posts, around the approval I receive when I post something.  That is not life.  Those things do not bring joy.  Having a popular brand will not make my life complete.

Nothing will make my life complete this side of the grave, but many things will bring joy.  My beloved husband and daughter are the source of much joy in my life. Having work that is meaningful and fulfilling, work that I think adds some good to the world brings me joy.  An email or a phone call or an in-person visit from an old friend brings me far more joy than any pithy Facebook post ever could.

In the conversations around the spiritual practice of giving up something for Lent, some have suggested that rather than give something up, one should take up a practice that is sustainable for only about forty days.  So I wonder what I will take up for these twenty-four days of Advent – in giving up Facebook, is there something that I can take up, some way to spend that now free time, something that might bring me or the world some joy?

According to my phone, I spent four hours and forty-five minutes this past week looking at Facebook.  Perhaps I will use that time to pray.  I could write an actual letter to an old friend.  I could call my siblings.  I could write some liturgy. I could make some art.  I could make a meal for this family I love so much.  I could meditate.  I could do so many things that would lead me down the path to joy, and in knowing joy, I might deepen my appreciation of God and the Incarnate Christ Child.

I’ll let you know – but not till after December 25.

A joyful Advent to you.

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Making art brings me joy

 

The architecture of trees and other things

/ Beth Merrill Neel / Leave a comment

It’s the time of year when the falling leaves expose the beauty of the bare branch. As much as I love the new leaves of spring, and the lush leaves of summer, and the reds and golds at the height of fall, I really do enjoy seeing the leafless trees.

The branches are beautiful – elegant like a ballet dancer’s hands, or bumpy and bent like the hands of an old man who’s lived with arthritis far longer than he ever wanted.

I appreciate seeing the structure of the trees, their architecture, understanding a little about how the trees grow and support the weight of leaves and nests.

The devastation of the fires in California have revealed a different kind of architecture; you might call it the architecture of deconstruction. Among the ashes we see a chimney, a bathtub, a puddle of chrome where a fender used to be.

When the flames ravage, all that is left is that which seems incongruous and unnecessary. The flames mock the chimney and the bathtub. A cozy fire at night is magnified into something apocalyptic. The water in such a tub would do nothing more or less than boil in the midst of flames.

I wonder, too, what we are seeing in the architecture of our nation. Midterm elections laid bare the structure of our democracy. But is it the architecture of support, of the values of liberty and justice for all, constructive values? Or have we seen the deconstruction of our values, voter suppression and apathy about the political process? Does the harsh rhetoric of campaign ads and rallies undo us, consume all that is good so that all that is left is incongruous and unnecessary – red, white, and blue bunting crumpled up on the ground?

Well. I think about these things.

I worry about our national identity. So sometimes I take heart in the example of the seasons. Yes, the leaves fall and the trees are laid bare, but spring will come as sure as the sun will set tonight and rise again tomorrow. But sometimes my deep sorrow for all those affected by the fires reflects my sorrow for these United States. So much of what is beautiful and good – care for the stranger and the vulnerable, a willingness to tell the truth at the cost of losing power – has been burned away and what is left is useless.

Maybe when it comes to things political, we are not passive observers. We cannot change the course of the seasons. Very few of us can stop the devastation of these fires. But maybe we can do something to change the American conversation.

I hope we can.