Advent, COVID and Year End

No guest today! Just Danielle and Maggie. We can talk about a lot things…. But we wanted to talk to what it’s been like to have our kids back to in-person school, COVID updates, Advent and Year End.

Maggie said, yes let’s start with Advent. It’s the season we’re in, both in the Church Calendar and in our lives with COVID. It’s the waiting, the darkness, but also the anticipation. This is parallel to the long season of COVID we’re in.

For Maggie’s family:  

• Historically kids have done the little chocolate calendars and it taught them about anticipation in a very embodied sense—every morning they woke up with excitement to go to the calendar and the anticipation as the calendar was a countdown of sorts until Christmas Day.
• It lacked spiritual depth and connection
• Last year we used Advent Conversation cards from “Kids Read Truth” – these were fabulous as they had varying prompts for kids of different ages so each child was able to engage the conversation at their level of understanding.
• This year we are doing a “Jesse Tree” – which helps connect the customs of decorating the Christmas Tree to events leading up to Jesus’ birth. “The ornaments of the Jesse tree tell the story of God in the Old Testament, connecting the Advent season with the faithfulness of God across thousands of years of history.”
• Also this year, more aware of the Advent candles – I’ve always seen them but this year I am learning their meaning and hope that in the future I can incorporate that into what we do as a family.
• Learning about the advent candles of – Hope, Faith, Joy and Peace
• What I’m seeing around my community: I have a number of friends that are using An Advent devotional put out by “Reclaiming my Theology” – My people are examining and rethinking right now. They are processing harmful and bad theology and trying to reclaim their faith -- They are recreating, reimagining, reconnecting in new and deeper ways. It’s truly beautiful to watch and come along side.

For Danielle, Advent start with her daughter Julie. She usually pulks out paper and draws a nativity scene. Five years ago, when she was only nine years old, she painted the nativity scene on a wall of their house. You can see this years’ drawing (it’s on Instagram and is the cover art for this podcast episode)—all the people in the scene have their eyes closed, but the animals and the angels have their eyes open. Baby Jesus is portrayed as a tried, maybe even a little frustrated, baby that’s sleep is being interrupted by the crowd. 

They’re family also does the Chocolate calendars and Marvel LEGO advent (Maggie too!)

Danielle’s grandma passed away right before Thanksgiving; she just feels dead tired. In those places where she’s desired to be more intentional, she just feels she can’t. The memorial service was help far away and so she and her family watched via live stream. She noticed the next day that her kids just couldn’t settle, they just wanted to lay around. It’s felt like a passing of a generation and the tiredness of the year they’ve had. So on Sunday, rather then attending or listening to a church service, they just gathered in their living room and watched Pentatonix music videos, singing along and talking about which Christmas carol they feel most connected to. So overall this year’s advent has been more informal or maybe less intentional for their family, but no less meaningful. 

Maggie loves how Julie is leading this space for her family. She too loves seeing her Advent drawings every year. And that because Julie has painted a nativity scene on the wall of their house, it’s up all year round. 

Maggie totally feels the tired weariness Danielle is talking about. She said by odd coincidence or God’s intentional plan, her grandma also passed away, the day after Thanksgiving. She’s tired, dead tired, and sometimes feels not in to Christmas this year. For instance, she has one strand of lights up on her house when normally she would do the whole house… But that is the amount of energy she has for it this year: one strand on the front of the house. And it doesn’t feel any less meaningful or intentional, like Danielle said, it is just the capacity that their family has right now for the season they are in. 

Danielle said it also speaks to the long season that we’ve all been in for COVID. She knows that other people have experienced far more death than she. And yet, we’re coming up on two years and this Christmas is one that feels more like normal…. To have a death in her family feels like, “really?!?” Her favorite Christmas Carol is “O Holy Night” and there’s a line about “the weary world rejoices,” and she feels like, yeah that’s where we’re at right now. Profound weariness of a COVID season that is coming up on two years. 

Maggie says yes, it has been a long two years; in fact it has felt like five years. Part of the weariness for Maggie is this feeling “when will this end?” I’ve stopped watching the COVID numbers in our area because it was easy to ride it like an emotional rollercoaster. She’s had friends and family near and far see loved ones get sick, a few who passed away, more who’ve recovered and some with long term lasting side effects. She’s watched and experienced myself the divisiveness of vaccines and how there’s a strong sense of the binary nature of things – “it’s either this or that” without holding space for complexity or nuance. The increased emotional disruption, the increased anxiety, loneliness, and social pressure…It is affecting everyone, this long haul. 

Danielle’s seen increase in depression and anxiety, connectedness and disconnectedness. Almost everyone is having conversations around vaccines, mask wearing, racism, systemic oppression, critical race theory, natural disasters. She told the Lord, really? You couldn’t have waited on that?? It’s a cocktail storm—at times there are breaks where you can see the sun and it feels like it will be better, other times where you’re caught up in and things are crashing in. She says it’s hard in the fragments in our family to address these bigger things: racism, systemic oppression, faith, abortion, sex trafficking… She mentions the Jeffery Epstein trial and the Maxwell who facilitating the trafficking of the girls. She finds people to be on this side or that side and there’s no shared reality. 

Danielle believes that this is a lot of where Jesus was born into: empire and oppressed people waiting for hope and there’s not a shared reality. Jesus stepped in to all of that mess… and here we are in 2021 and it feels like the same things.

Maggie says this connection Danielle made brings her a lot of comfort—that Jesus, in his embodied self, experienced the same kind of jarring reality of Empire – Oppressed People when He was born into this world. Because this is the season of God with us and He is with us in what we are currently experiencing. This is nothing new for Him—He knows, embodied-ly, what we are experiencing embodied-ly. 

Danielle asks Maggie, Where do you find yourself in the naivety story? She hasn’t thought of it before. She gives her an example from her daughter’s naivety scene: The angels are Adam Toledo, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. In the scene they have their eyes open and are smiling. We talk about Jesus being outside of space and time and yet He entered a particular space and time. Somehow her daughter’s imagination, they were there in that space and time. And maybe they are there as we re-live the nativity this year. 

What catches Maggie most about Julie’s picture is the eyes. The people directly in the scene have their eyes closed, those outside the scene looking in—like the angels—have their eyes open. “I’m pondering what that looks likes for me: am I someone who has their eyes open to what is happening presently or am I someone who had their eyes closed?” Maggie says she want to be in that scene Julie created someone who has their eyes open and yet she feels the embodied-ness of that scene and those in it have their eyes closed. “I feel caught.” She asks Danielle where she is in the scene?

Danielle feels similarly—she’s been thinking about it more because her daughter drew it and art has all these layers and “what does this all mean?” She says that because she is in the present she probably has her eyes closed, feeling it and living it, moving through it 2021. In some ways to bear all that has happened in 2021, she’s had to have her eyes closed to some things. 

“That feels so true,” Maggie adds, “because how could we possibly bear it all?” And Maggie thinks that makes a lot of sense for the picture too—when we are fully embodied and present, it is a lot to take in—collectively, culturally, individually, COVID, systemic racism, the legal system, upcoming election. 

Danielle asks Maggie what wrapping up this year looks for her. It’s actually the second year ending in COVID, so what does Prep for the end of 2021 look like?  

• Usual is to reflect back on the year, create an inventory of sorts. For years I’ve used Jennie Allen’s Dream Guide, which I think I mentioned last year… I’ll set goes professional, personal, spiritually, etc. 
• This year, because of what her family has been through, she wants to provide a space for her kids to process. Jo Saxton and Steph O’Brien have a “Hello Goodbye” end of the year guide and this year I saw they have one for kids and families. So I bought that and am looking forward to as a family look back on the hard year and help them process their experiences and dream for what’s ahead. Make meaning, there are things we are going to keep from this year; resilience, new theology, new friends, etc. And there are things that we need to say goodbye to. So this year in particular it feels really good to try this practice because with as much as we are holding as adults and parents, their little bodies are holding it too, and school and family. Comes from a desire to create space, make a ritual or a practice to make meaning. 

Danielle has also thought about Jo and Steph’s “Hello Goodbye” and for her family she’s wanting to write down the thing they want to, as a family, say goodbye to and then burn it. “My family likes fire!” Her 10-year-old Ben has hidden a package of firecrackers in his room and was asking when they should light them off. Danielle was thinking at New Year’s so they can let go of the year. The kids have been back to school this year, an emotional rollercoaster. it’s been hard to adjust, hard to make friends. With the new year she is hoping some of rust from isolation will fall off. 

Maggie loves the meaning making, intentionality of the firecrackers. She says the lighting off firecrackers is visceral and sensational – there will be the loud auditory, the bright visual, the felt heat of the fire as it’s lit. It feels really powerful to have the senses awakened in that moment; powerful and also meaningful intellectually and physically. 

Danielle asks Maggie, “Where do you hope to go? Can you even hope for next year?” Maggie says she is cautious about hope. I want to hope and I do hope. The last two years has caused me to be afraid of in my imagination – to reign in what I can do professional, what we can do as a family. It’s caused me to think small; things feel hard and scary. It is a different level of what is possible. Saying something out loud feels dangerous.

Danielle is hoping for more rest. When talking with her business coach, under every category business, personal, family etc. was REST. I want to find more rest, sometimes I have time and I can’t rest. I need to think through other ways to rest, for her body, for work, for her family. There are so many urgent needs and I want to be involved in those, but not if I am not rested. 

Maggie said yes! That feels like defiant kindness, to herself, her family, her community. 

Danielle is reading: Mostly blogs, news and her instagram feed. Stuff on racism. The Atlantic. Her friends’ paper. 

Danielle is listening to: Just finished the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast. Been listening to the soundtracks of movies all the way through – right now it’s the new West Side Story and imagine what’s happening. 

Danielle is inspired by: her kids. Pursing music, art, sports, and fun. They love to love life. Kids were like why should we buy wrapping paper? We have all this scrap paper we can just decorate it and use it. New way of thinking about recycling!

Maggie is reading:

Chuck DeGroat’s “When Narcissism Comes to Church," it just seemed like this was the year that needed this book 

Reading aloud Watership Down by Richard Adams to her son Levi. 

Maggie is listening to:

Yes I too finished the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill and really recommend everyone listen to it. 

What I'm listening to now is Classical music, which is a shift for me. Mozart, Bach, Dvorak. But what’s really hitting me is Bedrich Smetana’s “The Moldau.” I first heard the song in college taking a Music Appreciation class.  It’s a symphonic poem about the river Vltava in his home country of as it builds from a little stream in Bavaria through the Czech countryside to a full rushing water way in the heart of Prague. I love the way the music captures the building, creating musical pictures. it’s whimsical and enchanting and I feel it deeply in my body when I listen to it. 

Maggie is inspired by:

People. The folks I’m journeying with in Story Work at the Allender Center. My friends and their resilient faith amidst deconstruction of theology and ecclesiology. My community and how much they’ve come alongside and supported me and my family these past few weeks. I’m filled with awe and gratitude for these and many more defiant acts of kindness, a display of humanity. 

Danielle said after all that she wants to start another conversation. Maggie laughs, we really could talk about anything!

Last minute wisdom from Maggie: “Allow it.” Allow whatever comes up for you to be there. Acknowledge it, name, put words to it if you want to. And then also rest and soul care—find out what’s restful to you and allow yourself to have. 

From Danielle: Keep listening to the Arise Podcast and share it with your friends.

Holiday is a commercial international thing. Find a place to chill out, maybe it’s someplace inside you that’s safe. Marinate in what your feelings. Be who you are, where you are. 

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.