advent, candle of PEACE -- by danielle s rueb castillejo
advent,
candle of PEACE
2 Peter 3: 14 – 15a: “ So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation.”
Last week,I pulled into the dirt driveway of my dear friend’s home. We met almost a decade ago: the local YMCA, at RIPPED. This is a class where you balance body weight, lifting weights, all to wild music – a crowd full of other eager fitness folks. We loved it. I remember getting there early and my friend would be there, too.
She owns a flower farm, and creates beauty from the earth in sustainable ways. She makes things beautiful, harmony and at peace with the earth. Makes things beautiful. I say to myself.
Every year, I text her. I buy a few wreaths and candle centerpieces for a handful of friends I dearly love. The green smell fresh, like December. It’s a living gift.
A gift of senses for those beautiful places in my life I feel safe – at peace.
Our tree sits right outside of the front of our door. We didn’t put it up yet, although we did buy it. Maybe it’s my son’s absence from home, and the three remaining kids and the two parents don’t feel a sense of peace without him.
Maybe it’s the lingering doubts we have about an advent season, filled with death, hostages, horror, rape, bombs, children plastered against cement. I don’t know what it is, if it isn’t any of these.
Images of Jesus, from my childhood memories, center on pristine hay markets, perfect triangle mangers. Mary is clean. Joseph is gallant. These images project lingering chasms, next to perfect walls to keep someone like me, out.
His birth. Good news, for everybody. It meant hard work, a repeated asking for forgiveness, in order to draw close to the baby of love. I love the stories about him: the way he loved children, his arrival on earth, the lack of belonging, and emergency escape to Egypt. I love how he argued at the synagogue, while religious folks accused him of being disrespectful. He was love, peacemaker, kindness, and oppressive empire nuisance.
It smells like Christmas, here.
It smells like Christmas, here.
The needles of the pines, fragrant. A calm in my heart – the sensory pieces that bring harmony to my body.
I find myself traveling to Carolyn’s house in the dark of night, pondering how the last decade brought me closer to Jesus, yet farther away from religion. I keep thinking about how Jesus was withheld from me, almost as a carrot stick, or get out of jail, free card. If I could truly repent – truly get into the Christmas spirit – truly find myself in love with him, then I would find my place in heaven and peace here on earth. I was in a constant war, a constant battle, a place of enduring pain, never peace.
This is the place religion traps the average follower, somewhere between grandiosity and never-ending hard work to arrive at an impossible place of peace. While peacemaking isn’t without terror, conflict, work, and hard truths – peacemaking is all of those with extra doses of grace, love, nonviolent responses, and most of all love. A love that finds you swaddled in care, with hope and faith attached. You don’t feel it all of the time, but in the dark times, you can count on Jesus letting you in, not building walls to keep you out.
Leaving Jesus outside of the holiday meant to honor him is strange. Our senses compel us to know something deeper about a man, baby, boy, teenager, who does love us.
Pulling up to my friend’s house last night, looking at her little shed, covered in festive lights; Jesus would be happy I am here. I drove away with three wreaths, and two table centerpieces, handmade, delicately delivered to me.
I’m going to get up from my bed this morning smelling those reeds in my house, picturing the shed, where my friend works, praying fervently for the men, women, children, and those pressing the buttons and funding the genocide of Palestine. Praying for the hostages caught in an endless war, unable to come home during Hannukah or Christmas. If love is real, I pray Jesus’ stance against violence, hate, rhetoric, oppressive systems, and death – his stance for children and the oppressed will be honored.