Three years ago, somewhere between the candle of hope and the candle of peace, the year I decided to blog my way through advent, my grandfather died. I remember so clearly how the grief mixed with the cheer, how the ashes mixed with the tinsel, and I remember what my friend told me as she was leaving my house and I was packing to go be with my grandmother.

“I hope you have time to grieve.”

With babies and finals and Christian finishing papers that year, there wasn’t a lot of space for me to grieve. My kids aren’t in diapers and my husband has only the dissertation deadlines and still I am longing for space to grieve in my life.

Thursday on my way from one appointment to the next I ran into the coffee shop to grab a bagel. One of my pastors was sitting at a table. He asked me how I was and he meant it. I immediately started crying.

How am I? I am tired. I am sad. I am confused. I am waiting.

I was angry the first two days of advent, just weirdly irrationally angry. I couldn’t quite figure out why, and then it hit me. The waiting.

I don’t know that I need to make space for the waiting, I am already right in the middle of it. I am waiting to finish my last year of teaching, I am waiting to see where we might be living next year, I am waiting for long held hard worked for dreams. I am waiting.

But also, I am not. I am running. I am doing. I am trying. But I am not really leaning into the waiting. I have sort of been avoiding it, like the mess in the back seat of my car. I mean, I know it is there but I don’t really deal with it. I guess I am hoping that the waiting will also take care of itself.

The waiting is such a strange mix, of grieving what will be or is no longer, the hope that something better will come, the realization that the future may not look like I imagine, the fear.

With kids and work and commuting, with dinner on the table and laundry to fold, with papers to grade and students to cajole into doing their make up work, who has time for grieving? Who has time to wait?

Why would I sit in silence when I could endlessly google possible houses in every city we have ever thought about living in?

Because I need it, this waiting, this grieving, this longing. Because the only way to not let the darkness over take you is to sit with it. Listen to it. I need the silence because the shouting I have tried isn’t working. I need to grieve so that I can make room for the joy.

I need to light the candle in the darkness, so I can see for myself how much real hope can really fill up a room if I let it.

I don’t want advent this year, I am already tired, and weary, and waiting. I don’t want advent, but I desperately need it. So I lock myself in my car during lunch, read the scriptures and breathe. I light the candle after bedtime and think about the promises in the kids book we read, how God is with you and you don’t have to be afraid are true for me too. I breathe slowly, I cry quietly, and I make room in my life for the waiting, five minutes at a time.

Amy Young sent me this one and I am a BIG FAN. I constantly feel like everything I do has to be productive. It doesn’t. This list is so, so good for me.

10 ways to be unproductive {but happy} at Christmas

Last December I was part of a Spiritual Direction Advent group and the leader cautioned us about seeking too quickly for meaning. We Westerners do like information and meaning, don’t we :). It was a timely and gentle reminder the tug culture has on us all. The tug isn’t the problem, it’s the complete buying into and not differentiating between tugs.

My soul has hit a wall with the amount of tips out there on how to be more productive. With the new year around the corner, I fear we’re only just beginning the goal setting, productivity tips, YOU CAN DO AND BE MORE, phase our liturgical productivity calendar.

Who says productivity is all it’s cracked up to be? I’m a disciplined person and like lists, don’t get me wrong. But enough, ok, enough!

Has the paradox of Christmas taught us nothing? I have a feeling how we view productivity is not how God does.

Here are 10 ways to be unproductive in the traditional sense:

1. Sit in the dark and look at Christmas lights. Better yet, lay on the floor and look up at them.

2. Eat a cookie or some other holiday treat guilt free.

3. Look at the world through the eyes of a three-year-old. Can you imagine how much more fun we’d have if we got excited about the little things of life? Family coming?! SO EXCITING. Hot chocolate? Is there anything more delicious to drink?

4. Read a children’s Christmas book, complete with voices. Fun with a child, true. But children are not required for this to be unproductively productive. I wrote about nine children’s books I love. Last Thursday I was with a small group of visiting scholars from China hanging out at a Wendy’s and I read Wombat Divine by Mem Fox to them. It was a blast.

5. Light a candle and watch the flame flicker. Let your mind and soul rest.

6. Conjure up a happy childhood Christmas memory. Sit and enjoy it. Maybe share it with someone.

7. Ask an elderly relative about Christmas when they were a kid.

8. Read Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memoryor Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. This year my in-person book club decided to read short stories for December and we chose four from this list and recommend them all.

• A Letter from Santa Claus– Mark Twain
• How the Captain made Christmas– Thomas Nelson Page
• A College Santa Claus– Ralph Henry Barbour
• A Burglar’s Christmas– Willa Cather

9. Sing Christmas carols out loud.

10. Recall getting one of your Christmas trees and call to reminisce with someone who was there.

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Which of these will you do today? Anyone else a little gagged at productivity talk?

photo credit:  Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton

My name is Amy and I live in the messy middle of life. The tag line for this blog is “where grace and truth reside.” I find people tend to be drawn to grace, grace, grace OR truth, truth, truth. Neither side  requires much discipline, do they? Instead they foster autopilot living. But real life happens … in the messy middle, with both. Read more of Amy’s work here.

I tried to not do Santa with my kids. I did. Not really out of any  super spiritual reason, or because I am trying to keep Jesus centered or whatever. I just….I don’t know, I found the whole thing exhausting. It is the same reason we don’t do Elf on the Shelf. It just feels like a lot of work.

But a few years ago when Juliet asked me if Santa was real, and I told her no, she looked me dead in the face and said “Well, lets just pretend? Okay?” And then proceeded to pick up something I had gotten her not even for Christmas and shout “Santa came! Santa came!” And that has been the Norman house rule ever since. Santa, the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, these are games we play because they are fun.

So, imagine my surprise when we were lighting the advent candles this past Sunday, and we were explaining about the birth of Jesus, how Christmas is Jesus’s birthday and Priscilla looked up surprised, “YOU MEAN JESUS IS REAL!” Apparently she thought it was all pretend.

Oh. Total Christian blogger fail. My four-year-old was not totally clear on whether or not Jesus was like Santa, a game we just pretend (regardless of the fact that I wrote the children’s advent book at our last church). I guess we have some advent work to do.

Advent. Does just the word make you sweat a little? Like what the heck am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to move an Elf around the house for twenty four days? Or do a fun activity every day for twenty-four days? Or something spiritual? Or BOTH? What the HECK December? I can’t even get dinner on the table before 7 pm for twenty four days, okay? Let alone do something holiday related. It just isn’t going to happen without me totally losing my mind.

And I am not doing that. This year the goal is Sane for the Holidays. If it makes me sweat just thinking about it, it is off the table. I am hoping to light the candle 5 of the 7 days of the week and have a very simple conversation about How Jesus is REAL and his birthday is Christmas. That is it. There is a story book someone gifted me two years ago with 24 stories. We will see if we get to them. No pressure, just because we like stories.

For me, I am trying for five minutes of silent reflection a day. Two days ago I got that by shutting myself in my car during my planning period. Yesterday I tried after I put the kids to bed, but they weren’t silent and I fell asleep at the dining room table. I took that as a sign from God that I should go to bed before 8. So I blew out the candle and headed upstairs. God met me there.

This season comes with so much expectation. It is okay. We are doing okay. You are enough. I promise. Throughout December I will be featuring stories about staying sane for the Holidays. If you want to contribute, please let me know!

I generally eat too much when I am celebrating. I don’t think I am the only one. My very favorite moment from the sitcom Friends is when Joey steals Pheobe’s maternity pants and declares them his Thanksgiving pants. That is a way of celebrating I understand. I mean, over-eating at holiday meals is as American as apple pie.

So I like the feast. So what?

I love feasting. I love celebrating. I love planning for a month, grocery shopping for a week, cooking all day, and lingering over the dinner table for hours. I love it. I love loving the people I love by cooking them the things they love. I love the feast.

But lately I have been taking a hard look at my eating habits, and found something kind of ugly amidst the love-filled feasting that is happening at my house for birthdays and holidays, and the very rare date nights out when I actually get to eat dinner with my husband.

It is always such an honor and privilege to be writing at She Loves. You can read the rest here.

When I was doing my field studies for teaching life became very mundane. I showed up and  sat in the back of the class while I watched the main teacher teach.  At least that is what I thought for  awhile. I talked to the kids sometimes but not as often as I would of liked.

One day when a student was finished with his work I went and sat next to him. This teen was normally very quiet . He  wasn’t shy. He has just been through so much. He looked at me and told me every bad thing he done in is past.  He told me how he has started going to church everyday Sunday ( this was a public school so he knew nothing about my faith.) I went up to the main teacher and asked him why the student poured out his life story to me.

The teacher told me sometimes he needed it.

After that day I went and sat near different students and they all told me their stories. Some had done drugs. Some had just gotten out of the foster system at seventeen. Some parents have passed. Some students have been in jail. But what mattered to them is that I cared, listened, and showed up. I encouraged them each time when they slipped up. I would encourage them by telling them each day was a new start.  And when they made good choices I would be by them cheering them on. Most days felt mundane.

But sometimes I think Christ works in the small moments. He works in times when it feels like a routine.

So if you think you aren’t doing anything useful I encourage you to think again. The Kingdom of God is there, in the listening, in the showing up.

Megan Hall has lived in Florida for her entire life and has learned to appreciate so many things about where she lives. She is a recent college graduate who studied to be a teacher for those with special needs. She hopes to be a missionary one day. You most likely can find her serving at an orphanage or spending time in nature. She blogs at Child of the Risen King and tweets right here.

If I have learned anything this month it is this:

Scarcity is a liar that plays on our deepest fears. It shows us a picture we are afraid is reality and if we act on that picture we will get more scarcity. It is a vicious cycle.

Scarcity shows us a table that is already full. Maybe there are four spaces, maybe six. Maybe we have a space at the table, maybe we just want one. Scarcity tells us the table is full, that we have to fight for a spot or fight to keep ours, that the spots will run out, or that we better pick a different table.

But Abundance, abundance has endless wings to add to the table. Abundance has an endless supply of chairs. Abundance says yes! you can come! Bring your friends! There is plenty. Abundance is such a beautiful thing.

This is my last post in the 31 days sereis. I have had a great time, but have every intention of celebrating Nap-vember again! Don’t be surprised if I am lighter around here than usual. Abundance is telling me I am enough. 

I get jealous sometimes. I do. It isn’t a giant secret that I would love the opportunity to write a book, one that would get picked up and published. That hasn’t happened yet. Good things, envy worthy things have happened to me, and I am grateful for the opportunities, for getting to do a TEDx talk, for writing for the Huffington Post, for having people want to read the words I write and for emailing me to tell me my words matter.

But I still would love to write a book, and I live in a place where some of my friends get to do that, and sometimes that makes me jealous. I feel like I am maybe not supposed to say that on the internet but I know that I am not the only one. People get jealous sometimes. It is okay. Jealousy is a lot about what you want (so it is good to pay attention to it) and scarcity (that is the lying part that says if they got it, it somehow takes something away from me.

Celebration and sharing are the best weapons against the scarcity part of jealousy. If I am HAPPY for you. Genuinely happy for you because I think the work you are doing is really really important, then scarcity goes away and dies in the horrible pit of a cave it came from.

Here is the truth of abundance: No one else can do your work, and you can’t do anyone else’s work. You can’t write their book and they can’t write yours. So we should be celebrating each other’s successes. I am really excited to share with you some work that I think is awesome. I am grateful for these people doing their work faithfully and want to share it with you.

Sarah Bessey has a book coming out. Sarah has saved my faith more than any other person who I have never met. I am not the only one who says this. Women like me love Sarah because she faithfully does her work and it helps us. Here are ways to help her. Also, buy her first book Jesus Feminist.

Seth Haines has a book that just came out. It is different than any other book I have ever read about faith. It is sort of about alcoholism, but not really at all. It calls me back to freedom. Also, it is just really beautiful prose. Here it is.

Tara Owens and Erin Lane both wrote incredible books this year. Both could be nominated here.

Embracing the Body is about sex and bodies and spirituality. It is absolutely a game changer, like an immunization for all that bad theology we learned while reading I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Buy it here. 

Lessons in Belonging is about not beloning, and wanting to, and feeling like everyone else in church is just la-de-da no problems and you are a mess in the pews. This book brought me safely through our church transition and I could not be more grateful for it. Buy it here. 

Or ask you library to stock one or all of these. Or put one on your Christmas list.

AND THEN TELL ME! What awesome work are YOU up to? How can we abundant with each other?

I am really excited to share this next parable with you, because I am really excited to share Gayl with you. Gayl is the real deal, living just a day-trip from my house, I think of her house as a retreat. I just feel so loved there. I also love this post. It is rare that something literally makes me laugh out loud. Enjoy. You can read the whole series here.

The Kingdom of God is like a Surprise During Church

One recent Sunday morning I played the piano for our Anglican church. The piano is electronic and has buttons that will change to practically any style of music. For our purposes it is usually set for grand piano, which is nice for the hymns and musical responses.

What I did that morning was quite unexpected to me and to the rest of the congregation. Our minister said afterward that it was about the second most memorable thing that has happened in the history of the church, the first being when they almost burned down the building during an Ash Wednesday service.

We had moved into the second part of the service which is the Eucharist. During this time of preparation for communion we have a lot of prayers, and with some we sing responses. Every time I think about what happened I can’t help but laugh, although at the time it didn’t seem quite appropriate. (I’ll just say right here that in telling this story I don’t mean to be sacrilegious at all, but share an analogy.)

After praying a corporate confession of sins and hearing assurances of forgiveness from scripture, our minister leads us into the next part by using these words from the 1928 Prayer Book:

It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God. THEREFORE with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore praising thee, and saying,

At this point we USUALLY reverently and majestically sing the following, also from the Prayer Book:

HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, Lord God of hosts,

Heaven and earth are full of thy glory:

Glory be to thee, O Lord Most High. Amen.

What happened instead was quite a surprise.

While the minister had been saying the introductory part, my finger accidently hit a button, changing the setting of the piano. I quickly tried to get it back to grand piano, and at one point it looked like it was. Instead, it must have been just scrolling through the different options.

When I played the first chord, it burst out into a very loud polka with a drumbeat.

Needless to say, it really livened up the service, and woke up some people who were feeling sleepy. Our minister was having a hard time keeping himself from laughing out loud. I quickly turned the volume down, lifted up my hands and calmly said, “I don’t know what to do.” A couple of years ago, I probably would have panicked and gotten shaky, but I really did stay calm this time.

The other pianist came and turned it off, then back on showing me that in doing so it would reset. (I must have been shown that before but did not remember at the time.) Anyway we got it fixed and proceeded with the service as our minister composed himself and repeated the call to praise and magnify our great God.

The kingdom of God is like an unexpected polka.

In our church services we pray the same prayers and sing the same responses every week. If we are not careful in that routine, we might just go through the motions not even thinking about what we are saying. Sometimes we need a wake up call, like a blast of the unfamiliar.

There are also times in our everyday life that we just go through the motions. We don’t always think about God or other people or anything in particular. It’s as if we are asleep to anything outside of our own sphere. Sometimes God throws out something very unexpected to wake us up and put us back on the right path.

The unexpected polka reminds me that God’s love for me is not based on my actions.  

It was a big mistake but He doesn’t disapprove of me because I caused a stir in Church. He knows I make mistakes but loves me just the same.

Our minister also said something that made a lot of sense. I don’t remember the exact words, but something to the effect that when we all stand before God with the angels and all the host of heaven, we probably won’t be singing very quietly. 

We will be shouting and dancing in joy and praise much like that unexpected polka.

Gayl Wright makes her home in beautiful upstate South Carolina. She is a seeker of truth who looks for beauty in ordinary things. A self-taught poet, photographer and artist, she loves to capture what she finds using her talents to encourage others and glorify God.  You can find Gayl on twitter, Instagram and her blog.

Yesterday I wrote about finishing well. Today I want to counter that with quitting.

I know that you don’t want to be a quitter. I don’t want to be a quitter either. Ever. For any reason. You were raised to not be a quitter probably. Probably you were told that quitting is always the easy way out. I think that is sometimes true. I am grateful for many times, especially in my growing up years that I didn’t quit, that I did push through, that I showed up even when I didn’t feel like it and I pushed through even when it was really hard. Those are great skills to have.

But sometimes… sometimes we just need to quit. We need to say, I thought this was for me and it isn’t. I thought this would serve me and you but it is actually serving neither of us. I thought this was a good idea, but I was wrong. Let’s do something else instead.

I think there are times when it is okay to quit. It is probably the right thing to do. Sometimes God asks us to, to leave room for something else. Sometimes something is just really really hurting us. It is okay to quit sometimes.

Scarcity says: I am never, ever allowed to quit. I have to keep going KEEP GOING! Forever into eternity. Scarcity tells me that if I quit I will let everyone down. The work I did up to the quitting point will not matter at all. I will lose all credibility. No one will love me (Scarcity loves to tell us our worth is based on what we do and we will be unlovable. Unlovable isn’t even real you guys. It is such a lie from the pit. Jesus says you are lovable. Period)

Abundance says: You are more than your failures. Sometimes things just don’t work and that is okay to admit. Abundance says there might just be an even better way this could work out that is only available if you gracefully bow out. Abundance says sometimes quitting is the hard, right thing to do. Sometimes considering quitting is the only way to get to abundance (even if we don’t actually do it. I thought about quitting 31 days. But I decided that was scarcity and not abundance. It is hard to hear the difference sometimes. This month has really helped me.)

I have been fighting scarcity for 31 days. You can start here if you want to. I would love that.

The 31 days challenge will be over in 4 days. If I am honest I am ready. It has been really good for me to write about scarcity for 31 days, but also it has been hard.

I am an ENFP on the Meyers-Briggs personality type. If I know anything about that type, I know this, we don’t finish things well. We get bored with the same old same old. Whether that means we get tired of the same thing for breakfast or lunch everyday, or the same clothes, or blogging for 31 days in a row. We, as my daughter likes to say about herself, “get distracted by shiny things.”

We do. We get distracted by shiny things, and in the age of the internet, where the news cycles constantly and anything could be trending on Twitter, but certainly not for longer than a couple of hours, it is hard to just show up to the keyboard for 31 days. It is also hard because of words like “passion” “calling” “doing what you love” I can sometimes believe that if it doesn’t feel good right now then I should just do something else.

Scarcity tells me that only the things worth feeling are the things worth doing. If this were the case no book would ever get written, or edited, or published. No lesson plans would ever get better, no surgeon would ever become a master at whichever kind of surgery they are an expert in. There would likely not be experts of any kind in any field and certainly no one would learn how to play an instrument. The doing doesn’t always feel good, and scarcity tells us that that is a reason enough to quit.

But abundance tells me to do it anyway. To show up. To finish. Abundance says that if you lean into the action the feeling will come if it is something you are supposed to be doing. Abundance says you don’t always have to feel like it. But you should do it anyway. The doing is worthwhile, that is what abundance says.