November 25 Christ the King is difficult for me in some ways. I do like that Roman Catholics pray for their separated brethren on this day. My trouble is the word king as an American. Indeed, I wonder if using the word is a projection onto jesus of our conceptions of what power should look like.How did Jesus use power during his life? How should the church seek to use or renounce power as being coercive instead of empowering?
Monday-This week closes the church year. So, it discloses our arbitrary divisions of time. It is a bold act of the church to refuse to fit its calendar with the secular calendar.When the two conflict, the church seems to lose. It comes to a liturgical conflict soon, when we decide when to start Christmas songs in church when the radio has been playing them since before Thanksgiving.
Tuesday-I saw the wonderful new film Lincoln recently in Edwardsville.I wrote a review for my online column for the Telegraph and on my blog. I don't know if I have ever seen a movie that so well matches nobility with political machinations, private and public grief, and the value and impact of storytelling by Lincoln as much as this film.It’s good that it came out in November for the is one of our secular national saints, and in thanksgiving that such a miraculous man rose to power when he did.
Wednesday-In the Bible, the end usually means not the finish, but the goal or the purpose, as in “the end justifies the means.” When people prattle on about seeing the Bible as predicting some cataclysmic end, they seem to disregard the biblical tension between a conclusion and the new beginning or restoration that almost always accompanies destructive images. May I suggest looking at the end time restoration images and then asking how the new creation would fit with god’s goal/purpose for our world?
Thursday-I don’t remember many times when we have had a full week after Thanksgiving. So, the extra time feels to me an unexpected gift. How to deal with the gift of extra time: in planning and preparation to lessen the feel of hectic wandering , or to let it pass by unnoticed and disregarded? May we allow the spirit of gratitude to pervade this extra week?
Friday-Back in Indiana we had a joint thanksgiving service for our two churches, and we invited the community as well. Some of the hardest working people scheduled time to take a 30 minute break from their duties and have worship together. Those same people put some real thought into the grace before meals as well. Usually, I would volunteer in the hospital chaplaincy, as our girls and I had our big celebration before or after the big day.So, my social work had an ulterior motive, of not facing solitude on a holiday.
Saturday-I heard a number of suggestions this year to use time during the holidays to gather family stories, medical histories, and time to chat about important decisions for the future, such as power of attorney. I applaud the idea fully. I would like to suggest that the gathering of family stories include some memories of religious faith, ritual, and questions over time. When we talk of serious matters, they may well be in a crisis, so this is a time to let a story unwind.
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