My Chains

 In case you want to listen to some great music once you've read the first bit...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkTsbbrFQEg&index=2&list=PL9cpYnkl2A41SiIh6gCqhIYfauMerXlP7

When I was a girl my mom used to take me and my three sisters to the Lorie Line Christmas concert every year.  We'd dress up and go to dinner on the way to downtown, usually Olive Garden; microwaved Italian never tasted so good.  We'd park and feel so cultured walking in our Sunday best to the Orpheum theater.

I loved those concerts so much.  We'd jingle our limited edition, just made for that years' concerts, holiday bells.  Us 5 ladies singing away and enjoying the anticipation of the Christmas season to the fullest.  What wonderful memories you made for us mom.

Now I still listen to Lorie's Christmas albums.  I play her music on the piano.  Each time remembering the magic of those concerts and how much my mom LOVED her music.

I married a man who is the most objective person in the world when it comes to music.  I? just love when it gets me in the gut; when it's connected to something or some time that mattered to me.
Fun bonus fact? Lorie and her family went to our church growing up and once in a Blue Moon she'd play for the congregation.  Talk about celebrity sightings!  Wayzata is practically LA! ;o)

So here I sit anticipating another Christmas.  My children all in the perfect stages of big enough to love and get it, still young enough to believe it all.

 Christmas has morphed for me so much in the past few years.  The child like giddiness is all but gone but in it's place is a calm and steady desire to simply enjoy this season and share in the joy and share THE joy as much as I can.

Our remarkable interim pastor started out advent season preaching about  reflection and regret.  We were handed tiny chain links upon our entry to the sanctuary and the service started with a jarring and amazing  soliloquy by a gifted parishioner of the Jacob Marley speech from "A Christmas Carol".  The sermon later stated that while our economy would love you to see the time before Christmas as solely a time to purchase and plan and buy some more, our hearts and our God want us to look back and think hard about the parts about us that we don't like; the things we've done and said that we wished we hadn't; the chains we've forged in life.

After the service I joked with Ian "well that wasn't relevant to me at all."

Of course it's relevant, to us all.  We live in a time where everyone is trying so desperately to put their best food forward.  I mean I have a preschool mom taking her daughter out of school for a month so she can get a boob job for goodness sakes! (seriously trying not to judge you guys, but a boob job?!)

I personally can think of a multitude of regrets.  Times I haven't handled things well, yelled when I shouldn't have, really damaged relationships and not done the right thing at all.  Worse yet are the bad patterns and habits that make these regrets regular occurrences.  Depressing right?

Truthfully I am so thankful for the frankness of our new pastor.  He talks about the hard things which is teaching me that by talking about, and dealing with, the hard things, we grow and we get better.

It feels good to be allowed to be contemplative and a bit sad this time of year.  As adults we know the long winter is coming, we know that at any turn life can change and life in the best and most beautiful of circumstances, is still hard.  We look at the children around us, seeing the magic and pure joy, and feel simultaneous glee and despair.  We know we can never feel that pure magic again.

Yet the circle of life lets the magic live on in our children.

Louise had a poetry assignment earlier this year that started and ended with her first and last names, in between she filled in lines about her personality.  Her first line stated that she was spiritual.  I've never heard her use that word before.  I was so filled with joy that she feels and acknowledges that about herself.

I can newly acknowledge my spirituality as well. I can also recognize my faults and downfalls and at the same time my strengths.  How can I break the chains I have forged?

I know I can start with this Christmas season.  We can have our joy, but first we must have our contemplation.

Define our regrets, change our ways, live in the most good and full ways that we can.  THIS is the Christmas I strive for this year.

AMEN!