What I learned over Advent
About surviving
This Advent I had a daily practice of reading and reflecting on the book, “All Creation Waits,” by Gayle Boss. I shared some thoughts about a turtle nearly a month ago. That was the last time I wrote on Substack. I’ve been resting in a burrow ever since. I didn’t feel like writing. I didn’t worry too much about that. I sensed I needed to lower my temperature for a time, like the animals I was reading about.
This may have been the best Advent/Christmas season for me, personally, ever. I get a sense that many of us hit an emotional bottom in late November early December. We grew fearful of the future, and then we turned our fear over. In other words, I heard a lot of people waiting, quieting, emptying out, as did I. I gave myself permission to simply stare at trees, squirrels, deer, the sky, the stars, the moon, the cold, the fire in the fireplace, and people. I stopped inhaling books, and read just a little bit, not so much I couldn’t fully digest what I was reading. I listened to music, walked, ate, attended church and received communion every Sunday, went regularly to recovery meetings, went on an all day Advent Retreat, and daily took care of just one other person’s basic needs. That is all.
Now that I’ve read those 24 advent stories, about 24 very unique and different creatures, I’m thinking about how their lives might speak to mine, and ours. How different are we from the other animals? And how are we similar? We have “things” that make our lives easier, if we are lucky enough to be housed, which they don’t have. And I’m sure glad to have them. Like heat, and hot water, and farmers who make our food.
There is one thing they have however, that we don’t, and I wish we did.
Each of the diverse creatures I “studied” this Advent, has a unique, unshakeable, survival plan to get them through the cold and hungry season. I was fascinated by the chickadee’s plan. In the winter it eats all day, then drops its body temp at night to save energy, as so many animals do. But even with that amazing ability, overnight the bird burns through all the calories it has spent all day accumulating, and out it must venture again, in the morning.
Here’s the miraculous thing though. The chickadee doesn’t just frantically, fearfully, fly about all day, hoping to find a seed here or there, or scan for random bird feeders holding seeds the busy squirrels have not yet devoured. It has a treasure map in its brain. It has actually memorized where it has hidden thousands of seeds over the previous months! The chickadee’s “brain’s memory center has been growing since late summer, adding neurons to record the location of every seed.” Holy Mother of God!
And that means, inside the chickadee’s skull, there is a map of its half mile territory, “with an x marking each flap of tree bark or log crack,” where they’ve stashed a seed. There are thousands of these hidden stashes. I think about this when I walk through the woods, how I’m surrounded by evidence of lives I can’t see. I am more careful now when I lean on a tree, I don’t want to dislodge someone’s tiny stash.
And then, get this: “As he [the chickadee] eats them [those hidden stashes], the map and his hippocampus shrink.” What? At first I thought, oh no! No fair, s/he’ll have to start all over again, make a whole new map. But then I thought, how magical, it’s like the disappearing ink in a children’s story. Cool.
And now, as I write this, the disappearing mind map says to me: Only what is needed. Nothing more. And then a Bible verse comes floating back to me, one that was read out loud, at some point in this season. From Luke, Chapter 3. The crowd asks John the Baptist: “What should we do then?” John answers, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” Only what is needed.
But, at some point, reading these survival stories I thought, jeez, it’s SO damn hard for the animals. This is kind of depressing. Such a struggle just to survive. What is there to take from this? What is the author trying to say about us, about Advent?
I kept on, and on, and as I read I felt closer and closer to the natural world around me, even as it became even more mysterious, grandly invisible. I thought, these animals all come close to the edge, every winter, but they are wired to make it through to the other side. Sure there are predators, and they won’t all make it; but there is a map, and all they have to do is follow it. And they always do. They can’t not follow it. They have no reason not to follow it. It is how they are made, it is how they stay alive.
So of course I have to ask: Is there a plan for us, by our very human nature? Our spiritual nature especially. [For me spirituality is about connection, being connected to our own deepest selves, to nature, to other people, to God.] And if there is a plan for us, do we humans have a map showing us how to navigate it? Where? Is it hidden in our psyches? Our souls? If so, why do we so often choose not to follow it? Do we have a choice? Is it because we have a choice (that good old ‘free will’) that we lose sight of the map’s lines, get so frustrated trying to figure out who we are, what we are meant to do, and be, and what the purpose of life is?
Most religions would say yes, there is a grand plan. And yes, there is a map. Christianity would say the plan is God’s and the Bible is the map. But if God has a plan, is it so clear to all Christians? Not. Different sects of Christianity violently disagree on what the plan is, and how much of it is up to us to enact, hence the incredibly vast gulf between different “types” of Christians.
Is that also part of the plan? Are our disagreements, our theological sparring, our thousands of years of conflict, a part of God’s plan? Is so, does that mean “the plan” is more like a process? Hmm.
In the Episcopal church on Christmas Eve you hear the story of Adam and Eve read first. That seems odd at Christmas time. That story can be so hard to hear too, given all the baggage that gets piled onto Eve’s back regarding that dang piece of fruit.
The good news is, the story of Adam and Eve raises more questions than it settles. So forget all those hidebound Eve-as-the-evil-witch stories. There are so many amazing tilts to that kaleidoscopic story (as with every Biblical story). The misogynistic take on it, while it has horribly imprinted on the world’s psyche, and affected our daily lives, is by far not the only take on the story.
All of that aside, the story quite simply raises the core issue of human suffering. It makes the point that humans do suffer (childbirth and physical labor being the emblematic examples). And theology makes an attempt to tell us why we suffer. There are various answers, the most simplistic answer being: disobedience to God. And the story then can be seeing as asking us: and how will suffering end?
The Christmas readings jump over the question of why we suffer, and land on the answer of how suffering can be overcome. Which is the reason we’re gathered on the 24th and 25th. Jesus is the end of suffering, and the beginning of the life God wants for us.
Because the birth of Jesus didn’t instantly solve the problem of suffering, some Christians wait for a re-appearance of Christ. That is how the problem of suffering will finally be resolved. They hone in on a hoped for perfect future, whether it will happen here on earth or in an afterlife. This feels like a one pointed, single minded, grasping after a simple answer that misses the message. Which is not to say I wouldn’t welcome a re-appearance of the Healer. BRING IT ON! This life as it is can be tiring.
Nevertheless, most Christians have, quietly, for thousands of years, been trying to end suffering by learning how to live as Christ lived. We ask ourselves, and each other, how can we be God’s hands and feet, and heart? In other words, we are trying to read the invisible map Jesus drew in the sand, the one already imprinted within all of us, and in the spaces between us. It’s not really that complicated, the map, it’s right there in how he lived, in what he emphasized.
So why does it feel like we still have no survival map in cold, scary, spiritually hungering times? Is it because we want more than the simplicity Jesus’ life offers us? Is it because the map of his life does not give us enough control over our own lives? Are we afraid we’d have to give up too much? Is it because if we live as he lived, other-focused, non-materialistic, loving our enemies, emotionally generous, our egos would go whoosh and deflate? And how scary would that be? Would it mean we’d have to give away that extra coat, shoes? Make that extra coats, extra shoes. Would we have to give up worrying about having enough money to retire in comfort? (exactly how rich was he talking about when he said it would be harder for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle than to get into heaven?) Only what is necessary. Or is the whole mess we’re in, have always been in, maybe always will be in, on this revolving Earth laboratory, about how, like Adam and Eve, and unlike all of the rest of creation, we are simply terrible at following directions?