In the Goop - Advent 19
Friends! So much comes out when a baby is born.
I’ve always loved Christmas.
I love the lights. The eggnog. The music (non-stop til the 25th!)
But again, this year, the brand that we have come to know as Christmas feels void of any real hopeful significance. The world has always been chaotic…. but in the midst of a divisive and exhausting political year, images of racial injustices, a devastating global pandemic, the overwhelming stream of information that mostly tells us that we’re all doomed…. lights, tinsel, and peppermint lattes just don’t seem to matter.
The curated clean aesthetics of safe shepherds, safe stables, safe and secure stars, angels, wise men, etc…. just don’t make sense. That message of hope is as understandable as Charlie Brown’s parents in this world on the brink of fearful despair.
Surprisingly, what IS hopeful is the opposite of a polished and well branded birth story... which is a messy and scandalous vision of vulnerable weakness.
Everything about the Holy Mystery incarnating through the vulnerable process of human birth confronts all our ideas of Overcoming Power. The powerlessness of a writhing crying newborn. The chaos of not having a sanitized place to birth. The shocking biology of it all. The mucus plug. The placenta. I’ve witnessed three births and all brought me to tears. It’s a beautiful experience… but not in any safe way. The water, the blood, the body fluids.
Friends! So much comes out when a baby is born. Like a clown car of human soup. Sometimes the mother poops while birthing. It’s a detail mostly left out of their baby birth books.
A Saving Way came into the world just like we did... in all of goopy humanity. There is something overwhelmingly sacred this year for me to meditate on that. That the Christ was born of blood… like we are. That the Christ partook in the powerless vulnerability of coming into the world… like we feel. That the Christ was born into the shit…. which we never seem to get out of...
Go Santa. Go presents. Go manger scenes. Go Best Buy gift cards. Go all of it.
But for me the magic of Christmas this year is knowing that the saving Christ has always been in the shit With Us.
And still is.
And always will be.
These meditations are a freely given visual offering for this Advent season.
Thank you for following along.
Most of them originated from my book Honest Advent….
Which is available where all books are sold.
I’ve followed Scott for years and this was the post that made me a subscriber.
Scott, you may get shit for saying “shit.” But not from me. Your words are honest, and reflect my experience of a Christ who does not turn away from any aspect of my humanity, who never leaves me to deal with my mess alone, is not ashamed of my (smelly in all the ways) limitations. You’re right that we lose the magic when we whitewash the yuck from the story. Thank you, Scott. Looking forward to more.