​On Sunday night, my spouse and I were driving home from my parents’ house in Grundy Center following our family Christmas get together. The gathering was originally slated for Saturday, however, Mother Nature had other plans, as an ice storm blanketed most of the region. So, following worship on Sunday, we made our way up to gather together, leaving us to drive home in the dark.

This, in and of itself, is always an adventure. What, with the constant game of “Is that a deer or a mailbox?” that we are forced to play–particularly this time of year. But Sunday night brought with it an even greater degree of difficulty caused by your friend and mine:  Fog. 

So, through the dark of night and the blur of fog, we set our course through Grundy County and part of Marshall County. Through part of Tama County and Poweshiek County, and finally Mahaska County. The trip seemed to take FOREVER–much longer than the usual two hours. The dark always seems to have a way of doing that though–making distances seem stretched. And the fog only serves to add a particular slog to the whole journey.

At times, I would get disoriented–thinking that we were much further in our travels than we actually were. Only to see the faint lights of a town’s welcome sign emerge from the dark and the blur of fog to find that we had so much more distance to go. At other times, the fog closed in so tightly, that it felt like we were the only ones on earth moving. But then, just as it seemed as if the fog might swallow us and our little car whole, headlights would emerge from what just moments before had seemed like an unending blanket of grey. We weren’t the only ones moving that night–no matter how much the dark skies and the bleary fog made it seem like it.

One thing I know for sure is that life has a way of bringing us to moments when the night closes in, and the fog settles in. During those times it can feel as if we are the only ones suffering, or the only ones going through a rough patch. We can feel isolated and alone. The holidays, I think, have a way of creating similar conditions for some of us.

Even as we gather with family members, we’ll find our thoughts drifting to Christmas pasts, when loved ones who have since departed were still celebrating with us. When our hearts felt more full. When we felt more alive. In our remembering, we often find that we are met with an ache and a deep sense of longing. And all of it can close in on us–cloaking us in a kind of dark and drab night of the soul that can–at times–feel as if it might swallow us whole too.

My friends, if you find that you are in this kind of fog this Advent and Christmas, please keep inching your way forward. Please keep your eyes on the Advent path. Please keep the vehicle of your heart between the lines on the road. I promise you–I. PROMISE. YOU.– the Light is coming. The fog is not actually swallowing you whole. The dark will not go on forever. Light will eventually emerge from what just moments before seemed like an unending blanket of grey. The way will be made clear again.

Knowing this will not burn off the fog any sooner, and may not tear the veil of the night in two, but maybe, just maybe, it might give you just enough of the stuff you need to keep going despite the darkness and despite the fog. And maybe that is the best gift I can offer you this time of year–a gift much like the gift you all have offered me. The gift of knowing that there’s headlights out in that fog–just waiting to meet us. There is, in fact, a Light traveling toward us that the darkness cannot overcome. Be encouraged.

For the last time in 2024–I’m on the journey with you,
Pr. Melissa 

​On Sunday evening I was watching football while writing Christmas cards. Out of nowhere, the corner of my left eye saw something blink. I turned my head, but saw nothing. I continued to work. I fiddled with an envelope, then caught it again. Blink. Head turn. Nothing. Then I placed the address labels on the envelope, peeled back another snowflake stamp, and began to place it somewhat nicely in the upper right hand corner of the envelope. Blink. Blink. Head turn. Nothing. Finally, just as I was sealing the envelope, a moment of rapid blinking occurred. I turned my head to the left just in time to see part of the bottom row of our pre-lit Christmas tree go out. 

Sighing deeply, I pushed away my tray table and bent over part of the tree. I wiggled a few light bulbs…nothing. I pulled out a couple of light bulbs and then pushed back in…still nothing. Then I did what we all do in this day and age when something stops working the way we want it to work…I rebooted. Or, at least I rebooted in the manner that one reboots a Christmas tree…I turned it off, gave it a minute, then turned it back on…nothing.

Having reached the end of my electrical skill set, I knew that there were really only two options remaining:  1) Leave it alone and try not to let the area void of light bother me for the rest of the season; or 2) Sit down and go through each bulb to try to find the one that shorted the rest of them out without pulling down the whole tree and all of its ornaments in the process. As I let my back settle into the softness of the couch, I knew which option I was going to choose. I would leave the lights alone. I would stay off of YouTube trying to find “life hacks” that would help easily find the problematic bulb. I would address the issue more thoroughly when the season was over.

Fr. Richard Rohr once wrote that, “All great spirituality is about letting go. Instead, we have made it to be about taking in, attaining, performing, winning, and succeeding. True spirituality echoes the paradox of life itself. It trains us in both detachment and attachment: detachment from the passing so we can attach to the substantial. But if we do not acquire good training in detachment, we may attach to the wrong things, especially our own self-image and its desire for security.” 

Now, I will be the first to admit that choosing not to tackle the tree lights was not about acquiring some great spiritual discipline. It was not about practicing detachment. It was about fatigue and a general disinterest in using my very limited free time to do something I loathe. But that doesn’t mean that that’s ALL letting go of a fully lit tree had to be.

What if for all of these years I have gotten spiritual practices and transformation all wrong? Maybe learning to let go is no big, epiphanous moment in which I make a decision to let go and then–through sheer grit and determination–force myself to comply. Maybe spiritual practice is less like setting an intention or creating a resolution, and more like learning to listen to ourselves in moments when it would be so easy to listen to the “have to’s” and the “supposed to’s” and the “gotta be’s.” Could it be that in listening to my mind and my body tell me that there was no bandwidth for finding the burned out bulb right now that I was actually practicing letting go?

In a sermon on 1 John 4:9, Meister Eckhart said, “God asks only that you get out of God’s way and let God be God in you.” I wonder if that’s what spiritual practices really are? Not one more thing that we have to take on, try to do, or try to be, but rather, the ordinary, everyday moments when we get to choose whether or not we will get out of God’s way so that God can be God in us? Like, maybe God is just waiting on us to stop doing all of the things, conquering every issue that comes along all by ourselves, or gutting everything out. Maybe God is waiting for us to drop the facades we all walk around with that give the impression that we can do all of the things and be all of the things for everybody. Maybe God is just waiting for us to stop worshiping the gods of our own making–success, financial freedom, winning, performing–and finally let God be God for us–in us. And maybe noticing and allowing that to happen–allowing God to happen–IS, in the end, the spiritual practice?

I’m not sure. Maybe that’s a stretch. Maybe it’s only a stretch for someone still learning to detach? You’ll have to decide for yourself. As for me and my house, we will have a tree with one section unlit.

On the journey through Advent with you,
Pr. Melissa

​On Monday morning I woke up–as many of you did–to snow. I knew there was a chance of snow when I went to bed on Sunday night, but I didn’t really think there would be snow of any significance…I was wrong. It wasn’t a lot of snow–just enough to blanket the earth with something beautiful, soft, and light. And it was just enough to be inconvenient.  

I’m just never ready for the first snow. I’m never ready to admit that winter is truly here. I’m never ready to begin doing the “penguin shuffle” on driveways, stairways, and sidewalks so as to steady myself in case there are icy patches hiding beneath the white fluff. I’m never ready to admit that time has run out on all of the things I had promised myself that I would get to “before the snow flies.”

For example, that morning as I was pushing the snow on our driveway with a shovel, I kept running into patches of grass in the driveway cracks. Now, I had looked at those patches of crabgrass and weeds every day. And every day I had promised myself that I would make time to pull it all out. I would get it done “before the snow flies” so that the shovel would run smoothly over the top and the snowblower wouldn’t go shooting grass clumps out of its auger. On Monday, that promise was unfulfilled. Sure, this snow would likely melt. And, yeah, there’s a chance I could still get that grass pulled when it does. But honestly, it was looking a lot less likely.

As I ran into those grass clumps, I cursed my former self. I grumbled at the version of me who had decided to do all kinds of other things–have supper with my spouse, play with my dogs, work late, go visit someone in the hospital, watch football, do nothing and rest–anything other than dig out grass clumps from driveway cracks.

After running my shovel into yet another clump, I looked up in frustration…and saw my spouse. They were sweeping snow off the driveway with my shop broom. There they were, out in their shorts and tennis shoes, enjoying the cool morning helping me move snow. They can’t shovel snow because of a health condition, and they can’t help if the snow is wet and heavy, but on Monday morning, the snow was just right, and they could help. 

As I looked down our long driveway in the early morning light, as snow continued to fall, I felt my heart warm. I smiled at my spouse, and suddenly the grass patches didn’t matter quite as much. They were still there, mind you, but they were no longer beacons of my poor time management. They were not monuments to my own personal failures. They were a gift I didn’t know I needed–those grass clumps had gotten me to look up.

On Sunday in my homily, I shared that the focus of Advent is the path, and how we are called to make the paths straight–to prepare the way for God’s tenderness to make its way to us. I shared that we each are tasked with seeing what obstacles on our paths might be getting in the way of us experiencing the God’s unwavering adoration for each of us. I still believe all of that to be true. But on Monday morning, one other thing proved itself to be true as well:  Sometimes the obstacles in our path get us to stop long enough to look around and see the ways God’s tenderness has already arrived to greet us.

That morning, the grass clumps stopped me long enough to see the person I love, in the snow, doing what they could–not what they couldn’t–to help out with something they usually cannot help with. Those grass clumps stopped me long enough to take in the moment, to savor what is good and right in my life and in the world. Those grass clumps were a gift that allowed me to see God’s tenderness already setting up shop in our driveway–in my life.

So this week, I want to invite you to keep your focus on the path just as we spoke about on Sunday. But I also want to invite you to not curse the obstacles that you find along the way. I want to invite you to give those obstacles a chance to be a gift. To get you to look up long enough to see how God’s adoration and tenderness have already found you. 

Letting the obstacles of the path surprise me, and hoping they surprise you too,
Pr. Melissa