How often have you entertained this question? How acquainted are you with the uncertainty on the other side of the question mark? I know, for my part, there’s actually an uncomfortable love/hate familiarity to the unknowing, the unsure, the confusion.
I think probably even the Mary and the Joseph were staring at one another, holding their brand new infant son in the dark, in the hay, all alone asking themselves some sort of version of this one. Up until then they had received instructions from angels. “Hey Mary, heads up, you’ve found favor with God, you’re having a baby, savior of the nations, yada yada yada, be ready.”
“Hey Joseph, don’t freak out or anything, but Mary’s preggers. Don’t be afraid of taking her as your wife. Just go with it, yada yada yada, be ready.”
So they were somewhat ready for the first part of the plan, but not so much the giving birth part or the everything after that part. They must have wondered, “Where do we go from here?”
The other morning, for devotion, we read about the Magi following a curious star in the sky leading them to a place where a baby had been born. They probably asked themselves a form of the above question but more like, “I wonder where this will take us from here?” Not knowing the other side of the story, they took curious step after curious step until they came upon a little family.
This question may be the slogan for 2020. Or perhaps the silent confusion on the other side of this question was your slogan.
This year has been lots of question marks. THis year, for me, has also been a practice in taking charge of the language I use to describe the life I live. It became very very clear to me that telling the story of this year in one way produces a certain outcome while telling the story slightly differently produces another. And I discovered I prefer one narration over the other. I also discovered that I have permission to tell the story in a way that helps me be my best self instead of my defeated self. (Also: it took me almost three years to finally let this lesson sink it)
Rewriting the words. Rewriting the question. Allowing the whole story to be told and not just the bad parts (because we’re in love with the bad parts) and not just the good parts (because we’re in love with only the good parts). Tell all the things. The WHOLE life joys and sorrows, questions and answers, strength and weakness, laughter and tears. The whole life. Lost and directed, playful and serious. All of it.
Where can I go from here? Where can’t I go from here? Where is today asking me to go from here? Where must I go in order to get where I ultimately wish to be?
I know a very wise, curious, playful, man of God who let me in on an idea of his surrounding gratitude, openness, wonder and love. So I ask myself: Where can I go from here? WHere can I go from here in gratitude? Where can I go from here in openness? Where can I go from here in Love? Where can I go from here in wonder?
Those lovely little words turn that big empty question into something gentle and lovely and grace-filled. Tonight the gentle, lovely, grace-filled incarnation of our God is celebrated. Humble, forgotten, ignored, while the world was puttering along and only some scraggly shepherds got the news from a band of angels to go check it out. It was a very 2020 type of night.
The baby would grow up knowing where he was going. First to Egypt, then to his father’s house, then to a desert, then to a garden, then to trial and then the cross. To free up, poor wanderers of the question and give us the answer. Home. We’re meant for a home filled with grace and truth, mercy and love meant for ALL PEOPLE of EVERY AGE and TIME. Release of the captives, freedom from those things that would bind us up now and forevermore. Merry Christmas.