I'm the kind of person
(the only person?) who listens to Christmas music year round. If I'm anxious
or sad, I feel greatly soothed when I pop in Christmas with the Rat
Pack or Stars of Christmas or any of the dozen or so Christmas CDs
that are omnipresent in my car's armrest. Sure, there's no snow or glow from
bulbed trees or any of the holiday ambiance I love, but Frank crooning
"The Christmas Waltz" or even--heaven help me--Mariah squealing how
badly she wants you under her tree brings me close enough to the cozy
enchantment of the Christmas.
I recreate Christmas on
soupy summer days and wet spring ones because I never feel more love
from God as I do at Christmas time. It's during Advent that I
really feel "saved:" joyously relieved and full of hope because
someone has come to make it all better--someone loves me enough to swap my
messy world for his pristine heaven. And it's so much easier for me
to remember this live in December, when everyone's talking about it. My heart
feels fizzy and light every time I hear "the hopes and fears of all the
years are met in thee tonight" or "for unto you is born this day...a
Savior." I could listen to Linus recite Matthew's verses for Charlie
Brown on a 24 hour loop and still click "replay" at the top of hour
25.
Feeling more love in
the world, from the world, and for the world during Advent sounds like a
good thing...but shouldn't I say the Easter season is the time I most feel
God's love? After all, isn't that when Jesus completes the real work of
our salvation?
For me, Lent has always
been a period of mourning, austerity, and something akin to shame.
I've made it more about damnation than salvation, which is to say I've
made it more about me than about God. This year I want to try
experiencing Lent a new way; I want to look at Christ's trials as acts of love
instead of feeling nothing but guilt for his suffering. Because I
feel guilt and shame 364 days/year. (Christmas Eve, of course, is the
exception).
You see, I hate myself.
And I think that if I hate myself then I don't fully love God. Instead,
I'm challenging, disbelieving the same limitless power of his love that I
profess as a Christian. Cerebrally I know God loves me, but I know it
like I know the earth is round. It's a truth that's always existed and a fact I
never doubt, but it's a fact whose subtleties I don't perceive. When I drive a
car, I hug the curve of the earth, but don't feel like I'm moving in a
circle or an arc. When I sin I know that its violent punishment has already
been served, but I nonetheless abuse myself for committing it. In my mind
there loops a ticker of faults and failings and countless things I regret
saying. That ticker gets significantly longer every day and runs over a
chorus of, "Jennifer, you are disgusting. I hate you. God, I'm sorry
I'm so disgusting. I hate how disgusting I am. Please forgive me." I
commit a sin even as I confess my sin. In sum, mine is a confiteor in
need of a confiteor.
Self-hate, I think, is my
biggest sin. And by that I mean it is--at this moment in my life--the tallest
wall separating me from God. It's entirely self-constructed and keeps me from
both embracing him and becoming more like him. To be more like God, I have to
love me, too.
All this is to say that my project for Lent 2012 is to love in myself a
few of the things God loves in me. It will be a kinder, gentler penitence
that demands some extent of mercy on myself. It feels wholly uncomfortable and
out of place this time of year, but tempered with fasting, abstinence, and
charity, I hope to fully feel the love that prompted Christ to willfully suffer
for me. Then come Easter morning, I can sing Alleluia with complete joy.
And when we sing the word out of season, I'll be filled with the same
cozy enchantment of Advent. It just might become a new Christmas song to
sing unto the Lord.
