A Season of Helplessness

(Editor's note: We just got back from having a fantastic weekend with everyone in Mass, and I want to post pictures and write about our time....but this has been weighing heavily on me, and I wanted to present this first. I will post some pictures later tonight or tomorrow....thanks.)


Each night during the season of Advent, Callum and Maira open doors of our "Advent Calendar" which counts down the days until Christmas Eve. Inside every door, there is a magnet designed as some type of component of the Nativity scene in Bethlehem so many many years ago. Tonight, for example, Maira unwrapped Joseph, last night Callum unwrapped a camel, and so on and so forth...

The point that I am getting at is this: Each night, that empty, desolate manger becomes more decorated and more full and and more emblazoned with color and people and animals and stars until, on the last night before Christmas, the precious babe is placed in the cradle of the manger.

Over the past several days I have truly been wrestling with myself in terms of how to react to the tragedy that occurred in that doomed elementary school in Newtown, CT. In my prayers, for once, I was truly speechless; how does one talk to God about something so deeply abysmal? Even asking to comfort those affected seemed just...well....so out of place; the tragedy cut so deep that I didnt even know where to start. As a parent (and as a teacher) I was (and still am) at a loss of what to even say. And then, the other night, while my four year old son placed a humble magnetic sheep onto the manger scene, it dawned on me that Christmas is a season of helplessness. And, therein, there is true beauty.

The most difficult part of this Newtown disaster, for me, is reconciling with the virtual helplessness these children faced--how in the world could they even stand a chance....how could they even do ANYTHING when faced with a deranged psychopathic killer? Their fragile, undeveloped minds must have been horrified at what they were facing. They needed their moms and their dads, and their moms and their dads were nowhere to be found. Complete and utter loneliness.

But, then, is this not unlike the story of Christmas? As Christians believe, Christmas Eve was the night when a completely and utterly helpless child was born in the most humble of all places--the odds were completely against him--and his parents--as they negotiated treacherous travel and murderous people, all so they could finally be turned away from help when they needed it most. What a helpless and hopeless scene it must have been for a mother in labor with her beautiful child...with Joseph, who wasnt even the father, trying his best to fill the fatherly role and take care of his family. Complete and total helplessness.

And then, as the story goes, what happened was miraculous. And still is.

We learn in the story of Christmas that the Angel of the Lord came upon the shepherds and told them not to be afraid. Why should these shepherds have believed this? The times in which they lived were nerve-wracking and treacherous and dishonest and scary. Much like today. And we learn that the wise men followed the Christmas star as a 'beacon' to lead them to the baby Jesus. In our darkest hours as a nation and as individual families do we not follow the same star? Do we need not gravitate toward hope of some type--wherever and however it can be found--when it seems that there could BE no hope? Are we not conditioned, innately, as humans to 'just believe' that something good will happen?

Christmas is, indeed, a season of helplessness. It is a story rooted in it, for it could not be as strong and as beautiful and as everlasting if it were not. To me, there is nothing in the world so helpless as a child--whether this child be the newest baby at Thayer hospital or a 5th grader in Newtown CT or the infant Christ child himself. All are helpless. All are in need. And, for many who arent babies or children, this is a season of loneliness and despair--the forced 'happiness' we are told to experience (whether through our movies or carols or songs or greeting card images, etc) puts a lot of pressure on us. And, I would suggest, that this pressure might be too great for some to endure


But just as Christmas a season of helplessness, Christmas is, ultimately, a season of joy--true, unspeakable, unfathomable joy. But how? And how, in the wake of what has happened in our nation this week, can there be joy? There simply is no coming to terms with this. There is nothing any poet or songwriter or counselor can say to 'make this better.' Not even a bit. But think back to the story of Christmas--true Christmas--when the shepherds and the animals and the wisemen and all the people found joy in the most unexpected of all places: The Savior of the world born in a disheveled and humble and mere barn. Today it is no different: On Christmas morning we look, of all places, underneath a living tree we have cut down and brought into our house...we find joy, wrapped up with a bow, exactly where we would least think it would be....

So unexpected

So perfectly right and beautiful.

May we continue to find joy and peace and salvation in all of those unexpected places; in the midst of the personal, spiritual, and national tragedies we face, may we be completely and totally surprised with  joy and  peace. May we realize that, just as God gave his own son as a gift to all the children of the world that we, the children, are in turn a perpetual gift right back to God. And, lastly, may our own 'mangers' be resplendent and full of those things we truly need in order to be warmed and nourished and provided for on even those most helpless and hopeless of nights.