Advent 2023, Day 13 - Something Else is Also Happening
Something Else is Also Happening
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. —JOHN 14:27 (NIV )
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2023
There’s a wonderful trick I do when I am very afraid, and it’s a game called “Something Else Is Also Happening.”
It goes like this.
I’ll be having a truly terrible moment, like I’m getting my blood drawn in a dark basement of the hospital, and then I decide that’s not the only thing going on. So I tell the bloodwork nurse that it’s probably not a coincidence that he’s brought me somewhere discreet to feast on my rich, delicious, B+ blood. And there’s always like a horrible moment where he stares at me and then there’s a terrible silence. But then he begins to lightly stroke the inside of my elbow crease, as if just considering it for the first time. And then he says something like, “I always ask for the night shift.” And then I’m like, there it is! I’m not just someone who has lots of health problems. I am living an exciting plotline with a nurse who’s pretending to be a vampire.
“Something Else Is Also Happening” is a great addition to sadness or anger or fear or any number of emotions that rise up in the face of suffering. A sort of absurd perspective-pull into something else taking place alongside my pain or fear or anger. Like the time I got very interested in my intake nurse’s dating history. Not to erase the pain or fear but to give myself permission to care about something else for a minute, too.
So then, what are we to make of Jesus’ words when he says to his disciples, “Don’t be afraid.” Easy for him to say. God is God after all. But maybe that’s actually the point. Maybe Jesus knows that something-else-that-is-also-happening too. That’s the meaning-making Jesus offers: His presence. At Christmas as God-in-human-flesh, God with us. As the Easter-risen-Savior who says, “Don’t be afraid. It’s me!” And then as the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth to be with us even unto the end of the age. A story far bigger than our fear or anxiety or anger. A story we can find ourselves inside.
READ THIS BLESSING FROM THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE
for the gift of doubt (p. 100)
Blessed are we remembering that you hold all things together.
You are the invisible scaffolding that supports us, the canopy of love that covers us in the present, the stable pillars, sunk deep into our past, and the sparrow that flies confidently toward the future bearing for us the peace we could never have attained for ourselves.
REFLECT
1. When talking about peace, Jesus said, “I do not give to you as the world gives” (John 14:27). What do you think he meant? What is the peace of the world? What is the peace of Christ?
2. We sometimes try to console ourselves or others by trying to make sense of our troubles. Do explanations work for you? Always, sometimes, never? If not, what works better?
3. Imagine Jesus was sitting with you right now. What would you say to him? What troubling doubts or awkward questions might arise? What comforts or consolations?
GOING DEEPER
• Like Kate’s game of “Something Else is Happening,” how might the art of the absurd be a comfort for you? Listen to Kate’s conversation with the absurdly funny writer, Jenny Lawson: “The Art of the Absurd” (40 min).
• Song suggestion: “The Road, The Rocks, and The Weed” by John Mark McMillan (3:36), also on our Advent Playlist. This song reflects on a God who comes down and suffers with us.
• In Kate’s conversation with historian Michael Ignatieff, he spoke about how comfort and consolation are different. Human comfort can come with a hug or a look of concern from someone we trust, but consolation goes deeper. It gives us a reason to go on. Notice, Michael didn’t say that consolation gives us a reason for why the bad thing happened. When speaking about his grief after the death of his younger brother, he says: “This is not Hallmark greeting card time. When you’ve been hit by something that hard, you have a right to expect that your friends will choose their words very carefully because we’ve all got a very good detector for what’s false. And there are very few forms of consolation we actually trust.” Listen to this conversation with Michael Ignatieff on how to genuinely keep pace with someone who is suffering (5 min).
Full Episode: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/where-we-turn-for-meaning/
• In John 14:16-17, Jesus tells his friends that the Holy Spirit will come and be with them forever. Jesus calls this spirit the Comforter, another Advocate (another one who is just like himself), and the Spirit of truth. Truth is a reality that lies outside ourselves, one we don’t have to make up. What do you imagine the relationship is between truth and peace? How does reality create a sense of peace in your own experience?
From "Bless the Advent we Actually Have" by Kate Bowler and The Everything Happens Project