The calendar gave us an early Thanksgiving this year and it seems like it has been an eon between turkey and Advent. But I am ready for Advent. I need Advent right now. I need it more than I need Christmas. Advent might be the most real that the Christian faith gets. It is darkness and defiant hope. It rages against the powerful who pay lip service to God but leave the marginalized out in the cold. Advent is when we stand in the thick of Already and Not Yetness of the Reign of God. When we sit alongside those waiting for Immanuel and wait ourselves for when all shall be made right. 

I was typing away at Starbucks this morning as the playlist in the room changed from the coffeehouse’s typical brand fo corporate indie to eclectic Christmas grab bag. Somewhere in the midst of things “Last Christmas” started playing and, for some reason, I started overanalyzing the song.

Last Christmas I gave you my heart
The very next day you gave it away

That’s rough. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Maybe not on Christmas. It’s more like a random Tuesday in March, but it stings nonetheless. But on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas where there’s already a melancholy holiday hangover (in America, I think the day is actually more festive in George Michael’s UK. Or not, maybe it just involves a lot of watching BBC. I don’t know), that cuts deep. I see why you’re singing this song, person.

I have written about Furman quite a bit over the years but haven’t this season. It was’t any sort of conscious decision. I haven’t written much about anything this season. But here’s the quick version of what’s up: 

The Paladins finished 3-8 last season which led to our new coach Clay Hendrix being hired. We were picked to finish 7th in the conference and started the season 0-3. We then reeled off 7 straight in dominating fashion, which put us in position to win a share of the conference championship this past weekend if we defeated Samford in Birmingham (who was ranked higher than us and also playing for a playoff spot).

We lost 26-20 and it was sad. But then we still got an at-large bid to the FCS playoffs and it’s happy again.

While I was in Memphis, we went to the National Civil Rights Museum. The museum is located at the Lorraine Hotel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. It was a haunting experience because the treatment of African-Americans in this country is a stain upon the church, a stain upon the nation that has billed itself to be a land of freedom from the start.

You cannot help but see people violently torn from their homes and stacked on slave ships to hear stories of their abuse to see white mobs violently tear non-violent protesters from lunch counters and think, “My God, what have we done? What are we still doing?” While there have been some improvements, it feels like prejudice has just evolved so it can stay alive. It’s taken different forms and scurried into different corners of our nation to survive.

The story of the museum mostly ends with the assassination of Dr. King and maybe that’s the point. Because that tragedy is not a crowning achievement. It’s this ugly truth that stares us in the fact that struggle for civil rights is still going on. April 4 in Memphis was not a triumphant period to that story but a lingering ellipses. What will happen next. What horror or progress will fill the next chapter?

The first thing that struck me was the disconnect between myself and the music. And I mean that it literally struck me. The bass drum was like a defibrillator. Even in the back, I felt its sound wave kick my heart. But I didn’t know the songs. And when you are in a room where it seems like everyone else knows every word deep in the marrow of their bones, but you don’t then it creates this immediate sense of alienation.

I don’t really know how people who lead worship week in and week out handle that. Because the last thing you want when someone comes into a place of worship is for them to feel like a stranger. That is going to happen but you want to minimize that foreignness. Perhaps it can’t be handled in that one week. There are songs at our church that I didn’t know when I first got here, but I have come to know and love them with time and connections to a community.

But that’s not where we were in that giant convention hall. That disconnect was there and it was not aided by the lead singer imploring us to “shout it out to God” no matter how good-natured his intent was. Sing it with all my heart? Dude, this is the first time I have ever heard this song. One of the things that I love about music is the way that it often pulls me closer to God in ways that words cannot do in as adequate a manner. Yet I think that because it can connect in such a deep way that music is even more frustrating when it doesn’t connect. When you feel like you’re repeatedly running into a brick wall.

Several years ago when my grandparents were about to go on a trip to the Mediterranean, my Grandma asked me if I wanted anything specific from the region. I knew the answer immediately. I wanted an icon. I spent five weeks in Greece and Italy on foreign study in college and always regretted not taking home one of these beautiful works of religious art. Is there a specific icon you want? she asked me. I thought for a moment. I wanted an icon where Jesus was teaching.

Sitting on the floor of my office (it's been a really, really long week even though it's only Wednesday), I see that icon my grandparents brought home from Greece hanging across the room. Jesus sits in a tree with a book of scripture open in his lap. His hands are open at his side, gesturing in conversation with the twelve disciples sitting around him. They listen rapt in attention, confused, awed, grasping at something that they don't quite understand.

I like Reformation Day. Probably more than a person should like Reformation Day. I've written Reformation Day carols. I used a Martin Luther bobblehead to talk in this past Sunday's communion meditation. At our youth Halloween party, I dressed up as the Wittenberg by way of Asgard Avenger Martin Lu-Thor. Yes, I like Reformation Day quite a bit.

It doesn't really have to do with fanboying over Luther. By all accounts, he was a highly unpleasant person to put it mildly. Most of my zeal comes from being a massive church history nerd and then running that through my slightly off-kilter way of looking at things. 

I really want to scream and swear at the top of my lungs because mass shootings are becoming routine in this country. We're horrified. We offer our thoughts and prayers. We go about our business. Then we do the same song and dance when the next tragedy occurs.

Horror, thoughts, and prayers are all appropriate responses to such madness. I don't question the sincerity to those reactions. And yet each time there is this narrative of "This has to stop!" But expressing horror, sending thoughts, and offering prayers are doing little to stand in the way of this swelling tide of death. 

Prayers are wonderful. Our church is having a prayer service on Wednesday and I am so thankful that is taking place. But prayers must be something that compel us to do something in this world