Advent in Varaždin

Before writing about Varaždin, here's a picture from our neighborhood church. We got out after a night of less-than-ideal sleep and walked around to see familiar streets and houses, and to let the sunlight do its part in resetting our circadian rhythm, hoping we might sleep better the next night. (Alas, neither of us did. But we're doing okay despite that.)

It was the first time either of us had seen this wooden nativity scene, almost surely carved by some local talent. It is really nicely done, and I love seeing things made by hand. Such a refreshing break from the inflatable figures that have become so common in Memphis!

When the sun got closer to setting, we took off in the car to meet a friend who lives in nearby Varaždin, just on the other side of the bridge mentioned in yesterday's post. Varaždin's baroque architecture just made me wonder how the city might decorate for Christmas, and it wasn't disappointing. The castle was left alone, which I thought was a good idea, as it could have cost a lot to do anything that would really do justice to it. And anything less would cheapen it. It was so beautiful in the light of a nearly full moon.

The central part of the city held nothing back, though. Strung with lights, alive with stalls selling ornaments, warmed by coffee shops selling hot drinks and refreshments, it was full of people and full of life, even with temperatures requiring hats and gloves. A stage was set up with live music heard in the surrounding area. Church bells rang every so often, adding to the joyful bustle.

This is a part of Europe that I miss greatly in the States. Sometimes when I'm driving down the road, I try to imagine all the people in the cars around me as people walking by, the way it is in the cities of Europe. We miss a lot by not seeing people up close, hearing their voices, seeing parents and children holding hands, sometimes seeing expressions and eyes when close enough--all of that.

As we walked, I would look around and wonder, "Who here really knows the story of Christmas? Who knows why all this came to be?" And I just hoped that many did and prayed for all who didn't.

Because, just as in America, Christmas has been seized upon and put to use by the god of commercialization. These lovely cities and their celebrations have become tourist destinations, with marketing and awards given out. Zagreb, the capital, was chosen not long ago as the best place to go in Europe for Advent.

Which brings up another difference between Europe and America. Secular Europe, with its centuries-long history of being so heavily influenced by the Christian story and the Christian calendar, still calls this period leading up to Christmas, Advent. Christmas isn't here until December 25th, so they go by the church calendar and call all of this Advent celebration. Just as in America, it's an interesting mixture of earthly and heavenly influences at work.

This was one of my favorite light displays. So simple, so serene, so much a mix of the old and new.

Speaking of mixing old and new, we saw new-fangled flashing lights on a ferris wheel, constantly changing colors while playing music--probably not something Mr. Ferris imagined when he created the first one before 1900.

And one of the last sights we spent time admiring was this striking scene, with that very old moon shining bright above the happy scene below.

(And then we hurried to the car, because my hands were freezing, even with gloves and mittens!

That part of living here will take some getting used to again!)

All photos in this post courtesy of Mr. Vamplin.

 

The Moon by Night

If I could have stopped, I would be able to share some of the most beautiful images I have seen in a long, long time.

I was driving from Searcy to Memphis the evening of the 22nd and left later than originally planned. I needed to be in Memphis by a particular time for a dinner date. So I could not stop to take pictures.

But I am so glad I left at the time I did. Otherwise I might have missed it.

As it was, just as I was coming out of a more treed and building-ed area, and the sun had just about finished setting, over ahead of me to my left was the biggest moon I have ever seen, about half above and half below the horizon. Rosy peach colored. And just huge.

And for the next half hour or so, I was driving through the flat, wide expanse of Highway 64 with the beautiful huge moon before me, so thankful to be right there, right then. If I had left any earlier or later it would not have been the same. If I had been in an area with trees or buildings, it would not have been the same.

Once the moon had risen a good bit, the timing was perfect for something I could not have imagined. I came to the area where the rice fields were flooded. By then it was very dark. For several minutes it was a movie director's dream--that huge moon shining in the sky, and the light cast by the moon's reflection shimmered across the surface of the water out there in the middle of nowhere, with nothing competing for the eye's attention.

Of course I had to pay attention to the road and the traffic, but there wasn't much traffic, and so I was able to soak in the beauty of this magical evening, this magical moon.

I had been listening on the way over to an interview with Sir Roger Scruton about his book The Soul of the World. I haven't read it, but from what I gathered via the interview, I think he would have agreed with me that night when I felt that I was seeing much, much more than just a rock in the sky reflecting light waves. I think no one could see what I saw and experience it that impersonally, unless they had been taught over time to disconnect themselves from the world around them and the experience of beauty and awe.

I couldn't stop, because of my time constraints, and I think the memory of that moon that evening will remain in my mind and heart longer than if I had been able to stop and photograph it, perhaps, because I gave it my full attention without placing it or framing it. If anything, I felt as if it were looking at me, helping me be in my proper place.

"So God made.....the moon to rule over the night."   On this night, I saw the majesty of this beneficent ruler! And it occurred to me that every month, a full moon rises over these fields. Every month, it shines on the water. Every month, this beauty is created, whether anyone notices or not. It's fascinating to think about that. That God has made things in such a way that incredible beauty abounds continually, with or without a human being to notice it. Because God is beauty, with or without an audience. It is simply who he is.

I missed a few nights of writing because of the trip and catching up at home, but this experience of the moon was so lovely and connects in my mind to the discipline of watching and waiting that comes with Advent. We miss so much beauty if we are not practicing waiting, developing eyes to see and ears to hear.

I'm thinking of the shepherds in the fields at night. Something about being awake at night seems to be important if we want to see and hear God's messengers, at least some of them.

The glory of the Lord, like any light, shines brightest in the night.

Messiah

Tonight we heard Messiah by the Memphis Symphony Orchestra and a small choir formed from the Memphis Symphony Chorus. They outdid themselves. It was wonderfully, powerfully done. I'll be dreaming the music, I suppose.

The man next to me had brought the score with him and said for me to poke him if he accidentally started singing. It is hard for me too, in a way, to sit there and not sing. I saw a woman on our row mouthing the words.

Seeing the people around me was almost as delightful as hearing the music. Something about the way the pews were shaped and placed made it easier than usual to see people. And because they kept the lights up.

So I saw this man with his well worn score, the woman mouthing the words. People all around were gently swaying in time to the music, as I found myself frequently doing. I noticed a woman two rows ahead of us who could barely contain her joy when it was time for the Hallelujah Chorus, and when everyone broke into applause, she not only clapped but also raised her hands upward, the way people sometimes do in worship.

I sat there and wondered how many people there believed what was being sung, or how they believed it. I thought about this again after Worthy Is the Lamb, when the applause rang on and on and on, longer than usual for a symphony performance. And certainly longer than you would expect for a piece so frequently performed, so familiar.  My own hands began to hurt from it, but there was no way I would stop as long as it was socially acceptable to keep clapping! The joy in the air was palpable.

Messiah is long and covers much territory, and my mind went to so many places this evening as I listened to the music--to the stories and ideas the passages point to, and to times in my own life when I've sung the music, or when I've "beheld the Lamb" in a particular way. I thought about the ways I've gone astray like sheep, and about my high school music teacher introducing us to various pieces and talking about how Handel used the music to "show" sheep straying here and there and valleys being exalted and rough places being made plain.

Tonight I wondered where all the minds in the room were going, what all was represented by the people present, what their stories were, why they loved this music so much. And there was no doubt at all that they did, given that prolonged applause. I thought of Kurt Vonnegut's story about the child who had seen the sun, living on a planet where no one had seen the sun and didn't believe it was real. They teased the child who talked about it, and the story doesn't have a happy end, though the sun proves to be real, after all.

I just wondered tonight, what does Messiah mean to all these people in this room? For how long will it continue to be cherished and performed in a culture that seems to be growing more and more secular? Will the music alone be enough to keep it alive? And if so, how often might it actually cause someone to wonder, to ponder, to search?

It's amazing where all a mind can go during two and a half hours of music!

But it kept coming back to the words and the music, and tonight was a beautiful gift in this life of watching and waiting for the eventual Hallelujah Chorus. Hallelujah!

Watching and Waiting: Fog

I wrote words for these photos yesterday and somehow lost them.

I was crestfallen, but then today found more words that fit with what I was thinking,

so perhaps it was best this way.

These images come from my walk in the park yesterday morning. The fog was amazing.

I tend to love fog, so I found it beautiful.

But I was also thinking how it might be for someone not used to fog and not familiar with the place.

It could be disorienting, even frightening.

If you'd never experienced fog before, you might wonder how long it would last,

or even if your whole world had somehow changed.

I thought about people I know, mostly younger than me, going through hard things,

disorienting experiences, confusing transitions, strong emotions,

which tend often to make it very hard, if not impossible, to see clearly.

The fog yesterday was so thick, it condensed on branches like this. Beautiful to me, but not so beautiful if you were wondering whether your feet would ever be on dry ground again! 

In the fog, our eyes can play tricks on us. You have to lean on your knowledge of what you knew was there before, and trust that memory, that knowledge.

This is beautiful as an image of reflections on water, but when life situations feel this unstable and distorted, even the light coming to us can seem painful sometimes.

I found myself yesterday thinking of these people, thinking these things, and wanting to say, "Watch carefully and wait. Don't give up. Refrain from making rash decisions about which path to take."

As a friend once told me in a tough time, "Don't doubt in the dark what you've seen in the light."

Those are good words.

And then today I read these words of John Donne, from the blog of a friend of a friend:

But today if you will hear His voice,

Today He will hear you.

He brought light out of darkness,

Not out of a lesser light;

He can bring thy summer out of winter

Tho' thou have no spring,

Though in the ways of fortune or understanding or conscience

Thou have been benighted til now,

Wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed,

Damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied til now, 

Now God comes to thee,

Not as in the dawning of the day,

Not as in the bud of the spring

But as the sun at noon,

As the sheaves in harvest.

It wasn't quite noon, but this last picture was taken less than an hour after the first one. The sun's rising to a certain point completely cleared away the fog, and it felt like a different world.

This Advent I'm thinking those words of John Donne might make a good Christmas gift to lots of people living in the foggy confusion of our world these days.

"Now God comes to thee." Emmanuel!

Watching and Waiting: Fire

(I had nearly a whole long photo essay ready to post, and somehow with a click, I lost it all. So tonight, Gerard Manley Hopkins to my rescue.From The Wreck of the Deutschland, Part 3.)


              Now burn, new born to the world,
              Doubled-nature'd name,
The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled
              Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame,
Mid-numbered He in three of the thunder-throne!
Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming not dark
                    as he came;
               Kind, but royally reclaiming his own;
A released shower, let flash to the shire, not
                    a lightning of fire hard-hurled.

Christmas Clothespins

God is with us in so many ways. In no way do I intend disrespect by suggesting that He is with us even in the form of clothespins. Hear me out.

My beloved Grandmother at some point had some clothespins spray painted gold to use at Christmastime. I don't even recall what she used them for, nor when I somehow became the recipient of some of them. I began using them to pin Christmas cards we received to a string or ribbon hung on the dining room window. Or hung from the mantel, at our former house.

Seven clothespins were not enough, so I used plain ones until one day of one year, while hanging up Christmas cards, I realized that I could also spray paint them and have a bunch more gold clothespins.  I had never used spray paint, which I guess is why I hadn't thought of it before. But I thought it couldn't be that complicated to buy some and paint them. So I did.

Ever since then I've had two contrasting sets of clothespins that I pull out during Advent as we wait for the cards to arrive. At first it kind of bothered me that the two "gold" paints were not the same, but not for long.

This year as I was taking them out, I noticed the difference in the colors. I also noticed the difference in the heft of the clothespins. Grandmother's, as you can see, have the two little indentations near the end. They are heavier than the others and better made. I couldn't find any like that when I was shopping for them. All they had were these slightly smaller, definitely flimsier, lighter-weight ones. I wouldn't want them for hanging clothes on a line. I can't imagine they could hold onto a pair of denim jeans. Still, they are fine for hanging Christmas cards. But I still prefer the others, the older ones.

They are built more solidly. They have a firmer grip. They were carefully painted. I didn't realize until it was too late that when I painted mine, which I did in a bit of a hurry, I missed some spots. But Grandmother's are solidly painted, fully covered. And of course, best of all, they were hers. They were in her house, in her hands.

And Grandmother was among the first people to teach me about God. And to love me, which she learned from God. And to show me through the trials of her life and in her many letters over the years, how much she loved and trusted in God.

And so these solid, firm, whimsically golden clothespins, because of my Grandmother, speak to me of God and faith and love. And I do my best to imitate. And even though my attempt didn't turn out quite like hers, it helped me bring  forward to the present something from Christmas past.

God is with us in so many ways. Even in the form of clothespins.

This is for Yesterday

From the living room of a dear friend where we sat yesterday in the glow of the lovely tree, our conversation roaming far and wide as it nearly always does if we have more than five minutes together.

Said conversation led to more watching and waiting, as I offered to pick up said friend's daughter returning from college. Heavy rain, misplaced keys, an accident on the highway all led to a rather suspenseful evening, but all was well in the end when said daughter came home to said tree and I imagine slept very well.

And I know I certainly did--though a Christmas party and then a movie at home meant I forgot to write anything....so this is for yesterday.

Watching and Waiting: Risotto Lessons

Many years ago I made risotto alla Giuglia (risotto with onion sliced thin and zucchini and yellow bell pepper cut in Julienne strips.) for the first time. I was young and still getting used to using a big knife, and Julienne strips took considerably more time than simply chopping, or even dicing something.

And at that time I had no access to Arborio rice, so I used long grain rice, the only kind I could get.

With the chopping and time it took for that hard rice to soak up all that broth and cream (and a teaspoon of pepper), making that recipe took an hour or more. I worked hard to get the onion slices as thin as possible. And then holding the zucchini chunks upright and carefully slicing those thin strips took a good while. And then standing and stirring, standing and stirring, standing and stirring as I gradually added the broth-cream mixture.

It doesn't take me as long now with my current knife prowess and the way Arborio rice soaks in the liquid more quickly. But I'll always think of that recipe when I think of how it often just takes time to have anything really good. And you have to pay attention. As my cookbook says, the "judicious" adding of the liquid and stirring is they key to a good risotto. Not too much too fast, but you can't let it dry out, either. Watching and waiting and paying attention.

So tonight as I did that, I also thought about Advent. And now it's late, and I'm just going to leave it there and let the readers draw their own meaning from this little reflection....

Jesus Christ The Apple Tree

The tree of life my soul hath seen
Laden with fruit and always green
The tree of life my soul hath seen
Laden with fruit and always green
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the applle tree

His beauty doth all things excel
By faith I know but ne'er can tell
His beauty doth all things excel
By faith I know but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought
And pleasure dearly I have bought
For happiness I long have sought
And pleasure dearly I have bought
I missed of all but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

I'm weary with my former toil
Here I will sit and rest a while
I'm weary with my former toil
Here I will sit and rest a while
Under the shadow I will be
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

This fruit does make my soul to thrive
It keeps my dying faith alive
This fruit does make my soul to thrive
It keeps my dying faith alive
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree. 

The apples in the bowl are from Thanksgiving, when I made an Italian apple tart. The recipe said to peel the apples--actually, it said to pare them--but I was pressed for time and also like to leave some of that nutrition in there. And then I just thought they looked so cute!

We sang this sweet song as part of the Lessons and Carols service. It's such a fascinating metaphor, I think, and this writer has done a good bit of thinking about how it may have come to be. I did not know until reading this about the association between the Latin words for apple and evil. Fascinating: that whole idea of Eve eating an apple has a very logical explanation! (And I realize while writing this that I may well have heard that at some point, but if so, it sure didn't stick.)

Each time we rehearsed this, and when we performed it, I would get a little teary-eyed at the words of the last stanza, "This fruit does make my soul to thrive; it keeps my dying faith alive...." When I look back over my life so far and think of the various ways my faith has been kept alive when it felt close to dying, it is humbling and heartwarming.

If you've never heard the song, here's a sweet performance of it by the ever-wonderful Kings College Choir of Cambridge.

Magical Musical Morning

This morning we drove downtown to the Peabody Hotel for a lovely treat. Being at the Peabody is in itself a lovely treat. Originally built in 1869, it was demolished and a new structure built a block away between 1923 and 1925. It closed twice in the 70's with financial difficulties and reopened in 1981, when I was in the ninth grade.

That is so strange to me, to think of this place empty and uncertain of its future, and to think of downtown Memphis as a forlorn, financially failing area. I remember when I was younger driving by downtown (we lived in Arkansas, and my grandparents lived an hour northeast of Memphis, so we went through Memphis a lot) and knowing that it was considered ugly and pretty barren. But we never went there, so I have no visual memory of that time.

And now downtown is so alive and full of wonderful places, and the Peabody is a huge part of it all.

And they have a huge Christmas tree every year! (That bit of railing you can see on the left side is the second floor of the building, so that gives you an idea of what I mean by huge.)

Music was the reason for our visit. Or better said, family who were involved in the music. The Harding Academy A Cappella Chorus were there to sing Christmas pieces and other music, and they did a wonderful job. One of the basses is my nephew, and his dad drove the group down on a school bus, so it was a morning of family, music, Christmas lights--and ducks!

If you don't know about the Peabody ducks, then you really must come to Memphis and see them for yourself. We got there in plenty of time to see them do their thing. And we got to hear them join in the singing a time or two, making for quite a contrast to the lovely sounds coming from these young people's voices.

This little fellow came from behind the couch where I was siting to get closer to the group. He stood there transfixed for a good long while. I wondered if he had ever heard such singing before. Since singing has always been a part of my life because of church, I can't imagine what it might be like for a child (or an adult, for that matter) to hear beautiful harmonic voices singing like this for the first time. It probably would seem like something of a miracle.

And it is, really. That we are made in such a way so that our voices can make such beautiful sounds, expressing thoughts and feelings and just doing amazing things. We take so much for granted, but this morning, and this little child, opened my metaphorical eyes, and my literal ears, once again to not only the beauty but also the sheer wonder of music.

Watching and Waiting

Photo from Memphis Flyer


It's late, but I'm committed, so here goes.

Advent is so much about watching and waiting, things we aren't very good at when we've not had to do much of it. And of course the Advent readings bring very serious themes to our minds and hearts related to watching and waiting.

For tonight, however, I'll take it in a different direction. This evening we went to the airport to watch and wait for the arrival of our niece/granddaughter/daughter--my brother's daughter, who spent this semester in Greece and Italy. Nine of us all together stood near the doorway where the passengers appear, by the top of the escalator that goes down to the luggage retrieval area.

The Memphis airport brings so many things to mind. When we were young, we went there to greet my uncle, and later my uncle and aunt, who lived in Michigan, England, and Belgium at various times. I imagine we went there, though I can't remember clearly, to greet my grandparents when they returned from their "Holy Lands" tour with my uncle. (I put it in quotes because I just remember so well hearing my grandmother's voice as she referred to that trip, always with that term.)

I remember the first time I ever flew into and out of that same airport, going to and coming from Italy.

Tonight my husband remembered a time when we arrived there from Croatia, and recalled that my aunt brought Kentucky Fried Chicken for the group of family that had gathered, and that we ate there in the gate area.

All these trips were back in the lovely days before so much of the airport was off limits to anyone but travelers, and we could actually wait for loved ones and see them right as they walked off the plane. I miss those days!

Many memories, much to wonder at and the thankful for. I never dreamed that airports would become so much a normal part of life. I still remember so well the first time being up in the clouds, the first sunset, the first sunrise, the wonderful KLM flight attendants on my first flight over. On my flight back from Italy after my semester over there, I had so much hope that someday I would be able to go back, but I really had no idea whether or not it would happen.

Tonight we were waiting for my niece. Her older brother stood nearest the "do not pass this line" spot, all set to take a picture of her when she appeared. Grandparents were visiting farther back. I stood there chatting with the younger nephew and with friends whose daughter was part of the same group. Time passed, we waited, and it did seem that enough time had passed that we began to wonder.....And then we heard a loud cry our of nowhere and turned and saw that the expected one  right there in the hallway hugging her mom! As if she had just materialized out of nowhere!

It turned out, if I understood right, that they had come out at another terminal and had walked down from there to the luggage area and then up the escalator to where we were. Creating quite a stir!

It reminds me of the verse, which I just found in The Message paraphrase-- "Be vigilant....You have no idea when the Son of Man is going to show up." It's not as poetic as the "Watch therefore" of older version, but that "you have no idea" sure fits for our experience this evening! Not only could we not predict the exact time, but we didn't even know which direction she would be coming from!

And it fits my own experience with airports and flying across the ocean. No idea what lay ahead. No idea that at this point in my life, I wouldn't be able to remember how many trips I've made. Life is full of surprises.

It amazes me how much we talk as if we can plan things out. Of course we have to plan, and we must make decisions, but so much is not in our control. Advent is good to remind us of that. There's a lot we have no idea about, but we can watch and wait for the One who does know and does show up, often when least expected. And if we are watching and waiting for Him, then just as tonight, even though it may be a startling experience, it will also be sweet.

Carols of Praise

Good tidings of great joy!

My post a couple of months ago about blogging more regularly seems now like a fuzzy dream. It was not so smart to set that goal, perhaps, shortly before making a three-week trip overseas, coming home to a family wedding, Thanksgiving guests, and then having all the catching up to do with that.

But today is the second Sunday of Advent and a good time to renew that goal, and I've been encouraged by a group of others who are blogging daily in December, so maybe I'll catch some of that energy and keep this going.

That angel up there looks a little like I feel. Not extremely energetic, but doing his part. I'm not sure where the artwork came from, but it's on the front cover of the program for the Lessons and Carols service I sang in tonight. Lessons and Carols is my favorite event of the Advent/Christmas season.

I remember the first time I ever heard these words. It was Christmas Eve in 1994 or '95. I turned on the public radio station and was amazed to hear prayers being prayed and the scripture being read. We had only fairly recently come to live in the States, and public radio was fairly new to me, but not so new that hearing scripture being read didn't seem like a sort of miracle. When I realized it was a cathedral full of people and heard them praying the Lord's Prayer, it struck a place deep inside me.

I kept listening and was delighted to be introduced to the Lessons and Carols service and to the fact that it aired every year. It was such a beautiful surprise, and I recall having tears of wonder and joy in my eyes more than once as I sat on the floor wrapping gifts and listening.

A few years later I was equally surprised to learn that this service was actually performed in our very city, and it wasn't long after that, that I joined the choir so that I could be a part of it.

Perhaps I'll write more later about why this service means so much to me, why it so often brings tears to my eyes. It has to do with lonely exile, gloomy clouds of night, and sad divisions--and the hope of Emmanuel in the midst of all that.

This (above) is the place in the service where I nearly always realize I'm not going to make it much further without a tissue. It is absolutely glorious singing this descant arrangement to "O Come, All Ye Faithful," with the choirs, the congregation, the organ and brass ensemble. If sound could somehow show in the air, I think the whole space would be sparkling with gold and deep blue at that point. It's a powerful beauty that pierces some deep place in the soul, the way only music wedded to words with deep meaning can do.

Of course the air doesn't actually turn gold and blue. So I'll end with another bit of the front cover