A Day in the Life

I have had many friends and family ask "What is Holden like?".  There is no short or easy answers to the question.  I can tell you what it is not: it is not a bible camp, it is not a Lutheran cult, it is not a commune.  It is a living community that changes with every arrival and departure and a place that is held together by its rhythms.  To better reply to the questions, I offer a "day in the life", this is a little glimpse at an ordinary for Micaela and me and as many little tidbits about this crazy mountain village as possible! (and if you really want to know what Holden is like, come visit us! Please!)

6:00am my battery operated alarm screams at mean to crawl out of my warm bed. At this point in the morning our fire has died out and the room has a sharp chill to the air. I stumble around in the dark, place a walkie talkie on the princess' bed and head down the snowy hill. Its still too dark to see the mountains, but I love taking in the fog and silhouettes of the towering giants in our sky. By the time I've arrived in the workout room my eyes have lost their blur and there are a hand full of other villagers ready to grunt and sweat and start our day.

Back at our chalet I sweetly ask, then strongly suggested and finally bully my little girl out of her bed up in the loft. We get ready in record time, conserving precious hot water with military-esque showers. Just before leaving our chalet I crawl down to the furnace and get the fire roaring and we're off to the dining hall.

Most days are oatmeal, which I love. The princess prefers Pancake Tuesdays and Egg-ilious Thursdays to fill her belly before she skips off to school with her classmates and teachers. The two-room school house is warmed by a roaring fire and the wild movements and yells of the ten students. The hours are passed by writing, math, hiking, sledding, sharing, reading in cozy corners and the socialization of the multi-aged room.

My work day is spent preparing, composing, setting up, hunting – all in the name of creative and community-owned worship. Other times I am found perched beside our massive grand piano in a small and well-heated room, a rare treasure in our village. Students of all ages shuffle in and out spending thirty minutes – no more, no less – making music, learning, correcting, laughing, shrugging shoulders, creating. “Work of the village” is a common phrase used to describe all the community-efforts we participate in that do not fall within our respected job description: doing dishes, sorting garbage, helping at the school, unloading the bus, special projects (like being a judge for the first very film festival!) also scatter throughout every work day.

I meet the Princess for lunch every day. The kitchen prepares the meal, the dishteam washes the dishes (I help with that effort once a week) and I am graced with the opportunity to enjoy a meal with my daughter in the middle of the school and work day. After six years of packed lunches, hurried meals, dirty dishes and exhausted cooking – this is sheer, extravagant gift. The kitchen prepares simple, healthy, incredible dishes meal after meal. We share this gift with others around the table; strangers, friends, village family too. She skips back to school and eventually we find each other back at “home” for some alone time. Alone time can be hard to find in a tiny little village filled with people – so we fiercely protect this time to read, watch a Cosby show and rest.

We worship every day. Many days our time of prayer is done in under thirty minutes, we make up for it during a longer-than-an-hour Eucharist on Sunday evenings. If there is a word to describe our worship life it is – surprising. It is surprising how the wackiest ideas (like building an ampi-theater in our seventy inches of snow and a pulpit made of snow-bricks) turns into an inspired time of worship...under the brilliant stars, watching our visible exhalations mingle with one another, worshiping with no microphones, no books, no paper, no props of any kind – its God, creation and one another, amen. It is surprising how sitting around a table during lunch and listening to a reflection on hunger, abundance, guilt and generosity can carry a darkened soul through the darkest of days. It it surprising to sit in silence every Friday night, long after the crowd and Princess have gone to get their ice cream and I can be still and watch the boxes filled with prayer candles as they flicker. My job is to make sure we do not burn the building down, but I like to pretend I am protecting all the prayers poured out over those boxes and then blowing out the candles to release them into the air so God will catch them.

Knitting needles often fill our empty hands. Snow shoes occasionally latch on to the bottom of our snow boots. Card games frequently fill that time right before dinner (my father calls this hour of the day the “arsenic hour” when children are tired and hungry and parents are weary and cooking and no one is happy. The “arsenic hour” has been my dreaded hour for six years, and now this is the year of my jubilee), I'm not cooking, I'm not haggard from the work day, I'm not blinded by a rush hour head ache. The hour after dinner and before Vespers is a time with the Princess plays with all her village-brothers and villge-sisters. We may find them crawling through snow tunnels, scaling trees and almost every day she can be found schooling some unsuspecting soul at foosball. I sip from my tea tumbler and enjoy every second of her happiness.

Evenings in the village closely resemble our evenings anywhere else we have lived. There is always something happening in the evenings; bible study, movie nights, knitting circle, game parties, dance parties – I rarely am able to attend, but the option is always there and that is liberating in itself. The princess' bedtime still rules all things. So, right after worship we climb the snow-stairs, created by village maveriks, to our chalet. I check the fire before heading up into our space, I read while the Princess painstakingly arranges her animals and blankets and thinks up a few more questions to elongate bedtime. Arguments still come (something never change) and questions seem to get bigger, harder, these are the moments of the day she asks about her life and why things are the way they are. She asks about countries we pray for in worship, she asks about God and dads and dogs and death. After these conversations I am certain she is smarter then I am and I grieve that she knows heartache and reality and war and suffering. After she is snug in her bed I settle in with knitting, music, books or just stare out the window. The glaring absence in the evenings is my phone. I have always been able to reach beyond the confines of my house and call friends and family, just to hear another voice. Village life feels isolating during these finals hours of the day, but then we awaken to share three meals with community and play and worship and learn together all day long – the loneliness and the close-knit community balances out.

Just before lights out I make sure our head lamps and flash lights are within arms reach (diminishing mountains water means less water to our hydro means frequent power outages), I peek in on the princess in her perch, crawl into bed and the words of the final song in worship sing me to to respite.

Deep peace of the rolling waves,

deep peace of the flowing air,

deep peace of the shining stars to you,

deep peace of the quiet earth.

Mary's Song

Advent IV

Luke 1:39-55

Holden Village

There is something profoundly remarkable about today's story – the inspired words of Mary's song, the powerful and world-altering promises she sings, the inutero-greeting, we hear from Elizabeth, the first person to utter the words “my Lord” referring to a fetus inside a barely pregnant stomach – it is all quite remarkable. And yet, there is also a lot about the story that is notably unremarkable, barely worth time and attention, the setting of our story should not capable of grabbing world-wide attention. The story begins in Nazareth, a tiny little village known for nothing in particular in that general region over yonder. The story centers in on Mary, a young teenager, like all the other young teenagers – not yet married, not yet worth much because she has not been attached to a man. An unremarkable young woman in an unexciting little village.

Even though her social status is low, and being an unmarried and pregnant teenager casts her out to the fringe of society and marks her worthy of no help, no forgiveness, no security to speak of...Mary could be considered an unremarkable teen from an unexciting little village – but something in this story changes all of that, a song is sung and the world is different. Mary is remarkable, not because of who she is, but because of the song she sings. Mary's song is integral to the Christian story, she echoes the words of her foremother, Hannah and Mary riffs on Hannah's song, singing words familiar to people of faith all over the world. And, of course, these words are particularly close to the hearts of those who have been around Holden Village for awhile. Mary's song, the magnificat, is the song we sing most Saturday nights as a part of Vespers '86.

But we would be foolish if we thought the magnificat was something just for us or even if we held the song so dearly to our hearts that we forget its power and magnitude for churches, communities, nations. Mary's song is special to us, but it is integral to a voice in theological conversation that comes from a people who experience life much different than you or I do. Mary's song is considered the song of liberation theology – a theology that was born in Latin America, a theology that comes out of community base organizations and speaks to the gospel promise from God to the people who suffer in poverty or oppression. Throughout my time at seminary I was drawn toward the study of liberation theology. I find the conversation so compelling because it is first and foremost – practical. Liberation theology is the study of God that can only be done in community – no ivory towers or solo deep thinkers here. Liberation theolgoy is the study of God that makes room for the voice of those living below the poverty line, those who suffer inequality, those who know injustice on political levels and who know abuse and hate in their nations, towns and home. This context is one we do not deal with every day, so our voices do not get to be raised first – rather we listen to the Word of God and the experience of these communities first. And finally, liberation theology takes seriously the promises of Mary's song that the lowly will be raised up, that the mighty will be cast down off their thrown. The words of Mary are big, worthy of our attention and pondering as they paint broad, sweeping strokes of promise that cover the whole world, from the lowest of the lows to the highest highs.

Mary's song sounds like a practice in opposites. The high being brought down, quickly and finally pulled off of their throne of power and pride. And the lowly, those who stoop with hunger and hang their head under the weight of societal dead-ends are brought to their high and safe dwelling. The big are made little and the little are made made big and these are the promises of God. These promises are huge, life changing, world altering promises that are inclusive in that way that maybe we would rather they were not so inclusive. If there are people being dragged down...I want no part. And if there are people who are already low because of actions and decisions of this world...I pray I had no hand in it. The inclusion of Mary's song is so encompassing that if we approach with Mary's humility we can see that we are the ones who are both being cast down and we are the ones, by the grace of God only, who are being raised up too. We all have lofty places within us that distance us from God and one another –these places need casting down. And we all have lowliness within, too...lowliness that hurts and aches and causes a different kind of separation – these places need lifting up. Mary's song is so deep and so wide that all humanity is caught up in the huge promises.  

So we sing the song of Mary and are swept in to the waves of justice and swirling of compassion. There is more to Mary's song than simply turning the world over and having everyone do a societal fruit-basket upset. This song Mary sings is full of God's justice and truth, it is also full of God's compassion and presence among us. So, instead of casting down the proud and powerful in the name of justice and instead of bringing up the lowly in the name of equality – perhaps God is not create opposites, rather God is cultivating common places. When the mighty are brought down and the lowly raised up – they do not pass like ships in the night, but rather they meet in the middle, in a common space where God is waiting, where justice and compassion dwell, were nothing stands between God and humanity and nothing stands or divides one person from another.

Yes, grand and sweeping promises that change lives and alter the world...but how? How does God enact such promises? What one might expect are grand, sweeping actions to match the grand, sweeping realities of Mary's song. No. Intimate, lowly, unassuming – these are the pathways of God's justice and compassion. The song is sung by a young, vulnerable and mostly unremarkable girl – Not grand, humble. Not sweeping in all of humanity, but feeling and carrying these promises in her very core. God's ways do not travel far above our heads or out of arm's reach. The pathway of God's justice and compassion arrive within us. As dear as a supportive relative, as intimately as a life growing inside, as strong as a leap of joy...this is how our God changes us and alters our world, this is how we know and live God's compassion and justice.

Two years ago I had the challenge and honor of working as an intern-chaplain at a hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was assigned to provide pastoral care and spiritual support for two units: Ante-Partum, caring for women on long-term bedrest with high-risk pregnancies and the NICU – neonatal intensive care units, caring for premature and very sick babies. The NICU was the more intense unit with patients improving and declining in health many times a day – where the care, support, urgency and need was felt in the air and seen on the faces of young parents and talked about in hush voices by care team members in nurseries and hallways. However, it was on Ante-partum where deep relational connections were made...where we had nothing but time, so much time, the more time the better because time meant the baby was staying in another week, another day, another hour and every minute was counted a success. On Ante-partum we hoped and prayed for big things, for a health deliverable, for the peaceful passing of time, for patience and endurance, for motherhood to be easier than pregnancy, for sanity and care and safety for the most vulnerable one of all – the tiny baby we could not see.

Yet, while we were praying these grand and heartfelt prayers...we knew that where we needed God to act and be known was in the flesh. We needed God to lower heart rates, to still the stomach muscles, to close the cervix, to ease the mind. The brave and mighty women on that Ante-partum unit needed God to show up in the flesh and bones of their bodies...and even more intimately than that...in the flesh and bones of their babies. We were waiting and expecting God to come to the lowly place, to the vulnerable one, to those who needed God's intervention for the gift of life! We were singing Mary's song – grasping onto grand, sweeping promises and encountering God in flesh, body, womb and heart.

Mary's song is for us to sing, too. We sing with Mary, the unremarkable teenager...we sing with and listen to the voices of those who are poor and suffer oppression...we sing with the most vulnerable in our communities who long to be heard...we sing because of the pride of our lofty places...we sing with hope of healing for our lowly places. Mary's song is for us to sing, for ourselves, our communities, our nations, our world.

God's pathways lead us to the places of the vulnerable, the unremarkable, the forgotten. This is where the angel of the Lord arrived with the promise of hope and joy and change like the world had never seen. And there is where God remains especially still today. So, we sing and follow the song to the vulnerable, the poor, those who feel lowly – so that we too can be changed; brought down, raised up to see Christ in our world, urging us to justice, compassion, and singing the song of Mary wherever that may lead.

May Mary's song be the song of our hearts this night of humble expectation, waiting for the Christ child who comes to the lowly places. Amen.