Anna's Advent Prepares Her For A Glorious Epiphany

Today I'm sharing the piece I submitted to Christ Church's Advent devotional.  I continue to be inspired by the long obedience in the same direction this prophetess lives.  I want to be like her, to practice earnestly the everyday, ordinary rhythms of worship in order that the eyes of my heart will be prepared to see the salvation for all peoples.

May it be so, Lord Jesus....

Rembrandt

Seeing Salvation
by Tamara Murphy

Her father Phanuel’s name means “face of God”, but he only ever saw exile. Her husband married her at the appropriate time, but only saw seven years of wedded life before facing an early death. After the mourning was over she resolved to wait for a sight that would not only sustain her for life, but would enliven her people. Anna waited, fasted, prayed, day and night, in the temple, almost a hundred years, waiting for the arrival of God's Promised One.

During those years, she saw generations born, grow into adulthood, marry, give birth, grieve, worship, celebrate, suffer illness, chafe under Roman rule, grow old, die. Perhaps Mary, the mother of Jesus, sat under Anna’s tutelage, as church women have done for the next generation through the ages. Anna must have noticed this young woman, pure of heart and full of faith. Maybe she was even called upon to pray a blessing over her betrothal to Joseph. Perhaps this act of noticing day and night the rhythms of her people’s worship life is what led her to the temple at the exact moment the Messiah’s parents presented him at the temple. Or perhaps she was led in the Spirit as her prophetic counterpart Simeon.

Either way, we know long years of praying, pleading, fasting, loving the God of Christ trained the seer’s eyes for the moment she at last saw the face of his son.  She knew him when she saw him.  Anna and Simeon, ‘Grace’ and ‘God-Receiver’, prayer bent their aging frames across the
silent divide between an old covenant and the new. The old temple saints served
witness, first-hand receiving the reward of long waiting, seeing the salvation of all peoples with their very own eyes.  

Rembrandt

Monday Mix Tape: Christmas, 2

Welcome to Monday Mix Tape, in which I pretend I'm Ira Glass.  You know, I choose a theme and share with you several variations on the theme from the worlds of art, faith and culture.  To keep up the fun little facade of making a weekly mix tape, I label each of these finds as "track 1",  "track 2", and so on (and just like the stack of mixtapes you've got hidden in a box in your attic, you never know when you might see some love song from Journey or Lionel Richie show up here).

 We're in the second week of Christmastide (or as our worship pastor called it during our Lessons & Carols service yesterday, "Our last gasp of Christmas".)  Just as in the four weeks of Advent, I  am sharing some of the ways my family has been trying to step out of our own tyranny of the urgent and step into the alternate universe of kingdom time. What's important to us is that when we turn the liturgical page to Epiphany, we can look back to the previous six weeks and know that we've been immersed, made new again,  in an ancient-living river of spiritual practice and Scriptural truth.  Looked at as an ever-flowing -- from one generation-to-the-next -- stream, life takes on deeper meaning.  We feel more solid, less tossed to and fro by marketing trends (both inside and outside the church walls).  In short, we don't need to jump out of the Christmas pool (or as I've heard it recently, "de-Christmas") as much as just keep on swimming!

 Won't you join us in this counter-cultural, counter-consumeristic, counter-Church-as-therapy, counter-instant gratification, counter-mass media experiment?

track 1:  visual art

Rembrandt, Simeon and Hannah [Anna] in the Temple

Ever since I chose Anna the prophetess as a theme for the Advent devotional piece I submitted to Christ Church, I've been pondering this work by Rembrandt.  I'll share more images later this week, as well as the piece I wrote.  I am captured by the look of delighted surprise Rembrandt captures on Anna's face.  It's that moment of discovery that we occasionally encounter; the moment we have physical evidence that there is, indeed, a promise-keeping God sitting on the throne.  More to say later this week....

track 2:  music

I've been saving this playlist for the past five weeks to share with you as a mid-Christmastide gift!  I picked this CD up at the library a few weeks before Christmas and it became a family favorite that we're playing just as much now as we did before Christmas.  May I recommend on a few of the tracks that you listen with a light heart and refuse to take too seriously?  I promise that will be the best way to enjoy this album.

I've told you how I feel about the song In the Bleak Midwinter, yes?  The Blind Boys, along with the help of Chrissie Hynde (the Pretenders), manage the song with a very different, but still extremely enjoyable.  All the tracks are fun, joyful, sing-along-without-realizing-it fun, but none surpass the longstanding blues-funk-gospel group's rendition of Go Tell It On the Mountain. Who'd have guessed Tom Waits would be the secret weapon to belt out a familiar, often cheesed-up Christmas carol in a way that feels genuinely good-newsworthy?  

By the way, it may be time to say again that I am a complete sucker for artistic collaboration. 

track 3:  video

Here's a live video of the Boys singing Go Tell It On the Mountain (unfortunately, without Tom Waits)  

Go ahead and crank up the volume.  I dare you to be bored with Christmas after you listen....

track 4: links

• Top 12 Reasons I Love the Season (part 1); Top 12 Reasons I Love the Season (part 2) : My dear friend and soon-to-be sister-in-law (!), Macia, wrote these two posts for me last year.  She is easily the most spirited celebrator of Christmas I know.  You might argue that it'd be better to re-post these before Christmas, to shoo away the scrooges lurking the internet.  I would respond that what with all the comments about "de-Christmasing" I've seen, this is the better time.

• Matters of Perspective:  Also, this lovely piece written by Margie Haack over at the Art House America blog.  Take your time reading through her train of thought and you'll be rewarded with a lovely reflection on Anna the prophetess

track 5: 

A Little Holiday Listening, Malcolm Guite reads Hilaire Belloc's "A Remaining Christmas" (perfect for the 12 days of Christmas)

"Now you must not think that Christmas, being over, the season and its glories are at an end for in this house there is kept up the full custom of the Twelve Days so that Twelfth Day, the Epiphany still has to its inhabitants its full and ancient meaning as it had when Shakespeare wrote. The green is kept in its place in every room and not a leaf of it must be moved until Epiphany morning. But on the other hand not a leaf of it must remain, nor the Christmas tree, either, by Epiphany evening. It is all taken out and burned in a special little compass reserved for these good trees which have done their good Christmas duty....bearing witness to the holy vitality of unbroken ritual and inherited things....

This which I have just described is not in a novel or in a play. It is real and goes on as the ordinary habit of living men and women. I fear that set down thus in our terribly changing times it must sound very strange...but to those who practice it, it is not only sacred but normal; having in the whole of the complicated affair a sacramental quality and having an effect of benedicition not to be despised. Indeed, modern men who lack such things lack sustenance and our fathers who founded all those ritual observances were very wise. Man has a body as well as a soul and the whole of man, soul and body, is nourished samely by a multiplicity of observed traditional things." (excerpt from "A Remaining Christmas", Hilaire Belloc)

2011- A Year of Blessed

I have a stack of unwritten-upon Christmas cards coupled with equally blank mailing envelopes.  I may or may not ever get them sent this year.  Instead I offer you our New Year's family newsletter (via photos).  This exercise of looking backward in preparation for looking forward never fails to humble me, fill me with hope and a sense of counting the cost for new days, dreams and sacrifices ahead.

Glory be to Father, Son and Spirit for all.  

From our family to yours, a holler of thanksgiving for 2011 and a whisper of hope for 2012.

Comfort & Joy,

Tamara (for all)

Music & photo credits: Words to Build A Life On by Mike Crawford and His Secret Siblings (I blogged about this song here). *note: I accidentally uploaded three songs for this smilebox before I made my final decision.  If you just can't get enough of our family slideshow you'll hear two more songs:  Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Hunting Song by Where's Ulysses.(I blogged about this album here.) Also, so many of the photos I chose were shared with us by friends and family.  Two of the photos came from strangers and I want to include credit.  Unfortunately,  I've lost track of the news media site that provided the photo of President Obama greeting the House pages at last year's State of the Union address; please forgive me unknown photographer!  The photo of the wooden figure of Christ carrying his cross comes from Ann Voskamp's site.  (I've blogged about the Cradle to Cross wreath we've purchased from her family here.)

Good Tidings of Comfort and Joy

This has become the theme of my Christmas -- giving and receiving the good news, stories, gifts and graces of comfort and joy.  I've learned again the intentions of our Father to bless us in order to be a blessing.  The never-ending goodness He provides us in this non-linear, messy life of grace.  I keep learning the disciplines of grace, the giving and receiving.  I'll be gone a few days practicing well the receiving part.  

In the meantime, I wanted to stop by for a moment and shout the good and joyful news:

We have been saved!  We are saved!  We will be saved!  

There is a Savior!

Happy Christmastide from the Murphy Family!

7 quick takes: first Christmas away from home edition

I didn't think I'd get to blogging quick takes this week, but am up in the middle of the night with a severe bout of homesickness so this week's post has become a spiritual discipline.  You'd think I would have anticipated the homesickness  being my first Christmas away from home -- ever.  I'm learning, though, that it's possible to be completely at "home" and "homesick" at the very same time.  I think this is a valuable Advent lesson, don't you?

Seven reasons I am excited to spend Christmas -- my first Christmas away from home -- in Austin:

--- 1 ---

You're going to laugh.  This morning as my son and I were crawling on hands and knees across our church's rented dancefloor-turned-sanctuary, snaking black tape over electrical cord, I had a great sense of "home".  Same sense, a few moments before that when my daughters and I were placing little paper circles around small white candles.  You may or may  not remember my thoughts last Advent about the act of preparing for corporate worship being part of my DNA? 

Today was a good reminder.

--- 2 ---

This year for Advent I get to sing two of my all-time favorite Advent/Christmas songs.  And not just all by lonesome with iTunes as my accompaniment.  I get to sing these songs with real-live worshipers in a real-live worship service. 

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

In the Bleak Midwinter

--- 3 ---

Since I'm not working this year, I was able to get a little bit Christmas crafty.  We had fun making handmade gifts for some of the many, many amazing new friends we're making.

handmade snow globes for our littlest friends

--- 4 ---

Christ Church presents an annual children's nativity pageant on Christmas Eve, complete with angels, wise men, barn animals.  For the first time in, maybe fourteen years (?), I am not in charge of one single thing for Christmas Eve services.  (although I did offer to help corral costumes between services).

Christ Church invited a string quartet to their second service on Christmas Eve.  Grace upon grace, I only yesterday discovered that another Christmas tradition in our new church is to celebrate the first-Sunday-after-Christmas with a Lessons and Carols liturgy.  I have truly found a home in Anglican worship.  

donkey costume and Baby Jesus waiting for the Christmas pageant

--- 5 ---

Living in central Texas during Advent and Christmas, it's so much fun to read the familiar phrase in Luke's Gospel,  In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah... and be able to picture this.

--- 6 ---

We've been accustomed to filling our relational "tank" with our large and near-by families during the Christmas season. Living far away, we have the opportunity to spend time with friends.  Today we ate toasted cheese sandwiches, watched A Muppet's Christmas Carol and talked  for hours with new friends.  As an extra-special bonus, we got to spend hours sitting, crawling, and playing on floor level with their completely adorable ten-month-old.  

Joy, joy, joy!

--- 7 ---

And, if all else fails, we've learned how to make this.

candy cane vodka for our bigger friends

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Natalie's essay inspired by Annie Dillard

[guest post by Natalie Murphy]

When I was 10 years old I went to summer camp for the first time. I went to a small Christian camp called El Rancho De Paz. My counselor had spent almost all of the summers of her life at that camp. She never cared if she had dirt on her face, she didn’t mind if there was a bat flying around in the room right above us and she could French Braid hair in record time. This was not me. I didn’t like walking long distances, I wouldn’t go with in 10 feet of horse dung and I would not pee in the woods.

I remember watching my counselor that week. She was fearless, she was brave and funny, strong and kind, she was clever and adroit, and I had never admired someone so much in my entire life. That week changed me. I realized that playing in the dirt was fun. And even though I still don’t enjoy hiking, I can appreciate it.

                 Four years later I found myself again at El Rancho, after spending 3 more summers there; I ended up there on a church youth group. Many of the girls I bunked with had never been to camp before and I realized that they were exactly like me, my first time at the Ranch. So I decided to do something crazy so they could see what I saw in my counselor. I wanted to be fearless, just like her. So I grabbed a friend of mine after a day of rain and we dove, headfirst, into a puddle of fresh, smelly mud. Soon everyone joined in and the group of adults and young adults jumped in puddles and rolled in the mud, completely throwing dignity out the window. Can you imagine the shower room that evening? I think that we used the mud exactly how God intended it. We used it as a way of throwing pride out the window and acting like children, forgetting the hardness of our hearts or how much money the clothes we were wearing cost. For a moment, just a moment, I caught a glimpse of Heaven. In Heaven we will have no sorrow, we will only have joy and peace. In Heaven no distance or time will separate the ones who love the Lord. In Heaven there will be no barriers.

 In four short years God used El Rancho to change me from a girl who put way too much care into her image and how people saw her, to a girl who rubbed dirt on her face and sang “Pharaoh, Pharaoh” at the top of her lungs, no matter who was watching. God used El Rancho to show me the majesty of the world he created and how beautiful it can be to lay your worries at his feet and simply jump headfirst into the glory of his masterpiece. God used El Rancho to strip me of my pride. God used El Rancho to change my heavy heart and make it light.

          Something I learned about the beauty of God’s creation in those four years was that God’s majesty isn’t held back by the simplicity of Earth’s atmosphere. I learned how to look at the sky at night, be patient. God knows the stars by name, he gives them their light. The stars are only loyal to him. I have discovered that stars are shy. If you simply glance at them, they do not trust you, you must take your time. Lie down and wait. First they will only show you a few stars and gradually reveal more. They need to know that you are a child of God, that he created you in his image. They need to trust you, and once they do, they don’t hold back. If you are just patient and calm, the stars will perform for you. They will appear all over the sky, as far as our human eyes can see. They will dance for you and twinkle, they will send each other shooting magnificently across your range of vision, the will show you something more wonderful and awesome than a firework show or a dance number, all for the glory of God and the glory of God alone. I’ve found that if you treat them right, the stars can become your friends. They will let you join them in worshipping the master, the creator, the only one who is truly fearless.

          The moon and the sun are full of there own wonder as well. They are not shy or bashful. They are not afraid to show themselves and provide light and wonder for everyone, even those who don’t take the time to appreciate them. When I look at the moon, I like to think that all the people I don’t have by my side, all the people I have rolled in the mud with, all the people who have taught me and learned from me, can simply look up and see exactly what I see. There are only two things that the Texas geography shares with the New York geography, the moon and the sun. God may have sent us to be apart for a while, until Jesus returns, but he did not leave us empty of each other. God gave us the moon and the sun so we remember who we are, his. He gave us the moon and the sun so that we remember how small we are and that even though in our eyes we are 1,764 miles apart, in his eyes, we are neighbors. The moon is large enough to give light to all the people I love at the same time, just imagine how big God is if he is the master and creator of the moon.

          God doesn’t hide his creation; he is not bashful or quiet. But God still makes you look. But if we are patient, if we are gentle and ready to praise and appreciate his masterpiece, he will let us see it.

 Who’s the king of the jungle? Who’s the king of the sea? Who’s the king of the universe? Who’s the king of me? Jesus is the king of the jungle! Jesus is the king of the sea! Jesus is the king of the universe! Jesus is the king of me!

homeschool daybook: Sonnets! Snowflakes! Sock Buns!

Phew-EEE!  We made it through a semester of school here in Texas.  Alex had his final final this morning.  Kendra completed her first month homeschooling, Natalie her second.  I think we're all very grateful for some days off.  Also, grateful for a challenging semester.

Here's a random wrap-up of the past few weeks:

The girls kept up a weekly schedule of "Mary Poppins" days with little friends, giving busy mamas a much-needed break for the afternoon (not to mention, this mama!)  It's been delightful hearing their stories, watching them prepare activities.  It also gives me a decent excuse to once again browse the children's section of the library.   

This past week, we had a snowflake-making skype date with my adorable, industrious nephew.    Earlier in the week he'd produced, filmed and starred in his very own tutorial video for his mama to post on facebook.  I figured he'd be more than eager to teach his cousins.  True delights.... 

We realized we were hitting a wall last week.  Probably due to Christmas and vacation in the air.  I confess I lost my temper a few times that particular week.  That's the bad news.  The good news is that before we began schooling at home, I assumed every week would be like that so a bad week every couple of months isn't so bad.

 To beat the stir-crazies, we packed up our stuff and spent the morning at Strange Brew.  Free wi-fi, lots of comfortable seating, good coffee and tea.  We were all set.  Natalie and I spent a good chunk of time ironing out some wrinkles in her understanding of sentence diagramming.  Call me a geek, but I LOVE sentence diagramming.  I'd forgotten how much.  Natalie?  Not so much.  


I'd like to take a moment to share with you some excerpts from the grammar test I had Kendra create for Natalie.  Kendra isn't taking any formal grammar lessons (she wasn't in public school, either)  so I've been having her keep her skills fresh by editing some of Natalie's work, buffing up on Strunk & White, and writing grammar tests.  


Please enjoy with me a sampling of Kendra's handiwork:


2.  Match each word to its example:


Declarative                          "Feed the hog."
Interrogative                        "My butt is big."
Imperative                           "Aw sh@%$#!!!"
Exclamatory                        "Is it hot in here or is it just you?"


hoo-boy, there's more....


9.  Identify the subject of the following sentence:
     Wow, Kendra is really hot.


Natalie wasn't outdone.  How about this gem?


24.  Change the following italicized adjectives into adjective phrases:
       Awesome people like Kendra deserve a trophy.


Natalie's answer?
        People like Kendra that are mentally unstable deserve a trophy.


Unfortunately for Natalie, Kendra not only wrote the test; she graded it too.

While we're on the subject of my daughters who make me laugh in spite of myself.


Overheard when they were taking turns reciting the Sermon on the Mount to each other.


"Let's drink a shot every time we get a verse right!"  (Henceforth, referring to this exercise as the Sermon on the Mount drinking game.  Don't worry, Mom, it was iced tea.)


During the same activity...


"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.  Blessed are the punctual...."


As you can see, we've got lots of work to do still.


We did accomplish some academic-type work since Thanksgiving:

• History:  Natalie finished her study on the Civil War with an arduous reading of Churchill's The Great Democracies (from History of the English Speaking People, vol. IV); Kendra studied the medieval era.  Brian assigned her a formal paper on the subject of the Church in the Middle Ages.  She spent a week writing and another week revising based on his critique.  
• Literature:  Both girls read from History of English Literature on "How the Sonnet Came to England" and "The Beginning of Free Verse".  I had them read a variety of sonnets from Emily Dickinson and William Wordsworth.  This one by Malcolm Guite was their favorite.
•  We had a complete spending an afternoon reading Jabberwocky and then writing our   own bric-a-brac word poems, via The Roar On the Other Side.  I'd post them here, but you kinda had to be there....
• Language Arts:  See notes on the Grammar review test and sentence diagramming above.  Also, Kendra kept her vocabulary and spelling skills fresh using these online quizzes:  spelling, vocabulary. 
• Math:  Both girls are trucking along with the textbooks they began in September.  Natalie has almost completed her first logic workbook and discovered it's one of her favorite activities.  Who knew?  We'll be starting another logic workbook after Christmas.  Hopefully, her enthusiasm will continue.  Kendra supplements her geometry work with lessons at Khan Academy.
• Science:  The girls spent the last two weeks reading from a variety of sources on the subject of world origins.  We'll pick this up after Christmas with some resources I've been collecting.  
• Nature Study:  Slowly but surely -- sadly, reluctantly --  we're building nature journals.  I'm going to win them over on this discipline yet!
• Music:  Kendra's completed her month-long study on the work and life of Chopin; Natalie on Tchaikovsky.  I'd wanted to find affordable tickets to take the girls to one of Austin's productions of The Nutcracker, but just couldn't swing it this year.  We did enjoy listening to both composers on CDs we loaned from the library.   Between that and good ol' YouTube, hopefully the girls got a little taste of this masterful work.
• Art:  Kendra continued studying Renaissance artists:  Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi.  She did a picture study of our Advent image, Fra Angelico's Annunciation.

• Natalie continued her Renoir study; this past week she did a picture study of The Swing.  She also had another chance to sketch and enjoyed it a ton.  It makes me happy to see her willing to try her hand at an activityI gave up on in like the fourth grade.  

Of course, these are just highlights.  There's lots of reading, writing, talking and daydreaming you can fill in between the lines.  

For fun (under the heading Life Skills to sound more official), I had the girls watch this video:  How to Curl Your Hair With A Sock!  Natalie fell in love with the idea right away and has had instant success.  See for yourself....

BEFORE

AFTER ONE DAY AND THE SACRIFICE OF HER BROTHER'S SOCK

When I was taking these pictures, I had a strange sensation of deja vu.  Then I remembered where I'd seen that hair and that pose before...

Can you even believe how this whole parenting thing works?!?  It's crazy, I tell ya.


If you're one of the faithful friends reading our homeschooling journey these past two months, thank you.  We promise to get back at it next year!

post script

A few notes on recent topics:

   1.  In last week's mixtape, I posted the video-recipe for mulled cranberry cider.  

        p.s.  We made the cider to share with friends after caroling with our neighborhood Saturday night.  It was a HUGE hit.  Unfortunately, I was too busy sipping it and scooping it out for people to take pictures.  Also, my girls would want you to know that they teamed up to make it themselves.  Trust me.  Make some during your feasting in the next few weeks.  (and do let us know what you think!)

2.  Remember the gorgeous starling murmuration video I posted?  Which led to a medley of musings about really seeing the air around us?  Also, remember how much we love Annie Dillard 'round here?  

     p.s. Not sure how I forgot this excerpt from Pilgrim At Tinker Creek:

"Today a gibbous moon marked the eastern sky like a smudge of chalk. The shadows of its features had the same blue tone and light value as the sky iteself, so it looked transparent in its depths, or softly frayed, like the heel of a sock. Not too long ago, according to Edwin Way Teale, the people of Europe elieved that geese and swans wintered there, on the moon's pale seas. Not it is sunset. The mountains warm in tone as the day chillds, and a hot blush deepenes over the land. 'Observe,' said da Vinci, 'observe in the streets at twilight, when the day is cloudy, the loveliness and tendereness spread on the faces of men and women.' I have seen those faces, when the day is cloudy, and I have seen at sunset on a clear winter day houses, ordinary houses, whose bricks were coals and windows flame.

At dusk every evening and extended flock of starlings appears out of the northern sky and winds toward the setting sun. It is the winter day's major event. Late yesterday, I climbed across the creek, through the steers' pasture, beyond the grassy island where I had seen the giant water bug sip a frog, and up a high hill. ... 

Out of the dimming sky a speck appeared, then another, and another. It was the starlings going to roost. They gathered deep in the distance, flock sifting into flock, and strayed towards me, transparent and whirling, like smoke. They seemed to unravel as they flew, lengthening in curves, like a loosened skein. I didn't move; they flew directly over my head for half an hour. The flight extended like a fluttering banner, and unfurled oriflamme, in either direction as far as I could see. Each individual bird bobbed and knitted up and down in the flight at apparent random, for no known reason except that that's how starlings fly, yet all remained perfectly spaced. The flocks each tapered at either end from a rounded middle, like an  eye. Over my head I heard a sound of beaten air, like a million shook rugs, a muffled whuff. Into the woods they sifted without shifting a twig, right through the crowns of trees, intricate and rushing, like a wind."

Here's the video, you should definitely read the Dillard's delicious words before -- and, possibly, after -- watching this video.  

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.