At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don’t need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens — that letting go — you let go because you can.
― Toni Morrison, Tar Baby

I appreciate (and, if truth be told, envy) the magnificent spread of holiday photos I see on social media and receive in Christmas cards. Some are artfully curated, family members and pets scrupulously arranged to create the best compositions. Some are gloriously candid shots with crying, red-faced kids, family members accidentally beheaded by amateur photographers (usually grandmas, like me), and rooms littered with remnants of wrapping paper, cookie crumbs, and beverage bottles. All are scrapbook-worthy photographic records.

And all are photographed by those charged (by other family members–or by themselves) with ensuring that these moments live for posterity. I had a brief stint as one of these family photographers when we bought our first camcorder in the 80s. It was a hulking monstrosity that you heaved upon your shoulder and struggled to balance, one that required weeks of arm and back workouts to strengthen the necessary muscles so that you could steady it enough to record videos actually worth watching. I recall standing against the wall with other amateur videographers during one of the girls’ elementary Christmas programs. Fifteen minutes into the program, my arms shook, and the camcorder wobbled precariously on my left shoulder, which visibly sagged inches lower than my right. Desperate, I realized that I couldn’t move without blocking another parent’s video path. Even worse, I couldn’t lower my camcorder, for I no longer had the strength to keep it from crashing to the floor. Sweating and breathing hard, I called on my former athletic training. I slowed my breathing, committed to the task at hand, and breathlessly chanted: You can do this. Fifteen more minutes. You can do this. Fifteen more minutes. . .

Needless to say, I failed on two fronts. First, the video itself was a disaster, blurry and jiggly enough to cause viewer motion sickness. Second, I missed my girls’ program. Oh, I was there, but I was so intent on taping the event that I couldn’t recall a single song sung or line recited. The whole ordeal was a bust, one I vowed never to repeat.

I wish that I’d taken the words of novelist Toni Morrison to heart earlier. I wish that I’d understood that [n]o record of an event needs to be kept and you don’t need someone to share it with or tell it to. I wish that I’d known how it’s really about letting go, about embracing the wisdom that [a]t some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. Like Morrison, the ancient Greek tragedian, Euripedes, understood that [e]nough is abundance to the wise. On that day in December as my girls stood on risers dressed in their Christmas best and sang carols with clear, sweet voices, it was more than enough to simply be there. Abundance filled the moment. And I missed it all.

Before I go further, a disclaimer: I’m convinced that there are those who can simultaneously photograph and be present in the moment. And I realize how much family and friends treasure their photographic records. After all, a scrapbook or iPhone filled with photos is a veritable feast for those hungry hearts who yearn to flip or scroll through visual memories. Author and host of the podcast, The Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday expounds upon hungry hearts:

Everybody’s got a hungry heart – that’s true. But how we choose to feed that heart matters. It’s what determines the kind of person we end up being, what kind of trouble we’ll get into, and whether we’ll ever be full, whether we’ll ever really be still.

Holiday claims that how we choose to feed the heart matters and will determine whether we’ll ever be full and still. These are words worth considering. The desire to record our moments is just one type of hunger that either fills or fails to fill our hungry hearts. If we can’t ever feel truly full, can’t ever appreciate being still and present in a moment, this may, indeed, determine the kind of person we end up being.

I have no holiday photos that record the last few days I spent with my family. And I’m o.k. with this, for I understand myself well enough to know that I’m not–nor ever will be–one who can simultaneously photograph and be present. So though I still struggle–particularly as I cook and clean up the kitchen– I’m choosing to be present. I’m learning to let go of expectations that I record these moments as lovingly and beautifully as others do. I’m discovering that I often don’t even need to share these moments–precious as they are–with others. Because the moments themselves are splendidly enough.

Dear Jesus,

How quickly this season goes. And how easily our hearts turn sallow, the colors of Christmas running carelessly off the page. As if we hadn’t just knelt at the manger. As if we hadn’t raised our voices in adoration.

We try. We really do. With each gift we wrap and card we write, we remind ourselves of the reason for the season. We have such lovely nativity sets with glorious kings and immaculately groomed animals. In candle-lit churches, we sing to you with voices full of promise and rich with love. And when we sing, we mean every word of every verse.

But after we return gifts-in-the-wrong-sizes and buy discounted wrapping paper for the next season, something happens. We begin to forget the whole thing: the light, the miraculous birth, and the wonder of it all. We scoop snow, make resolutions, and suffer the long, cold days until spring. We put our noses to the grindstone and plow ahead towards what? Better days? Leaner bodies? Efficiency and resiliency and expediency?

Most of the time, we try at all the wrong things. In spite of ourselves–or perhaps because of ourselves–we mess up. We pick ourselves up, dust off every vestige of failure, and begin again. Sadly, we believe that it’s all about us and all we are willing to do. When we should be carrying Bethlehem in our hearts, we carry resolutions in our heads.

So I’m asking for your help, Jesus. I do the things I don’t want to do, say the things I shouldn’t say, and dream such pale, scant dreams. Bring me to the foot of the manger. Envelop me in the mystery of your miraculous birth. And remind me of the love that birthed You and nailed You to the cross. Each moment of each day.

This is my Christmas wish, Jesus. For me and for all.

With much love from one of your adopted children,

Shannon

Dear Mary,

Kudos to the many artists who have tried to capture you as you held your baby boy and looked into the face of God. But throughout the years and in spite of their talents and devotion to this aim, they have largely failed. Consider the task, though. What pigments, what brush strokes, what vision and sleight of hand could result in more than a valiant approximation of this sacred moment? Knitted together in your womb and fashioned from pure God, how could any artist do justice to the light that shone from this holy child? And what canvas could contain a love that pours endlessly from heaven?

But artists try as they might, and their efforts draw us in. Closer then, our hearts take up where shapes and shades only begin. Here in your presence, Mary, color pales, and vapor-like, floats into the night. Lines lose their purpose and curl helplessly at your feet.

We see how you bend towards your son. Here is a line that arcs towards mystery, that brings heaven right into your arms.

Oh Mary, I want to think that I have loved this way. Cradling my children in my arms, I want to believe that my joy was your joy. And I want to believe that, in the fellowship of mothers, my spirit leapt just as yours had. In the middle of the night as I held my sleeping babies, I have known the peace that passes all understanding. As their tiny hearts beat against my chest and their downy heads lay tucked beneath my chin, I have known that there was nowhere I would rather be.

But in truth, all my mothering must kneel at the manger. From your son’s first steps to Calvary, you loved a Savior.  A virgin, God’s bride, you faced shame and humiliation, fear and uncertainty, so that your child could save the world. How this love blessed and cost you.

But on that glorious night, you treasured up all these things–the light, the angels’ song, the breath of your infant son on your face. On that night, you were and always will be blessed among women.

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child,¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Luke 2: 16-20

Dear Shepherds:

I have to admit that your role in the whole nativity story blows me away. Absolutely and joyously blows me away. Seriously, who but God would charge a group of shepherds with spreading the good news of the birth of our Savior?

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. God charged a lot of folk–the nondescript, the poor, the cast-off, the untouchable and the unequipped–to do His work. So, the fact that he chose you to be His son’s first visitors fits right in with the rest of His narrative.

But still. What a bunch of men you must have been! Men whose hands had only known a hard day’s work, hands coated with dirt and wool wax, hands that gripped the gnarled wood of a staff, and hands who would quake as they reached out to touch the infant king. I’ve known other workers like you. Women who sat in the back of my college classrooms where they attended, day after day, to better themselves, women who had sent their children to school with cardboard in the bottoms of their shoes and who gave profound meaning to what it means to perservere and “make do.” Men with shattered dreams who were beginning again, men who had once lived in cozy ranch homes with two-car garages and swing sets in white-fenced yards and then lost it all. Men and women who have served me food, cleaned the places where I’ve worked, stocked the shelves of the places where I’ve shopped, taken care of my garbage, my plumbing and wiring, cleared the roads I drive on–all of those people who work hard to serve. Like you, in the world’s eyes, they are nobodies. And like you, in God’s eyes, they are truly somebodies.

For you see, there has always been much shepherding to be done. In lonely fields, in early morning stock rooms, after hours in hospitals, schools, and office buildings. There has always been a lot of tending necessary–in childcare facilities and classrooms, in workplaces And sadly, even when we look down upon them and send our condescending words and pinched smiles their way, they still go about the business of tending to whatever it is they are to tend. As they have and as they always will.

When the angels appeared to you, I’ll bet you looked away at first, believing the words to be for someone else, someone worthy and important. It is a mistake, you probably thought, certainly a huge mistake. For after years of fields and rocks and sheep, days and nights of wary solitude, you could not have imagined such a night as this. And on such a night, this is the part that really moves me: how wisps of air from angel wings softened your weathered faces, how the light of all lights flooded your watchful eyes, and how your hands flew into the night air, awestruck having taken on lives beyond themselves.

The fact is that we need shepherds today more than ever. Most of us simply need tending to. Because when our toilets break and shepherds show up with spud wrenches, pipe sheers and stem pullers, we stand back sorely amazed. And when we’ve scraped a night’s worth of ice from our windshields and find the streets plowed and salted, we count our blessings. Indeed, it takes a whole lot of tending to make the world go round.

So, here’s to you, shepherds, tenders of wayward sheep! Take your place among God’s chosen. And when the nights are long and cold, take heart in this: we couldn’t have done it, and we still can’t do any of it without you.

From one who’s in constant need of tending,

Shannon

⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child,¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. Luke 2:8-20

Dear Innkeeper,

You didn’t even get a name. In the Bible, that is. Actually, there is only your implied presence at the doorway that night in Bethlehem. Still, in churches all over the world, someone always takes up your cause, dresses the part and delivers the single crucial line: There is no room at the inn. No respectable nativity pageant would be worth its salt (or myrrh) without an innkeeper. A bit part, but a necessary part nonetheless.

Actually, I’m a big fan of bit parts. Consider the world without those who play bit parts for most–if not all–of their lives. Behind every leading role–say a cancer researcher or a legislator or a New York Times best-selling author or a Savior–there has always been the presence of some nameless individual: a family member, a friend, a teacher, a mentor. These are bit part people at their truest and finest, those who inauspiciously go about the necessary work of guiding, redirecting, encouraging, criticizing, and loving, always loving.

Innkeeper, I know what you’re thinking: But I wasn’t a supporter or mentor or friend. I’m just a guy who opened the door and told a desperate young couple that there was no room for the night. Then–and this is the really sad part–I waved them off with a lousy consolation prize: shelter in a stable. I gestured toward my animal barn and closed the door on a woman in the throes of labor!

Honestly, there are also bit parts which are insignificant at best and harsh at worst. Cast into one of these parts, you guaranteed that Jesus would be born in the lowliest of places. This birth would turn the world on its head and usher in a kingdom with a wholly unexpected king: one born to common parents, one who would live, love, suffer and die among ordinary people, one who would conquer death, Immanuel, God with us always. And you were there at the very beginning to play the bit part we needed you to play.

So, when the curtain call comes, you should take your bow. Generations of fellow bit players are waiting offstage to give you a long and overdue ovation.

Humbly, from one bit player to another,

Shannon

Dear Joseph,

There is no one quite like you. It’s true that if you lived today, Jimmy Kimmel would not be knocking your door down for an appearance, and Anderson Cooper would not be scheduling you for an interview. What was scandalous in Nazareth just would not play well today. The sheer goodness of a man like you simply would not result in ratings.

An angel of God who visits a common carpenter to verify that his betrothed was chosen by God to carry His son? Even this would not be newsworthy, I’m afraid. Finding no means of corroborating such an angelic visit, reporters would chalk this up to a lunatic’s ravings and set their sights on stories they could confirm.

But still, there is no one quite like you. And I mean this in the best possible way. As your life spilled out before you, days of wood and dust and prayer, could you have imagined yourself as father? Parenting is hard enough, but to parent the son of God? I can’t begin to imagine this. But you held that baby boy in your arms, and you gave your heart to him. Not flesh of your flesh, nor bone of your bone, but yours all the same.

Joseph, how we need men like you today. Our land is parched for lack of them. So many of our men are mere sperm donors who turn away from their sons and daughters, choosing other, easier pursuits. So many of our men lack heart and soul, and lacking these, they bluster their way bullishly through the world. It’s tragic, you see, for their women and children are left wanting and waiting for men who will show up. Every day in every way.

In the streets of Nazareth, on the road to Bethlehem, in that dank stable, and all the days of your life, you showed up, Joseph. And because of your great love, I know the greatest love of all.

So gratefully,

Shannon

Dear Women of Nazareth:

How quickly you turned your backs on one of your own. This unwed mother, this girl gone wrong, you presumed her guilty and wrapped her in shame.

In the marketplace, you bartered for the best cloth and grain, you spoke of family and friends, and you didn’t give Mary a second thought. You sent her into the shadows as you gave yourselves up to sunnier things, pulling cloaks of respectability around you and counting your blessings.

Even as she stood in the shadows, how could you not see the Light of the World piercing the city, piercing the world? But then, you had no eyes to see that the greatest blessing was right there in your midst. God chose the very woman whom you cast off to carry His son. That’s how He works–with the least, the unexpected, the shamed and shameless.

And you missed it. You might have fallen to your knees in adoration, humbled by the presence of the living God growing inside this hometown girl, but you busied yourselves with such trivial things: what you would wear, what you would eat, when you would sleep.

We have women like you today, and they send their accusations and presumptions into cyberspace with the touch of one finger. Unfiltered and unexamined, their words shred the reputations of others and leave their victims mere shells of their former selves. Like you, they have no eyes to see and miss the greater light that shines inside each of those they accuse. They miss the miracles–blooms discernible to only the faithful–that unfold around them. In truth, they miss it all.

Like you, they delight in playing God, believing their throne rooms to be impenetrable and their judgment to be unimpeachable. I suppose they find it easier this way, believing themselves charged with the work of sorting the sheep from the goats. But do they ever stop to think that all this sorting and judging was never their business?

It’s easy for me to say that I would have befriended Mary, perhaps even defended her publicly. Sadly, I’m really not sure. I may have walked the dusty streets, smugly and wholly unaware of the miracle in my midst. I, too, may have missed it all.

With both scorn and empathy,

Shannon

A friend requested that I repost a series of advent letters that I wrote several years ago. Advent is a time of expectation and preparation, a time of hopeful waiting. Over several Advent seasons, I’ve tried to imagine what this time would have been like for all those who played a role in the nativity. For a time, I knew the pain of infertility, but when I consider Elizabeth, I see that my struggles pale in comparison to hers. Most importantly, I’ve come to understand how Elizabeth’s hope and trust in God’s love exemplify what Advent is all about.

Dear Elizabeth:

Recently, I was standing before an Advent calendar with my grandson, and he said, “Grandma, look at all the days until Christmas! 24 long days!” Twenty-four days, indeed. For most adults, this is a blink, a blip on time’s radar screen, a proverbial drop in life’s bucket.

But Elizabeth, not so with us. I waited for years, you for decades–our arms childless and our hearts expectant. In season after season of fruit cake and divinity, I waited for God, for anyone to ring my door bell and place an exquisitely wrapped plate in my hands. On it, the frankicense of family, the fragrant assurance that two would become three would become four. . .

But you! Your expectation spooled out before you, skeins of your heart’s finest fibers in piles at your feet. You were an expecting mother far beyond what is expected. When a child called Mother, you stopped, turned, and watched as your arms left your sides, reaching, yearning, and stretching into the space that spanned the years between child-bearing and old age. Not a day–or night–went by when you did not see the child of your dreams in the faces of other mothers’ children. And not a moment passed when you did not feel the absence of the sweet weight of a sleeping child on your chest.

Day after day, you sent your prayers heavenward like eager doves, their wings beating the darkness around you. You baked the bread to feed your empty womb. And finally, when skin loosened from your bones, thin and mottled with sun and age, you settled into that singular space of childless women.

And then! God spoke: Behold Elizabeth, wife of Zecahriah and mother of John, a righteous and faithful man who will make ready a people prepared for the Lord. And in that barren space, your child grew and leapt for joy.

Oh Elizabeth, I have been an impatient woman. I have worked and worried through most of my days, believing that my will alone might bring me the blessings I so desired. I have stood before my life like a child before an Advent calendar. Twenty-four long days! As if my urgency were God’s. As if counting the days might make the answers to my prayers come more quickly.

Now, as skin loosens from my bones, I pray that my will might loosen, too. Unbound, I pray that I might faithfully wait, might know that neither worry nor work will bring God’s blessings. Unbound, I might join you, a sister-in-waiting. And here, we might prepare our hearts for the Grace and Peace from whom all blessings flow.

With hope and expectancy,

Shannon