ASM097 Merry Christmas

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well hello and merry christmas everyone uh this is science mike uh mike mccarg is my actual name if you've never heard that it always feels weird to introduce myself as science mike uh unless i'm on stage and there's kind of a stick to it but it may seem strange that i greet you by saying merry christmas when this episode of the program comes out the day after christmas day so why am i still saying merry christmas right this is when we tear down the decorations this is when we stop all the christmas stuff because we've been hearing christmas carols since the day after thanksgiving and it's time to move on to the next thing and that's how i felt probably most of my life i've always been kind of a scrooge about christmas uh and i thought maybe this week i don't want greg to have to uh edit the program uh around christmas i'd rather him have his time off with his family so i thought we might just have like a conversation this week no jingle no uh sound effects just uh no editing really at all just kind of sharing some of my thoughts around this christmas i've been on tour i've been going and going and going and going and last night i slept in my own bed for the fourth time in a row and that's something i haven't done since september so uh the tour's finally for this year uh cooled down there's no more appearances no more travel and i'm home and i've been thinking about christmas it snuck up on me i was traveling so much and uh as i mentioned just a couple of minutes ago i've always been kind of a scrooge um when i was a kid i'd love to get presents sure [Music] but as i got older it just seemed to be much ado about nothing it seemed to be all about shopping and commercialism i noticed that the first people consistently to honor christmas or to mention christmas for retailers and they were excited about peak shopping the some stores capture a majority of their revenue in the time between thanksgiving and christmas and that didn't seem uh beautiful or peace on earth goodwill toward men i had kind of a charlie brown christmas idealist five and then as i got older as i became more of a biblical literalist it bothered me that there were a lot of inconsistencies in popular notions of christmas and christmas as depicted in the gospels you know there were no wise men at the birth of christ they came later or the very idea that christ was born in a stable or a cave is not really based in any good history the idea that christ was born in december we all know came from pagan seasons and festivals not from any reasonable estimation about the time when christ was born and so as a religious fundamentalist i objected to the way that the christmas season distorted our understanding of a historical birth of christ and as a young evangelical kid there were things about christmas i found incredibly confusing like why is there a song about the 12 days of christmas what are those 12 days there aren't 12 days of christmas there's christmas day and there's christmas eve and that's christmas of course you know when i was an evangelical lent would be something you found in your belly button not a season on the calendar and the liturgical calendar which varies from denomination to denomination the mainline tradition has a subtly different christmas calendar than the catholic church which has a different calendar than the orthodox church so there isn't a universal liturgical calendar but it was all greek to me intentionally with a nod to the role the greek orthodox church played in the formation of the liturgical calendar and i didn't understand what advent was other than lighting candles at church we never talked about it in the southern baptist church i grew up in or really in the southern baptist church that uh i i i was an adult in uh we we had advent devotionals i've even written um written part of those devotionals in the past but i didn't understand what this what this was all about and this year i've been doing it differently i've been i've been in the main line a couple years now uh i'm more familiar uh with the rhythms of the liturgical calendar at first it was like what's happening why are all the colors in the church changing why why do we talk about you know easter for so long and lent for so long and what's ordinary time all that confused me but if you're like me if you have an evangelical past and the liturgical calendar is new for you i'd like to introduce you to some of those ideas because what i've noticed is after thanksgiving we get into christmas mode right we get there we're ready and um and then we're sick of christmas by the time it comes and yet we're kind of let down as it passes because we place all these expectations on christmas that it has to be a time of joy and celebration peace on earth good will toward men we expect to be with others and not feeling lonely and when we have experiences that are different we remember those who have passed when we realize some of our family is geographically or emotionally distant from us uh the season takes a dark turn and this year i've been very intentional uh starting on november 28th i did advent following thanksgiving forgive me my dog likes to make his contribution to the vodcast if you can hear him barking uh someone's walking their dog by the front of our house and max gets very excited about possible new friends anyway um so this year after thanksgiving i shifted into advent and my goal in advent has been to think about the coming christ to think about the arrival of christ the anticipation which is what advent is about and every week has a different theme and by the time you're hearing this advent is gone but in case advent's new to you the point of advent is to contemplate and anticipate and meditate on what it means for god to be with us and for me that uh involved reading the gospels with a special emphasis on the the small portions of the gospels that occur prior to the birth of christ and reading a little bit about old testament prophecies that the church interprets as being about the arrival of christ in the hebrew bible and uh doing less i stepped away from social media and used it you know maybe 10 minutes a day at most and some days not at all through all of advent i did less appearances i did less socializing when i would come home i just stayed with my family and i had a time of quiet anticipation and thinking about what it meant or what it means even for god in christ to be incarnate in jesus and if the world needs it if i need it what that means and as i'm recording this we're in the final week of advent christmas is still a few days away but i haven't started celebrating christmas like people around me i haven't sung a lot of christmas carols and i have had a little bit of eggnog i can't help myself maybe a christmas tree cake or two but all that is in anticipation for the end of advent on christmas eve as the sun goes down and we enter into christmas a time to celebrate that god is with us and as this podcast comes out on december 26th i'll just be getting into my christmas celebration all my christmas lights will still be up the tree will stay up i'll be drinking eggnog and i will be thinking every day about what it means for god to come to the earth what it means for jesus to be with us and that will last all the way until epiphany on january 6 epiphany is when we celebrate the revelation of um god with us the incarnation through jesus typically with the symbols in association with the visitation of the wise men to a young jesus and you know your mileage may vary but i have found that that rhythm of advent into christmas into epiphany of lengthening those seasons reduces the influence of commercialism and a retail holiday and a social a buzz of the season and instead creates a spiritual focus i don't want to over spiritualize christmas but i don't know that you can um and i have found it incredibly life-giving this this season of advent for me especially after the joyous but incredibly busy 2016 i have had this intentional slowing down in anticipation has been so life-giving after this election focusing on christ's mission to create peace has been life-giving after the devastation we've seen in syria and in aleppo a savior king has been life-giving so i don't know you know where you are right now this day after christmas and i'm always afraid to do uh podcasts that have a seasonal focus like this because i know some of you will hear this in march or june [Laughter] every episode of ask science mike has a very very long tail but for those of you listening here right after christmas and if you're struggling through some christmas blues if you're struggling through a new year and thinking boy how tough 2016 was for the world thinking about the challenges we face in 2017 and beyond in the climate in our political environment and our soil in so many ways uh it seems like we're we're on a threshold of a new chapter in humanity that could be uh quite good or quite bad i hope you'll consider some kind of liturgical practice that moves through advent and christmas tied into epiphany and think about in your life what that means i mean you know me i have a a complicated relationship with christian theology it is both the soil from which i sprouted and in my past i still have a skeptic's struggle a lot of it seems like nonsense to me many days but the rhythm of the liturgical calendar i have found to be grounding in a way that purely intellectual logical or fact-finding pursuit of god is not i was at the wild goose festival this year and i met a pastor shaman which is a very wild goose thing i became a very good friend of mine and he had a healing ritual that i i participated in i didn't have any expectations for it but i want to be a good sport and participate and when i found um when i found that experience to be incredibly helpful and insightful and ultimately life-changing he said this to me he said sometimes the liturgy believes so that we don't have to so if you're doubting if you're struggling if you have the christmas blues i just wanted to share that with you maybe this season you could practice the liturgy and it can believe so that you don't have to [Laughter] it's nonsense isn't it it i think it is i think it is probably nonsense but it's really good stuff it's really life-changing good stuff if you'll lean into it if you'll let it um so if you just google the liturgical calendar there's probably one if you're in any mainline denomination that's specific to your own traditions rhythms i i personally obviously use the united methodist liturgical calendar but i would challenge you to consider the theme of this season of christmas time moving towards epiphany and then here's the thing with those ideas in mind take the bible off the shelf blow the dust off of it and and engage with the text in that way which by the way on that note i just got a new bible [Music] which is you know pretty wild for me i i have uh the same you know obviously i do a lot of digital bible stuff but i do like reading out of paper books and for study i got a new oxford annotated bible i really like for kind of hardcore bible research when i'm writing or maybe even researching some of the program but i got a bible uh it's called bibliotheca or biblioteca i don't know how to pronounce it b-i-b-l-i-o-t-h-e-c-a i pre-ordered this like maybe two years ago and it finally came out and it is this five-volume set divided into uh the sections that the hebrew bible is divided into so you have the five books and the former prophets there's one volume the latter prophets is another volume the writings is a third volume it has the apocrypha if you want to include that which i did as a fourth volume and then the fifth volume is the new testament which makes this huge library of books which is good because the bible is a library of books so when you divide it into basically five bible-sized volumes you get like normal thickness of pages you get page margins this one doesn't have verse numbers in it so the the text flows beautifully uh so um it's it's pricey uh i think it's more now than it was when i got it because i got like a kickstarter discount uh but if you're you know if you're in a season where you think yeah oh wow yeah the complete sets like 179 that is outrageous i mean but it's a beautiful book i can see why it would it cost that much it's a paperback version uh looks like for 160 um but that's what i've been reading like my study out of um for these the seasonal approach to the church calendar that's all i got i wanted to talk about the liturgical year and how refreshing it's been for me i know a lot of people who listen to this program are evangelical or post-evangelical uh probably a third of you are in that audience and uh when i've met you at events uh these last few months you've mentioned how you're you're also exploring the more broad church tradition you never knew about growing up in the evangelical church for all my mainline listeners sorry you know this was a review but there's something beautiful and life-giving about a yearly rhythm to our spirit a yearly rhythm to our reflection on what christianity means what does it mean everyone disagrees i disagree with myself but something about a faith that moves with the seasons helps us have a faith that handles the changing environment of life so merry christmas and may you understand today what it means for god to be with you