Advent – Adventure With Brendan

Becoming Okay With Disappointments During The Holidays

December 14, 2021Brendan Scott

It’s the hope that kills you. Cliché right? No, I am not an English football fan, unless you count the Richmond Greyhounds, the team coached by Ted Lasso (Probably my favorite show right now and my favorite episode might be the Christmas episode that I watched this past August and yes it did get me into the Christmas spirit three months early), but I do agree with the sentiment. Hope can kill, especially if you place that hope in the wrong things. That is why I am learning to become okay with disappointments during the holidays because my hope is not in a perfect tree.

No, I am not giving up all hope and becoming a Scrooge for the season. On a side note, how come being a scrooge is a bad thing, since Ebanizer Scrooge turns his life around and becomes a man we should all model our lives after. A Christmas Carol, if I can continue this little aside, makes it clear that Christmas is not about what we buy, but about how we love our fellow man. At the end of the classic novel, Scrooge has a change of heart and realizes he must love those around him which leads him to buying the prized turkey (is it a goose? I think so.) for the Cratchet family. Christ calls us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. But even the message behind A Christmas Carol might leave us disappointed and feeling hopeless. When we love and expect love in return only to be shunned, that is disappointing, but true hope can still remain.

Hope can bring us joy when we let go of our expectations, live in the moment, and let Christ into our season. Expectations are key to the Christmas season. When we place our expectations in the wrong things we can easily become disappointed. From Thanksgiving to Christmas I have expectations of a magical season. I want to experience joy. I want to eat quite a bit and not gain weight. I want to feel that sense of wonder only an early morning sitting in quiet near the Christmas tree can bring. But this year we had to buy a second Christmas tree because Phoenix, our cuddle king of a pup, chewed up our first one. Maybe this is why Scrooge, at the start of the story, is so jaded toward Christmas, someone chewed up his expectations of beauty at Christmas, so his flame of hope died out and all wonder left with it.

Even expecting wonder can bring on disappointment. Just go and watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, its streaming on HBO Max if you don’t have the blu-ray like I do. Clark Griswald expects to provide wonder for his entire family. He has always dreamed of having the house with the most lights and when the lights just won’t work he is so disappointed he punches his fake Santa Claus. The entire movie is packed full of hilarious examples of how Christmas expectations can be turned into disappointments. But it is okay to experience disappointments at Christmas, because if our true hope is in Christ we can know that the dark days will be redeemed. His love is coming to rescue us all, even the Clark Griswalds of the world.

I can relate to Clark Griswald and Scrooge because I have felt disappointed during the Christmas season. I remember wanting a race track for Christmas, only for it to come without the full track. We went back to the store after the Christmas season was over only to be told they didn’t have the replacement part. I never got to play with that toy. Even this holiday season has already had its diapointments. I wasn’t able to sleep the night before Thanksgiving because I had an anxiety attack and so I spent the entire day tired, anxious, and disappointed. I know other disappointments will come this season. Maybe I’ll get sick and have to Zoom in with my family for Christmas morning (I’ve had to do this before when I lived in Guatemala and it was not quite the same). No, I don’t want gifts that are broken and no I don’t really want to be separated from my family, but being okay with disappointments is more about where I am placing my expectations.

Through the holidays, especially leading up to Christmas, advent is practiced throughout Christianity. Advent means to wait, to hope. Typically in the church this is observed by lighting four different candles, the first one being the representation of hope and the last one being the Christ candle. If we light our hope candle and place it in any other hands than the hands of Christ, our expectations are not going to be be met and our hope will leave us disappointed.

They are anxiously waiting for Santa to come

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned the beautiful poem Christmas Bells (click the link for the full poem) about disappointment at Christmas. Here are the last two stanzas. Notice how God brings beauty to Wadsworth Longfellow in the midst of his despair. It is beauty that can bring us back to the hope that Christ has for us.

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

So in Advent we wait with a hope that leads to Christ. His love for me is what allows me to feel disappointment at Christmas because I know he is coming back to redeem the wrongs and bring true peace to our world. Through the season I know I will have days that are so lacking in wonder that it hardly feels like Christmas at all, but in the end even if Christmas Day doesn’t go as planned I can remember that I am loved. That Christ came as a baby, lived in our wonderful and disappointing world, and still chose to sacrifice himself for me. That is where the magic of this season resides.

So this holiday season I am going to be okay if I am disappointed because my hope is in Christ and that is a hope that will never kill me.

All she wants for Christmas is a red rider BB gun.

Can Christmas Carols Save Our Hope For Christmas?

December 22, 2020Brendan Scott

The bells will be ringing, but will this year be a Christmas we all have the blues? Two nights ago my throat started to feel a little sore. Any other year I am not sure I would even register this annoying sensation, but not with Covid still decimating December. My hope of a happy Christmas seemed to be crashing all around me. I leaned over to April and told her my fears of having to spend Christmas alone, quarantined from my family. Now, as I write this, I am fine, but the fear of missing out on family time was real. I know missing family time is the reality that many people are facing. Families are stuck at home, separated from loved ones. Hope seems to be in short supply.

A quarantine Christmas comes at the end of a not so tender year. We’ve been torn apart Chaos and closed cafes have lead to hate. Hate is strong and it is telling us to give in to despair. Yet, Christmas time is coming! This advent season many churches lit their hope candles, but I am sure to many the candle’s flame seems to be flickering out. However, God is stronger than hate and he is still working.

I know that God is stronger than hate because of Christmas music. You know, jingle bells, deck them halls, and all that stuff. There is just so much joy and hope in the songs we listen to once a year. This fact hit me about ten years ago when I started enjoying Christmas music. I think it was the Blue Grass Christmas station on pandora (I can’t remember for sure, but I wrote about it here and I even included a list of my favorite songs), it just makes me dance, and John Gorka’s “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day,” which is the Christmas Carol of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem Christmas Bells.

In 1861 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lost his wife to a tragic fire. Then his son died while fighting for the Union in the Civil War. He sunk in despair and was stung when he heard the bells on Christmas Day. I am sure he wanted God to tell him why he had lost his wife and son and why our nation was at war. So many people were dying and I am sure his world felt out of control, maybe a little like how our world feels. Yet, he did not end in despair.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
and wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

If he can still find hope when all seems lost, so can we. In Longfellow’s isolation and pain, God showed up. This poem is so relevant now. Our world is a mess. Hate is strong, but it cannot outshine God’s love for us. He is working in this mess and He will redeem it. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail because the best is yet to come. Our God turns gravestones into gardens.

God has promised to come and heal the brokenhearted and I know he will. God is a promise keeper and no matter my health, my hope will be in Him. I hope that as we wait for Christmas during the last week of advent, you feel God’s love and you know that the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, and God will bring peace on earth, good-will to men. The bells will be ringing the sound of hope again!

How To Celebrate Christmas In Guatemala and the Meaning of Christmas

December 19, 2011December 20, 2011Brendan Scott

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Last year I learned the meaning of Christmas. I spent Christmas 2010 in Guatemala, away from the snow of Colorado and more importantly away from my family. Guatemala, or at least my home city of Xela, doesn’t celebrate Christmas the way most of the world celebrates the birth of Christ. Sure at the Inter-American School, where I worked, we had a Christmas Play. Last year the elementary performed the well known play Izzy Saves Christmas, where Izzy the mouse saves Christmas. Haven’t heard of it? Well, it’s a Guatemalan staple, or it is now.

I also taught my students what the best kind of Christmas party is; a White Elephant Party. Who doesn’t want to go home with an alarm clock in a country where it is better to use your cellphone as an alarm at night, because anything plugged into the wall just might lose power.

But where Guatemala, and especially Xela, differs from Christmas in the United States is Christmas Eve. Growing up as a Presbyterian Pastor’s kid in the United States, my family’s Christmas tradition centered around our church’s Christmas Eve service. Every year, especially when I was younger, my mom would force me into my Christmas best, drive me and my sisters to church, and we would light the Christ Candle. As I documented last year, in my blog I’ll Be Home For Christmas, my family always had the misfortune of lighting the Christ Candle, which never went smoothly. I fought with my sister in front of 1,000 plus people who’d come to church expecting to hear how Christ came to bring peace on earth and goodwill to men. The next year they expected something else, and I did not fail them. I dropped a lit match on the carpet floor. Fortunately the church didn’t burn down.

I did not have to light the Christ Candle for Christmas Eve in Xela. I was a spectator, surrounded by friends and Guatemalan families who had come to celebrate Christ’s birth. As much as I missed being with my family last year I enjoyed witnessing how the Latin culture celebrates Christmas. My favorite part of the service at Saint Mark’s was the Posada. A handful of kids marched into the church dressed as Guatemalan Marias and Joses with sumbreros and mustaches followed by a very Guatemalan baby Jesus Cristo.

Shortly after the service, after I had sung my share of Spanish Christmas Carols I headed back to my house with Skyy a fireworks crazed freshman , his mom Susan, whose house I lived at, Jen (co-worker), Blake and Amy (co-workers), Blake’s family, and Holland (another co-worker) and his boys to set off fireworks. Ask anyone in Guatemala and they will tell you setting off fireworks is the real reason for the season. I may have spent upwards of twenty dollars on fireworks, which didn’t even match all of the explosives Skyy brought to the table. Us guys took the next couple of hours detonating our ammunition. At midnight Xela sounded as if it were under attack, the entire city lit up like the large Christ Candle.

Christmas Eve has aways been family time for me, quiet and relaxing (after the Christmas Eve service at least). This year I plan on watching “How Earnest Saved Christmas” with my two sisters. I look forward to waking up on Christmas morning and being with my family. But I will always remember how much fun I had lighting off fireworks and celebrating my savior’s birth with people my Guatemalan family.

Christmas is not about what you do, what you give or what you get, but in the end it is about enjoying the birth of Christ with those who are around you. No matter where you are. Last year on Christmas day Donna and Laurel McMarlin (Laurel was one of my co-workers) welcomed me into their family and shared their Christmas with me. They helped make what could have been a lonely day, a day full of love and celebration, which made for a perfect Christmas.

Harry Potter and Tebowing at the Climax

December 5, 2011December 16, 2011Brendan Scott

I love going to the movies. I was that kid who stood in line to see all of the “Star Wars” movies when they were re-released back in the 90’s and when “The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring” came out ten years ago, I was the first person in line, not just for tickets, but to enter the theater. And when theaters started releasing movies at midnight, I’m there at 10 pm. Don’t even get me started on how early I had to get to the theater for “The Return of The King;” it was crazy.

I think the reason I love going to the movies is because I love good stories. The atmosphere in a crowded theater on opening night is exhilarating. When “The Sixth Sense” came the theater was packed. With every twist and turn each of my friends began tucked their legs up on their seats. We shared in the fear. We pulled for Bruce Willis’s character to reconnect with his wife and for Haley Joel Osment’s character to receive the help he needed. As the movie built toward its climax the hairs on my legs stood up and all I wanted to do was hug my knees like everyone else, but fear froze me. The crowd made the climax of the movie completely captivating, but the well told story made the change the characters experienced even more meaningful and worth the level of fear I had to experience.

Good stories are filled with meaning. Movie writer and teacher Robert McKee says, “If I could send a telegram to the film producers of the world, it would be these three words: ‘Meaning Produces Emotion’ Not money; not sex; not special effects; not movie stars; not lush photography.” Meaning is what a good story is all about and the climax of a good movie will be filled with meaning. McKee states that “The Climax of the last act is your great imaginative leap. Without it, you have no story. Until you have it, your characters wait like suffering patients praying for a cure.”

When I’m in a packed theater, I’m suffering along with the main character for that positive or negative turn to occur in the movie. I want Frodo to make it to Mount Doom and drop the ring into the fires of Mordor. I want Harry Potter to live or die, maybe both, and so I wait for that turning moment, that meaningful climax. As an audience, we share the ups and downs of the characters story. Without the ups and downs that lead to the climax, the climax would be meaningless.

There are people out there that flip to the end of a book before they start just so they can see if it is a good ending or not. They pick up “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows” and flip to Harry’s battle with Voldamort. They want to get the stories payoff without reading the entire book or, even worse, the other six books in the series. By skipping to the end of the book they miss the reason why Harry had to do what he does. But just like sharing a story with someone adds to the story’s meaning, the work it takes for character, as well as the reader, to make it to the climax is what makes it meaningful.

The people who want to skip to the climax of a book are the same people who sat down and watched the last episode of Lost with out watching the previous five seasons. They didn’t want to see the story develop, to see the characters grow and change. They wanted all of the payoff without watching for six seasons. These are the same people who on December 5th want to fast forward to Christmas Day. They want the meaning without any of the work.

More on Christmas in a moment. Let’s not rush to the climax because right now we’re at the rising action of our story. Sunday December 4th The Neighborhood Church celebrated the second Sunday of the Advent season by sharing a sit down meal during the worship service. People met together, ate, and shared stories about Christmas’ past. It was very meaningful. The only problem was the service didn’t finish until 12 pm. An hour into the Denver Broncos game against the Vikings. Co-blogger and Co-pastor of the Neighborhood Church, Mike Klassen comforted the congregation by reminding us all that “Tebow Time” (A term here meaning going beast mode and winning against all odds) isn’t until the fourth quarter anyway. So if we missed the first half it would be just fine.

I tevoed Tebow anyway. As I pressed play on the DVR, I knew I wanted to share a meaningful story with my fellow Bronco fans who’d gathered around the TV with me. We knew we could just fast forward to the end. But we wanted to experience the entire story. If we had just skipped to the end, the win wouldn’t have been as meaningful. The time we shared together watching the Broncos game was splattered with theological discussions. Why is Tebow so loud about his faith? Incomplete pass! What if Tebow messes up (On the field and in his faith)? Fumble, no way the ground can’t cause a fumble! What is perseverance of the Saints (No, I’m not talking about football here)? I can’t believe it, the Broncos Win!

And as Tebow rallied the Broncos from an 8 point deficit late in the fourth quarter we were discussing how God’s Grace works in our lives. Life is like a good movie with many turns. In “The Return of the King,” Frodo loses hope. He turns away from his mission and decides he will keep the ring, but Grace steps in (In the form of Sam) and saves him. Grace does what Frodo cannot do, destroy the ring and bring him back to the Shire. Grace creates the meaningful change in Frodo’s life. If Tebow fails on the field or in life, Grace will be there for him too. Grace is there for all of us, offering a chance to make a meaningful change in our lives. A chance to Tebow (Go beast mode/let God takeover), which brings us back to Christmas.

Christmas is not about what you get or even about what you give. It is about experiencing the season with the people you love. It is about sharing special moments with those around you. Most of all it’s about God sending the Incarnation of Grace down to the world as the baby Christ. If we fast forwarded to Christmas Day it would be like reading the last page of a book, only watching the Broncos during the fourth quarter, and fast forwarding all our favorite movies to the climax: empty and meaningless. So slow down and know that no matter how long it seems until Christmas, that God is working in your life. Christmas is more than just the climax of Christmas day. It is about the Grace we have been given and the work it does in our life. Let Grace make a meaningful change in your life this season.

I am an avid Bronco fan and movie enthusiast who believes in Tebowing every night because the best way to live a meaningful story is to stay connected to the author.