Silent Night, Holy Thoughts?

Christmas Eve, and my family and I walk to church in Story City. I'm standing to sing Silent Night and I'm hit by a wave of nostalgia as tears start to fall.

For a brief moment I no longer am standing in Story City but am standing by a window in Crosshill Mennonite Church in a moment from Christmas past.

In my memory I stand, sing, and stare at the windows full of candles surrounded by evergreen boughs. The lights of the candles twinkle and shimmer against the dark night outside and a beautiful, magical moment dances around me hand in hand with the notes of Silent Night. Christmas at Crosshill Mennonite. I feel safe here.

This Christmas journey to Crosshill Mennonite shakes loose another memory and it is this memory lingering with me this morning as I shovel snow, wash dishes and shower.

I am twelve and extremely naïve about many things.

Robert, my brother and I get home from school and Mom meets us in the kitchen to tell us our sister Brenda is pregnant. This is not good news. Brenda is 17 and unmarried. The details of the entire story are not relayed to the two of us. On a need to know basis, we do not need to know. Mom tells us there will be a wedding New Year's Eve and we should change and head out to the barn to collect eggs. Which of course we do.

Mom is upset and I know enough about how things work to know this is not how things work. I am in the seventh grade and boys and kissing and bras and periods are just beginning to emerge onto my radar screen but it is still too new and foreign to me to know what I am looking at.

I am also discovering new words at school and as Robert and I walk out to the chicken barn and he asks me what mom was talking about and what it all means, I decide to try out a new word.

"It means Brenda's a slut," I tell him.

The word slices something inside of me. I don't like it. I know it is wrong and it sounds cruel and even though I don't understand much, I tell myself not to use it again.

It is Sunday and I'm sitting in the pew beside mom, dad, Robert and Brenda. The sermon ends with the pastor saying something to make Brenda rise up from the pew and take a long walk up to the front of the church.

By herself.

Mom and Dad don't move. Brenda's boyfriend Ron, who attends MapleView Mennonite, is not at church with her. Is he at his church? Brenda steps up on the platform, turns to the altar, and leans into the microphone. She says something like:

"I have committed the sin of fornication and I ask you as a congregation to stand if your forgive me and remain seated if you can not."

My ears start to burn. Panic hits me in the gut and I'm frantically looking around wanting to know what is happening. Mom and Dad stand up. I stand up. I look around the church and to me it seems like everyone stands up. Brenda steps down and with all eyes on her she walks the long walk back to our pew.

Forgiven?

I think so but whatever just happened has me spinning and a bit confused.

The memory stops there. Did we talk about it on the way home from church? Did we have a normal lunch or did we go out? Were Robert and I told to go outside so mom, dad and Brenda could talk? Did boyfriend Ron show up at our place Sunday afternoon?

No idea.

The next memory is me standing in a burgundy knit dress at the front of Crosshill Mennonite with my oldest and newly married sister, Mary Jane, as dad walks Brenda down the aisle in her off-white dress Mom insisted on making by hand. Mary Jane and I sing "The Wedding Song." I worry that my white bra is showing through my dress but we make it through the song, the service, and finish up our time at church taking photographs by the altar, the scene of the confession a few months prior.

My hair is blown dry and feathered, my glasses are big and square, and my Grandma Katie and Grandpa Sam Jantzi who are Beechy Amish and believe photographs are graven images are standing next to Brenda as the photographer tells them to move in a bit closer. Sam is grumpy but Katie insists, and a forever moment is captured on film.

Christmas morning, back in Story City and before we open presents I grab my journal and read my entry from Christmas Eve morning to my family.

"There is no need to produce or perform or perfect - simply become a place for God. That is all."

It's a quote I share with them from Ann Voskamp's book, The Greatest Gift . I read my words to them about Mary and how she said yes to the miracle God was offering and despite her naivety she stepped into the unknown and made space for God.

We don't know how Mary weighed the risks. We don't know her thought process or what she felt when she heard the words Gabriel spoke to her. We know she said yes to a heavenly host and in doing so set herself up for both earthly heartache and heartbreak for a higher purpose.

Do Mary and Brenda share a connection in my mind? Perhaps. I know my sister Brenda is very brave and I often recall her lonely walk to the front of Crosshill Mennonite and wonder how she did it. I now know she was not forced to take her walk. That lonely walk was her choice, her decision to put herself in front of everyone to ask their forgiveness. Did she want to purge the guilt to make room for love? I don't know. I've never asked her.

My thoughts settle around silent nights and holy candles. Around women making brave choices and lonely journeys.

Lord,

My thoughts and memories are busy today. They make me realize how terrible I am at surrender and how much I long for safety and security.

Please Lord, make me brave. Show me how to create space inside my fear for more love.

Cleanse me of myself and my misplaced trust in all the things I cling to for security. May I open my hands and nod my head. Help me to say yes.

Change me Lord.

Show me sacred.

Purge the profane.

May I be holy as you are holy.

Teach me to be in the world but not of it. Do Brenda and Mary both understand the meaning of those words in a way I never will?

Lead on dear Lord. Be my path, my light, my way.

Amen.