December 7, 2005
WednesdayÂ
I had two events I could have attended tonight. One was the annual Holiday Candlelight Concert given by the choral performance groups at the high school my daughter graduated from in 2004. The other was the second weekly session of the first ever Advent bible study sponsored by my Lutheran church.
At first it seemed that there was no real choice to be made. Since Lynn was in ninth grade, the concert has been a centerpiece of my Advent preparation. I was sick that year, coping with an orthopedic disability that eventually required surgery. The music that night took me out of my pain and helped me find the hope and the grace to enjoy the season and the hope of renewal.
The musical selections honor and respect our township’s diverse population, and a typical program will include traditional Latin motets, meditative and solemn seasonal material in English, French, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Swahili, some light show tunes, and always, at the end, a Moses Hogan spiritual that leads into drawing parents and visiting alumni up onto the stage for Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.
On the other hand, however, was the scripture study. Last week a dozen or so of us sat in the comfortable couches of our office lobby (it was once a doctor’s waiting room) sipping spiced herbal tea and discussing the prophetic texts in Isaiah. We were trying to read them as if they were the only texts we had, and not through the shadow of the cross, where every word can be made to refer to Jesus. Such an endeavor challenges us to step away from the familiar and to see with new eyes. It is a test of faith to acknowledge that our way of reading the prophets is subjective, that what we call the Old Testament is simply the only testament for the people to whom the texts were first given.
But I would have had to go to the concert alone. Although Lynn was able to come up from school last year for this concert, she had commitments for tonight that she could not defer. Ron, who practices as a Catholic, joined a new parish this year and is singing with a new choir. He can’t miss any Wednesday night rehearsals, as he could in the past.
I don’t mind going to cultural events alone. But now that Lynn is in her second year away from that community, there are many fewer youngsters on the stage whom I know or whose parents I know. And there was the lure of another Wednesday evening of intellectual stimulation with good friends.
This afternoon I underwent an acupuncture treatment given by a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine in the holistic group my primary care nurse practitioner works with. I’m trying alternative therapies to stave off (or at least mitigate the effects of) my winter depression, awakened early and seemingly exceptionally rambunctious this year as well as the physical effects of the common cold or whatever virus sweeps in off the river.
I was pretty wrung out after an hour lying motionless on a massage table with needles in my knees, my ankles, my shins, my wrists, and my ears. I left with a dot of gold taped into the inferior crux of the anti helix on each ear. I took a nap when I got home, and then made my decision.
Going to the concert would require donning some gay apparel, including the seventeen or so separate applications of treatment and glamour products that constitute my holiday party face. Going to the bible study I could wear a turtleneck and a soft blue sweatshirt with cardinals on snowy branches, and I could take some chai with milk from home and heat it up in the microwave.
So that’s what I did. But not without regret. It was one more step in disconnecting from the community I was part of because I was Lynn’s mother. All of us, all of the parents and children who spent eighteen years going to the same functions, are moving out and away. It’s what stepping forth in faith is all about.
But it isn’t easy.
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