Hope like battle songs and pregnant ladies

What the Battle of Helm's Deep is teaching me about expectant waiting - and FREE Just Beautiful Links for everyone.

Hope, by Palestinian Christian artist Suleiman Mansour. “During the First Intifada, when Palestinians were cut off from basic supplies, Mansour helped lead an artists’ movement using the materials of the land itself. Some of his best-known works are from this time and incorporate mud. Whether an image of Palestinians marching with paintbrushes and pens and flags or the symbol of a dove above a land, Mansour colors each image with hope—for peace, for restoration.” From The Christian Century

“What are you most looking forward to Jesus getting rid of when he comes?” Even at six and four, the kids have ready answers to our morning Advent question: “Sin.” “War.” “People getting sick.” “People living far away.” “Hospitals.”

Can I imagine it? A world without sickness and sadness and war and death?

It’s Advent. We’re decorating for Christmas. My house looks… not quite like this, but this is what it looks like in my imagination: twinkling lights, cozy candles, children gathered around, hygge on steroids.

Thank you Shutterstock.

Perhaps a more accurate picture of advent is this:

For those of you unfamiliar, The Battle of Helm’s Deep is a horrific battle in The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. The families and children - war refugees- huddle deep in the caves while the much-too-small army battles against the might and power of a much stronger enemy. They sit and wait. And wait. Fearful of the sound that will tell them the walls have been breached. They wait, wondering if their brothers and fathers will come back alive. They wait, in the darkness.

That’s perhaps a more accurate image of advent - waiting, in the darkness. Hearing a battle rage around you. (Perhaps even fighting in the battle yourself).

There was a promise given before Helm’s Deep- the powerful wizard Gandalf told them he would come on the fifth day. They were to look to his coming as the dawn arrived. In the mean time- they just had to keep going. Don’t surrender. Keep fighting. Keep waiting. Keep hoping that what Gandalf said is true. He’s coming.

The gates of Helm’s Deep are actually breached. Things look hopeless. But Aragon and his men ride out- perhaps to their deaths - just as dawn breaks. In the midst of the battle, they look up to see the sun in the East, and Gandalf! He arrives, surrounded by reinforcements. Not just men, but an entire forest is with him, all of creation coming to make an end to the evil and put things right.

I take it back. Let me not dismiss my Advent wreath, or my twinkle lights. Let me not dismiss the smell of cookies baking, or the same familiar stories of peace on earth and goodwill toward men tucked in the pages of picture books. Perhaps, like Leeli in Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga, who plays her little whistle to bring hope to those fighting in their epic battle, all of these small things are, in the scope of God’s grand story, actually quite powerful things. They are kindlers of hope.

Maybe the role of the Christian artist (or the Christian parent, for that matter), is to stubbornly live with hope while we wait for this raging battle to end. Maybe it’s to tell a story with our art and our homes and our lives that we actually believe the promise is true. Maybe it is to remind people huddled with us in Helm’s Deep of the truth that we aren’t sitting in the dark waiting for death, but rather we are waiting for life.

Yes, there’s a battle. There’s sin and sickness and sadness and death and refugees and addiction and bitterness and exploitation and corruption (and power outages). Yes, all things are not made new yet. But, like Elizabeth, or Mary, we’re a people that believe all of creation is pregnant with new life. We’re waiting - but more than that, we’re expecting. We’re waiting for our rescuer to come.

And in the mean time, we carry stories and songs as beacons of the truth —

that a light has shined in the world and the darkness has not overcome it,

that one day the dawn from on high will break upon us

that one day everything sad will become untrue.

“We all forget from time to time, and so we need one another to tell us our stories. Sometimes a story is the only way back from the darkness.”

“Now is the time for courage. We must meet the enemy with steady hearts, for dawn has conquered dark since the Maker spoke the world. The night is deep, but light runs deeper…
― Andrew Peterson, The Warden and the Wolf King

Just Beautiful Advent Links:

This is the part of my newsletter that is usually reserved for paid subscribers, but as a Christmas gift to everyone, it’s available! I’m forever grateful to my paid subscribers who make it possible for me to take the time to write this newsletter and work on other book projects. I’m excited to let you know that the picture book I co-wrote about Gandhi’s non-violent work in South Africa is almost ready, and will probably come out in April! And I managed to turn in my draft of Little Women for Owl’s Nest just in time for summer break! (Check out their Christmas Carol annotated edition! So Lovely!) For access to future links, play-lists, and book recs, you can become a paid subscriber here. :)

• Signs and Seasons

  Vol. 1, Issue 1: Entering into Advent

  This is a wonderfully “fat” collection of Advent links. There are personal essays (like mine - about A Little Princess, Imagination, and Advent, or fellow mother-writer Annelise who uses her music background to weave hymns and personal reflections together. There are essays on the historical roots of Advent and a deep-dive into Thomasmas, and practical ways to keep Advent as a family.

• I made myself an Advent playlist that combined “Spring” songs with Advent songs. Southern Hemisphere friends, enjoy!

• For when your Advent & Christmas plans are derailed by sickness and sadness and life- here is a post I wrote about disrupted Easter plans, back in April. But I think the message of Advent would fit here, too! “This is what I love about orienting myself in liturgical time. It is here, the truth of things, running underneath whatever ordinary thing is happening. I can step into the current of that time, remember the joy of Christ defeating sickness and sadness and death once and for all. Maybe [ Advent ]is best celebrated in these corners of life that are most longing for redemption.”

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• For my Southern Hemisphere friends (or my cold friends up north who want to pretend it’s summer), we’ve been drinking this home-made version of a Sonic strawberry limeade. I realised it’s CHRISTMAS COLORS, so, of course, you must make it, too! We literally mix a lemon lime soda (here it’s called lemon twist) with a plop of upscale fresh strawberry juice. We sometimes add a lime garnish to be fancy. I’ve ordered some cherry juice online to see if we can recreate the Cherry Limeade. This drink is literally the only thing that sounded good when I was pregnant in Texas in the summer, and our knock-off is pretty good.

• A good version of “Hope for Resolution” , the best Christmas song, because I think it embodies hope so well. It’s a choral piece that is a mash-up of the traditional carol, “Of the Father’s Love Begotten”, with the South African freedom song, “Thula Sizwe”. Thula Sizwe is sung as a lullaby, but the words are something like, “Sleep peacefully, nation, don’t cry, because your God will conquer.” Hearing the words and the melodies blended together, and thinking about all the conflicts around the world that are longing for resolution always makes me cry.

• Speaking of “A Little Princess” this book (Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms by Katherine Rundell) felt like a modern “A Little Princess” — a girl growing up in Zimbabwe becomes an orphan and has to go to a British boarding school. Except, unlike A Little Princess — she runs away from the boarding school and survives on the streets of London for a while. A great middle grade “run away from home” kind of story, and she learns that although life is hard and horrible, there are also people in the world who love her, and facing your fears is better than running away (even when your fears are a British middle-school full of girls!)

• This essay (well, excerpts) by the same author on the importance of children’s books- so good. She has also said in other interviews things along the lines of: "When you read as a child you are hungry for ideas and for books and for stories like no other time in your life and I think we have such a duty not to offer the hungry anything that is thin, or vapid or fishy or complacent or poorly thought out or lazy or careless”.

• TIME LAPSE: Here is a post from November 2021 about mother-writer-activist Dorothy Day (when we were still living in the tiny house! I miss that!) that also has some Advent links at the bottom (paywall-free).