Everybody needs a little luck

Creche
Originally uploaded by []Aaroneous Monk[]

This is the second year in a row we've visited a Live Nativity at a church down the road from us. It is held in the evenings leading up to Christmas for a few nights and involves driving with your lights off around a very large loop lined by candles in plastic milk jugs. The camels (as advertised!) are a sure draw for Elias with the donkeys and sheep coming in a close second. We drove slowly from scene to scene explaining to Elias what was going on with the actors and admiring the real fires blazing outside prefabricated porticos, inns, and stables.

As we came upon the second scene along the road I saw a pregnant woman and her husband approach the innkeeper looking for a place to stay. I knew from the story that they had traveled far and long to get here and she was very near giving birth. I guess being a husband and father myself with the immediacy of the situation I was caught off guard. As the innkeeper shook his head "no" I began to cry. I must have been making some strange noises because Jennifer turned from the scene to give me a quizzical look. But for those few moments I couldn't help it. It was overwhelming.

Moving on, I got my hormones under control (men have them too ya know) and we rolled past the shepherds, singing angels, and then the manger scene with the three kings approaching one by one to bow and offer their gifts to the Christ-child. That was the last one and as we moved past it I said, "Goodbye baby Jesus, try to stay warm" in a sing-songy voice for Elias' benefit. He quickly added in a similar voice from the back seat, "and good luck!"

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

Recently Elias has become more and more involved with using our vacuum attachments as his “shooter” and wearing his hooded bath towel as a head covering with flowing cape (clothes optional). His grandma dubbed him “Darth Vader” this past weekend which he quickly adopted as “Dark Vader”, much like Max in his wolf costume in the children’s literary classic WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. We’ve been working on redirecting his desire to “kill bad people” into destroying “Robots & Monsters” (btw, I think we might just chuck our TV out the window).

While all of this has been transpiring the past several weeks I’ve been working my way through a collection of letters by St. Theophan the Recluse quaintly titled “The Spiritual Life and How to be Attuned to it.” As Elias and I were tearing through the house clearing it of Robots & Monsters room by room my mind made a strange connection. In St. Theophan’s letters, which are simply a modern application of the teachings of the Church and Desert Fathers, he makes clear the real battle we face. Not against “flesh and blood” (read: other people), but against our own evil inclinations and disorderd desires that swirl about inside of us and contribute to suffering in the world.

It seemed to me at that moment our efforts to transform Elias’ enemy from “bad people” to “Robots & Monsters” was just such a thing. “Robots” in his imagination are people-like, but devoid of warmth and love which can make them scary, spiritual imposters, much as the absence of these things in us can do the same thing, ie, dehumanize us. “Monsters” are those spiritually malevolent forces which assail us and which need be resisted. So, here is the lesson of St. Theophan, to direct our efforts at killing those things in us and not at “bad people” who are simply foils for our own inner frustrations and shortcomings which are outwardly expressed in violence and anger towards others.

OK, that was a little heavy, so now LET THE WILD RUMPUS START!