Welcome to Advent!
Each year I facilitate an Advent retreat for individuals living with dementia and their care partners. It has grown from a simple small email each week to a full 4-week event with reflections, videos, and community. As I was working on this year’s theme I started to wonder about the conversations that filled the stable that Holy Night when Jesus was born. I imagined how Mary, having given birth to the Christ child, might have received the individuals who came into her life that night. Wondering, how does Mary receive me/us now?
There is a cartoon out there regarding Mary and the Little Drummer Boy that I see on social media each year. It brings a giggle and a smile, making fun of the drumming sound and the disturbance it can cause to a sleeping child. While fun, I have grown to no longer crack a smile when I see it. As the song states, “Shall I play for you…Mary nodded.” Mary nodded! Mary does not roll her eyes at us, instead invites us to play for Jesus. She does not cast us away in our sinfulness, our flaws, or our poverty. She does not care if we have dementia or not or are walking this journey of care. Instead, she receives us and brings us closer to Christ. She invites us to play our drum for the Glory of God. She invites us to use the gifts we have been given for the great glory and beauty of this world.
We may be drained of everything, feeling we have nothing left to give, yet God restores us. We may feel our life is in shambles, with the trials outnumbering the triumphs, but God writes straight with crooked lines. We may only have a drum to play this Christmas, and Mary invites us to see that drum, as something special to offer Christ and the world each and every day of our life. We are invited to play with all that we are, have been, and can become.
This Christmas, may we not see the darkness of the world around us. Instead, may we see the unique life God created us to live, and play our drum for the Holy Family, using those unique gifts to bring about goodness, beauty, and truth. Will you join me in playing your drum for Jesus (and each other) this Christmas? I pray that this Christmas season is one of restoration, beauty, joy, and of discovering new ways to play your drum for Him!
May you and your family have a very blessed season of Advent and a very Merry Christmas!
(There is still time to join us this Advent as the retreat is self-paced, so come and let us sit with Mary this Advent season.)