What should be...or what is

Well, it's almost Christmas.
The time is rapidly approaching.

And honestly, every year around this time I find myself in a whirlwind of emotional confusion. My heart, my body, my soul pulled in a million directions, and all because of one little word.

Should

This word is my nemesis at the best of times, but during the month of December I feel caught in the middle of a veritable blizzard of shoulds.

Between my family, my religious tradition, the institutions that trained me for ministry, my city, my broader culture, and my own quirky personality I feel completely overwhelmed by all the expectations of what should be...or should not be.

I should be happy...always

I should play games

I should eat Turkey...even though Turkey makes me gag

I should celebrate on a particular day

I should like everyone and want to spend time with them

I should be suitably reflective, after all, it is Advent, but not too reflective, that's heavy...just enough reflectivity to be thoughtful but not so much as to be overly serious

I should swoon over nativities, but not all of them since some of them insist on portraying Mary as meek and Jesus as Caucasian

I should sing heartily, but not Christmas songs until Christmas Eve, at least while at church, in other places its okay as long as other liturgical sorts are not around

I should buy presents to show my love

I should not buy presents because it's consumerist

I should buy fair trade presents only

I should give living gifts like micro loans and goats

I should give gifts to various people (teachers, pastors, nurses, firefighters, carwash attendants or pretty much anybody because surely they've done something for me once, and I should give them something in return, regardless of how useless it is)

I should be joyous because of the birth of my saviour, or Santa Claus, or pretty lights, or lovely music...

I should be mournful, because Christmas is not happy for everyone, and many of us are sad at Christmas (I feel a sarcastic comment coming here, so I'll move on quickly)

I should embrace the holiday spirit because that's what it's all about

I should not embrace the holiday spirit because it's a ploy to get me to go shopping

I should like shopping

I should be stressed out and busy

I should be serene

I should always have an appropriate response ready if someone asks me if I'm ready for Christmas

I should remember to celebrate all the different ways that the holidays are celebrated around the world and in my community by eating tons of food that I've never had before (and getting indigestion)

I should remember my Russian Mennonite heritage and eat Poppycock and play Crokinole while singing Leise Reselt der Schnee (and getting indigestion)

I'm sure you have your own list of shoulds, but this is just a small segment of mine. And all this is not to say that I don't actually like doing some of these things, or want to do them, or feel that they are important or meaningful. But it's that little word, should that  wrecks it all. It layers the season with blankets of high hopes, expectations and even worse, appropriateness. I should do and be all of these things, regardless of how contradictory because it makes me appropriate. If I master all the shoulds then I will meet expectations and fit in. I will be exactly what I should be.

But I am not, and I cannot and I never do.

And recently, as I've been grading papers for an Introductory Bible class I was struck by the fact that Jesus was not, and could not and never did.

When you read 40 of the exact same reading reflections highlighting the main points in the intro to the Bible text book, you will eventually notice that Jesus did not meet expectations. The people of Israel were longing for a Messiah, the perfect Saviour to rescue them from their oppression beneath the thumb of foreign rulers. They wanted a king, a military leader who would come with great power and crush their enemies. And so they had all kinds of expectations about what the messiah should be. They wanted him to be wrapped in a particular shade of royal purple. They wanted him to come with the perfect accessories. They wanted him to affirm their menu and all their traditions.

And he didn't.

But it strikes me that Jesus didn't tell them to scrap it all either. It strikes me that what Jesus did was invite people to pay attention to what was before them and to live and love in the midst of it all. He invited people to take their eyes off of what should be and to look squarely into the eyes of what is. And I could belabour this point and struggle to give a dozen scriptural references (in context of course) to back up this statement, but I won't, because that's what I feel like I should do. And in this moment, what I sense is that I am being invited to sit with what is.

So that's my goal this Christmas. A pretty lofty goal, I admit. But I'm going to give it a whirl anyway. I'm going to try to lay aside the shoulds, and simply try to live in what is, whatever that may be.