In Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck wrestles through a moral dilemma about demonstrating true friendship to a stigmatized person of his day — a man who bore a dual stigma of being black in a racist society and enslaved in an exploitative one. To help his friend Jim escape meant violating not only human law, but also divine law as it had been interpreted in that society, because to help a slave escape meant stealing property from his or her owner. Not only did Huck worry about God and about going to hell for obeying the impulse of his heart, but he also worried about what people would think of him. “It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a negro to get his freedom; and if I was e’er to see anybody from that town again I’d be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame.”  But such worries did not prevent him from doing what he knew to be right.

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We started 2017 knowing we were pregnant, but had no way to grasp what that would mean. We started the year with one definition of what love was and are ending it with another. With that in mind, this is what being new parents has meant for us and our understanding of love.

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I’ve spent my whole life in church (Sunday school, flannelgraphs and all), and it was good — until it wasn’t. It was fine when I was little and didn’t pay attention to all the things women weren’t allowed to do. But then later, through a series of events, everything imploded and my perception of being made in the image of God was shattered. It started to seem like men were more the image of God than women were. And it seemed like God loved women just a little less.

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Love is the basis of every great story, every heartfelt song. It’s a great money-maker for Hershey’s and Hallmark every February. It is often portrayed as simple, romantic, beautiful.

I’ve never been very good at simple, romantic, or beautiful. I really wish I was. I’ve never been a gambler either, until suddenly I was.

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Here is an old story about joy. I promise it is about joy, but it may not seem so for a bit here. I would have been 23 when this whole thing went down. It was at the end of my time in college. I was housemates with three beautiful girlfriends. We had lived together in this crummy old house, off campus for two years, and had been close friends for four. In the last six months of living there, all three of them got engaged. In addition, three other very close friends also got engaged. I was MISERABLE. There was nothing I wanted more than to end my years in college with a wedding. My own wedding.

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First thing I think of when the subject of joy comes up is my grandchildren. When they are very young, falling asleep on my chest. As they get older, coming in the front door, running to me with a big smile, for a hug, or watching them playing together, with one another, when we all get together. That is a joy that warms the heart, joy of the most natural sort.

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The doctor led me into a tiny room off the nursery at the Chicago hospital where our second daughter, Amber, was born. A sad-faced nurse entered and put the very still little baby in my arms.

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So, joy is one of those ubiquitous terms we hear in church. People talk about it, claim its importance, sing songs about it, and some people have it down in their heart, or so they say. The problem comes in when we never really get a good explanation of what exactly joy is. It’s almost like a secondary trait. If you do x, then you’ll experience joy. If joy is in your life, then y will happen. Joy seems to almost always be described in its relationship to something else.

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I'll be honest, this has been hard for me to write. 2017 has been a rough year for many, including me, so that the very idea of peace feels like a pipe dream. The concept of peace is on my mind a lot, but what that looks like changes day to day. Some days, the peace I want is nothing more than some peace and quiet — a negative peace that is just the absence of conflict. To just tune it all out and take care of myself.

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Knowing that God set this trip to Puerto Rico in motion gave me peace. The timing was perfect. I had just finished a two-month commitment to do extra help with our young granddaughter. Three days of great training for emergency disaster relief with Salvation Army were finished the last weekend in October. I was able to use the two-day course in Emotional and Spiritual First Aid so often on the trip.

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As far back as childhood, my most fear-filled moments have always come in the dead of night. I remember watching The Wizard of Oz as a child of perhaps 7, and that night becoming Dorothy, swirling in a dream vortex of monkeys, a wicked witch, and my home uprooted and falling apart at the seams. I made a bed on my parents’ bedroom floor, and didn’t sleep alone for at least the next 12 months. This was when I started memorizing scripture. Proverbs 3:5-6 was my midnight mantra when I was awake with no company. I believe that in those moments of earnest silence, I began to know God.

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As someone who resonates highly with Enneagram type Nine, “the peaceful type”, peace has always been important to me. But what exactly do we mean when we say the word “peace”? As with many words in the lovely English language, the nuances are vast. Peace of mind. World peace. Justices of the peace. Rest in peace. Peace treaty. Peace and quiet. Peace offering. At peace.

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I vividly remember how her sharp, critical words cut deep into my heart. First, my insecurities leapt to mind. Does she see a failing that others are too nice to mention? Am I in over my head in this situation? Am I not smart enough, hard working enough, capable enough? Does everyone see me as a hopeless catastrophe, just stumbling along without a clue? Clearly, my peace was interrupted.

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I was in a theater production a couple years ago. I played Sawyer from A Miracle on 34th Street. Sawyer is the horrible, doubtful, HR guy from Macy’s looking to commit Kris Kringle. He’s kind of a slimy guy. I imagine, if he has a Christmas tree at all, there aren’t gifts under it and that he’s just “riding out” the Christmas season. I imagine he can’t wait for things to go back to normal. I imagine there is very little imagination left in him, and imagination is so intricately connected to hope. To be able to envision a better tomorrow despite the current situation requires imagination.

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There are days when I wrestle with whether to pursue Advent meditation or Advent medication. In the wrestling, I am learning that my experience of hope is either enhanced or diminished, contingent on what it is I’m observing or listening to.

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