How Tradition Found Me

     It used to trouble me, those holidays, and what to do about them.  I would hear people speak of traditions and how important they were, especially to children.  Without intentional traditions in the home there could be a void, a hole not filled.  I remained uneasy about making traditions, or the lack thereof, for years.

     The major holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter would loom large and daunting in front of me.  Large spans of time, days and weeks, to be filled with tradition.  And as everyone knows, it is the Momma, not the Poppa, who often guides the family through each holiday, ensuring that everyone experiences a healthy dose of tradition.

     We have celebrated these holidays in various ways over the years.  No two years were alike.  In fact, the year we were expecting Bella’s arrival, we didn’t even have a Christmas tree.  We stayed home on Christmas, without a tree, and without a new born baby.  We calculated that one wrong!  So we decided to party it up for New Years, and so did Bella, at around 4:30 in the afternoon on December 31^st.  We spent New Year’s Eve in the hospital that year. 

     As I heard prominent women speak of making traditions for your family and the importance of them, I felt the need to go and “make” these traditions as well.   It all sounded so wonderful.  I would get the Martha Stewart magazines and cookbooks out and plan my strategy for creating our family traditions.  Nothing stuck, nothing worked, and mostly, it just frustrated me. 

     Then a few years ago I just relaxed about the whole thing.  No plan, no agenda, whatever comes our way will be ok.  This worked for a little while, and then, we began to feel the need for more intentionality.

     I found that we didn’t have a regular pattern in our family life in order for traditions to stick.  We didn’t have those comfortable ceremonies and routines that helped to give us more purpose and meaning for those days on the calendar in which we stop and remember.  Then I realized that a tradition we participate in every week could help us with our holiday traditions.

     My husband began talking about the importance of liturgy in our church service well over a year ago.  I saw an excitement in him as he slowly began bringing meaningfully crafted liturgy to our Sunday morning services.  Week after week, month after month, word pictures from our Sunday services began piling up in my soul.  I would find myself taking away phrases and pictures not from the sermon alone, but from the entire service.  My spirit was learning to walk through paths of gospel remembrance each week.   They were familiar, they were hopeful, and they pointed me heavenward. 

     I began looking for things that resembled our Sunday morning liturgy in our everyday lives.  What did we do as a family that also painted these pictures of the grace and mercy of God and of Christ in our hearts and minds?  What if we endeavored to highlight those traditions in our family that do the same as the Sunday liturgy, orient us back to God?

John and Abigail Adams come to dinner.

    I began to see glimmers of gospel rich patterns in our home.  We gather in the living room three to four times a week to read Scripture and pray and look for Christ in the Bible.  We pray at meals and at bedtime.  We light candles and pray every December, counting down the days to Christmas.  We pray and give thanks over every birthday.  We read almost every night about who God is and what He has done. We never set out to do any of these traditions intentionally, they just found us. 

     Not all of our traditions are about God, nor do they have to be.  We like just having fun too!  But for us, we know that the traditions that are not centered on God will not last.  My children may make oatmeal like I do and love to read history books like their father, but the traditions that point them to Christ will make gospel paths in their souls for an eternity.  They will find themselves walking these roads in dark and happy times alike.  They will remember talking about the “Light of the World” come as a baby to take away the sin of the world by candlelight.  They will remember reading about the fire of God burning up the sacrifice of Elijah in their pajamas.  They will remember sitting on their Father’s lap as he reads about the God who died to save their souls. 

     One kind of tradition only deepens, grows, and remains over time.  The other kind of tradition, the patterns that are not so Christ centered, have a way of fading into the background. We find that we are in need of something that will make these old truths precious to us again.

     The advent season, in particular, reorients us as we enter the New Year. We find that we have been in the desert, wanting and wasting over the past year.  We are longing for a Savior.  How long oh Lord, how long?  It is a time of turning our faces to the moment when God the Father said, enough.  Emmanuel, God with us, has come. 

     These traditions we keep are a lifeline for us as we walk through the swirling waters of life.  We grab a hold of the hope that is reborn in each of us this time of year.  We watch the old pass and the new come.  Babies are born and life comes again.  “Long lay the world in sin and error pining… a thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.” 

John making me laugh.

     We look forward to marking our calendars with special tradition keeping days in which we can reflect upon and renew our vision of the past, present, and future.   Like the Pilgrims of Plymouth, we have many reasons to give thanks.  “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come.”   And in the traditions that point us to Grace, we can be sure that “Grace will lead me home.”

~Your Fellow Sojourner

“To Thee, O Lord, Our Hearts We Raise”

To thee, O Lord, our hearts we raise
in hymns of adoration,
to thee bring sacrifice of praise
with shouts of exultation.
Bright robes of gold the fields adorn,
the hills with joy are ringing,
the valleys stand so thick with corn
that even they are singing.

And now, on this our festal day,
thy bounteous hand confessing,
Upon thine altar, Lord, we lay
the first fruits of thy blessing.
By thee the souls of men are fed
with gifts of grace supernal;
thou, who dost give us earthly bread,
give us the bread eternal.

We bear the burden of the day,
and often toil seems dreary;
but labor ends with sunset ray,
and rest comes for the weary.
May we, the angel reaping over,
stand at the last accepted,
Christ's golden sheaves, forevermore
to garners bright elected.

O blessèd is that land of God
where saints abide forever,
where golden fields spread fair and broad,
where flows the crystal river;
the strains of all its holy throng
with ours today are blending;
thrice blessèd is that harvest song
which never hath an ending.

By William C. Dix