In my family, much of the holiday gathering, gift-giving, and "healthy" candy-eating happens on Christmas Eve. Everyone goes to their in-laws' celebrations earlier in the day, so that at night we can have as much time together as we need---to unwrap presents and share stories and sing hymns and simply wait for the Christ-child's coming. Over the past several years, a new tradition has developed, where at the very end of the night we pop a tape into my grandmother's old VCR and watch grainy home videos (many without the luxuries of color or sound) of Christmases past. In part, this is because we want to please my Uncle J.M. (who invests far too much time finding instrumental banjo music for the silent films, but otherwise does a great job putting together new collections every year) and have a few laughs at how young and thin and energetic we used to be. But mostly we do it so that my Papaw can be with us. You see, Christmas was his season---he drank it up with the boundless excitement and pleasure of a child, waiting the whole year for the time when the entire family would be present, sitting the grandkids on his knees for games and stories, and smiling broader and more beautifully than anyone in the world. When he died in February of 1993 (12 years ago today, as a matter of fact), our family spent an entire year wondering if Christmas would ever come again. After all, how could we dance and play and celebrate without him there with us? Why would we bother going through the motions of being happy when all we felt was emptiness? And what reason could we possibly have to believe that the God who had called our grandfather home far too early had any surprises left that were worth our hearing?

But somehow Christmas did again come. The holy one entered our family's (and the world's) cycle of birth and death, bringing grace that was at once soothingly familiar and wholly new. An infant came, as unexpected and unassuming as any we'll ever meet, through whose life and love and sacrifice the whole world would be recreated and redeemed. In the ever-new story of Christmas, we were able to find our family's new story of loss and grief and hope. Then we did what any community worth its salt does when confronted by the discovery that it is impermanent and can only reach eternity through God: we developed a ritual. And now the ritual carries us from death to life again---when we can't (or won't) hope for healing, we see our smiling, carefree past selves and recognize that the hope they knew is alive and burning somewhere within us, no matter how much we obscure or deny it.

In a great statement about the holiness of his motherland and the people and stories which inhabit it, Dougie MacLean sings about an old man who knows that the place is "endless thin." "There's no real distance here to mention," he sings, proclaiming bravely that the spirits of the living and the spirits of the dead mingle there fluidly and affectionately warning that "we might all fall in, all fall in." This Christmas, I fell in. With wrapping paper scattering my grandmother's living room floor and the sounds of new toys and old carols filling the air, we settled down to relive Christmas as we have known it and to imagine Christmas as it will be. There were, of course, the infamous images of me singing and dancing as a fourth-grader (it was clear early on that the next Tony Bennett I was not) and of my aunt and uncle celebrating their first holidays together in the new house that my grandfather had built for them just down the hill. But this year there were also a couple new tapes that no one had seen before. One was simply hilarious, featuring Papaw on a camping trip with several of his buddies from the Navy (my grandfather, who could not swim and was in fact deathly afraid of the water, served two tours of duty in the US Navy, faught in the Korean War, and was even on the ship that picked up Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin after their trip to the moon). He told ghost stories to the other men around the campfire and pretended to be a monkey while eating a banana in front of the camera. Another film was taken at a Christmas party in 1983, when I was only seven months old. In one beautiful scene, my great-grandmother, who was 82 years old when I was born, is rocking me in a chair and then waltzing with me out on the dancefloor. I can't quite explain why, but as soon as I saw that video I knew that, for me, all of eternity was bound up in that perfect moment. My great-grandmother (we always called her Nan) lived for another twelve years, and I have countless more memories of my time with her (in fact, it was in her living room that I first remember seeing and appreciating the meaning of photographs---she had two entire walls covered with every cousin, uncle, and family friend I could ever imagine), but she never seemed so alive or so eternal to me as she is in this film. Her story and my story connect there, embodying for a moment the communion of saints and modeling a deep peace for the world. It was only a moment---soon enough the party ended, and her legs got tired, and my diaper needed changing---but that moment shaped us in ways we could never imagine.

For her birthday in December, I bought April tickets to a Valentine's weekend showing of "Keep On the Sunny Side: The Music and Story of the Carter Family" at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon. I can't be sure, but I sense that our journey there, the conversations we shared and the places and stories we encountered, connects with these scenes from the life of my family. A.P. Carter was a man not unlike my grandfather, a starry-eyed dreamer with a heart bigger than Tennessee. At my grandfather's visitation, we had to stay an extra two hours in order to greet all the guests who had come, many from hundreds of miles away, to pay their respects. My grandmother received more checks than she knew what to do with, repayment for help my grandfather had privately given to friends and strangers along the way, and soon enough we had to request that flowers be delivered straight to the house because the funeral home couldn't handle any more. Pa never had an idea that was too ambitious to try (in his lifetime, he was a seaman, a farmer, a carpenter, a small business owner, a real estate supervisor, and a commercial truck driver) or met a person he wouldn't come to know as a friend. A.P. Carter spent weeks at a time away from his southwest Virginia home, traveling throughout Appalachia writing and collecting songs. This eventually broke up his marriage, as his frequent and lengthy absences placed undue burdens of farm maintenance and child-rearing on his wife Sara, but it allowed A.P. to live his dreams and create a legacy that lives today in Nashville, Branson, and across the country. When he returned home from one of these trips through the mountains to learn that a cyclone had destroyed the Rye Cove Elementary School, A.P. immediately scratched the family's plans for a regional tour that would have allowed them to pay their bills and embarked instead upon a months-long fundraising tour in order to help the county build a new schoolhouse at Rye Cove.

The play had a lot going for it. It was the central event of a day-long excursion that allowed April and me to share wonderful conversations about every topic under the sun, enjoy a gorgeous sunrise (and sunset), explore local buffets in Pulaski, take a walk in the rain, and play grownups in an audience which was two generations older than us. It was at the beautiful and refreshing Barter Theatre (so named because at its founding during the Depression local farmers could pay for their tickets and support the acting troupes with produce or livestock), which was designated the State Theatre of Virginia in 1949. The play offered poignant insights into "the love story that began country music," featuring wildly talented actors and musicians performing timeless music with integrity and love. And at its heeart was a man who lived for others before himself.

That's the simple and powerful story of A.P. Carter. It's also the story of my grandfather, John Kenney. And it may be what Christmas in Tennessee (and Valentine's Day in Virginia) is all about: being formed and transformed by the work God is doing in our lives through the people and communities that love us and make claims on us. Unfortunately, I fear this rambling reflection may have obscured the simple truths I've discovered whispering my name through memories of Papaw, images of Nan, and holidays with April. As always, it's Irish and Virginian folk musicians whose words express what I'm feeling and call me back to myself. I'd like to play these songs for you, to invite you into the parts of my life they capture... and if you come visit or give me a call, I gladly will. In the meantime, enjoy the lyrics and imagine with me:

You’ll find me sitting at this table
With my fend Fin and my friend John
My friend Murdaney tells us stories
Of things long gone, lone gone

And we may take a glass together
The whisky makes it all so clear
It fires our dulled imaginations
And I feel so near, so near

I feel so near to the howling of the winds
I feel so near to the crashing of the waves
I feel so near to the flowers in the fields
I feel so near

The old man looks out to the islands
He says this place is endless thin
There’s no real distance here to mention
We might all fall in, all fall in

No distance to the spirits of the living
No distance to the spirits of the dead
And as he turned his eyes were shining
And he proudly said, proudly said

I feel so near to the howling of the winds
I feel so near to the crashing of the waves
I feel so near to the flowers in the fields
I feel so near

So we build our tower constructions
There to mark our place in time
We justify our great destructions
As on we climb, on we climb

Now the journey doesn’t seem to matter
The destination’s faded out
And gathering out along the headland
I hear the children shout, children shout

I feel so near to the howling of the winds
I feel so near to the crashing of the waves
I feel so near to the flowers in the fields
Feel so near
--Dougie MacLean, 'Feel So Near'

New mown hay on a July morn
Grandkids are running through the knee-high corn
Sunburned nose and a scabbed-up knee
From the rope at the white oak tree
Just another summer's day at Grandpa's farm
With Grandma's bucket hanging off my arm
You know, the old pump's rusty but it works fine
Primed with water from another time

It don't take much, but you gotta have some
The old ways help the new ways come
Just leave a little extra for the next in line
They're gonna need a little water from another time

Tattered quilt on the goose-down bed
"Every stitch tells a story," my Grandma said
Her mama's nightgown, Grandpa's pants
And the dress she wore to her high school dance
Now wrapped at night in those patchwork scenes
I waltz with Grandma in my dreams
My arms, my heart, my life entwined
With water from another time

It don't take much, but you gotta have some
The old ways help the new ways come
Leave a little extra for the next in line
They're gonna need a little water from another time

Newborn cry in the morning air
The past and the future are wedded there
In this wellspring of my sons and daughters:
The bone and blood of living waters
And, though Grandpa's hand have gone to dust,
Like Grandma's pump: reduced to rust,
Their stories quench my soul and mind
Like water from another time

It don't take much, but you gotta have some
The old ways help the new ways come
Just leave a little extra for the next in line
They're gonna need a little water from another time
--John McCutcheon, 'Water From Another Time'

One of the great injustices in life is that each moment is filled to overflowing with stories that deserve telling and celebrating, while few of us have the time or energy to hear even a few of them. Our days are too rich to be captured by the pen or the camera or the canvas. Even the widely-worshiped devices that seem to mark our days, the cell phones and palm pilots and laptop computers of our dreams, do not help us reflect fully, or even partially, on those days. And the stories that do survive--the ones we remember and laugh at and cry over and pass down--are as arbitrary as life itself. And as holy.

In faith communities, when our feelings and experiences transcend language, or at least our ability to employ language, we fall back on the liturgical practice of the litany. The litany offers a series of images or memories, gives God thanks for all that we associate with those images, and prays continued grace over them. Somewhat belated, and certainly incomplete, what follows is my Litany of Joy for the past year. Many of the most enjoyable, but less organized moments are not listed; to try chronicling them would risk obscuring the randomness and spontenaity and grace that hvae been my companions on the journey. Lost here also are the snazzy links and photos from last year's post. Hopefully they will arrive soon, but in the meantime help me measure this year in love:

January 1---Christmas Celebration with family in VA
January 2---Sleepover at the Lees'
January 3-8---Wesley Foundation UN Seminar in New York City
January 9---Brian's Biopsy (it turns out everything's fine, although he has a weird condition called
January 12-13---Residential Community Retreat at Richmond Hill
January 16---Dinner Party with the Meadows women & Firelighting Party at the Dwelling
January 17---SCC Retreat at First UMC, In America with April, and the big Study Camp Dance Party
January 20---Lauren Winner's Book Reading for Mudhouse Sabbath at B&N
January 23---Twilight Retreat exploring Epiphany
January 31---Grocery Shopping with Susie in the morning & Black Voices with April in the afternoon
February 1---Souper Bowl Sunday Food Drive at church, followed by the Youth Group Super Bowl Party at our house
February 1-4---Hooville!!
February 6-7---Wesley Cookie Bake!
February 8---Hinton Avenue Acolyte Training
February 14---Valentine's Day journey to West Virginia with my love!
February 15---The legendary 'Relationships' session with the youth group
February 20-21---Youth Group Lock-In
February 21---Youth Missions' Meeting at the Hucksteps' home
February 22---Rent-a-Youth Service Project
February 28---Kirk & Bethany's Engagement Party at the Moosetrap
February 29---Youth Sunday at Hinton Avenue & Wesley worship at the Fluvanna Women's Correctional Center
March 2---Men's Basketball Victory over Wake Forest (3rd 2-pt. win over aranked team in a couple weeks!!)
March 3---'The Passion of the Christ' with Andrew and Alex
March 5-14---Wesley Foundation Spring Break Mission Trip to Yuma, Arizona
March 16---Finished 'The Writing Desk' (which is okay, but not as good as 'Jumping Bean Addiction')
March 19---Wesley Foundation Potato Drop
March 21---Leap of Faith perform for the youth group
March 24---Certified by the Petersburg District Board of Ordained Ministry as a candidate for ministry in the United Methodist Church
March 26-27---Long-overdue weekend in the Heights
April 3---Youth Group Caving Trip to Lost World Caverns in Lewisburg, WV
April 4---Salem UMC
April 8---Portrayed Simon the Zealot in the Last Supper Drama at Hinton Avenue
April 9---Dramatic Reading of Mark at Wesley Memorial
April 11---Midnight Prayer Vigil in the Sanctuary & Sunrise Service on Humpback Rocks
April 13---Finished 'Jumping Bean Addiciton' (which is by no means extraordinary, but is much better than 'The Writing Desk')
April 16-17---Camp Rainbow Connection Orientation & Planning in Blackstone
April 23---Wesley Coffeehouse
April 25---Final Disciple I Session
April 26---The Indigo Girls at the Charlottesville Performing Arts Center
April 29---Residential Community Barbecue
May 7---Incoming SCC Retreat
May 10-15---Wesley Beack Week in Duck, NC
May 15---Baccalaureatte Service at Wesley Memorial
May 16---Commencement & Final Exercises at UVA
May 17---Began work as summer intern at DeColores!/Top Associates in Richmond
May 22---GBHEM Valuing Diversity Conference
May 28---Prom w/Becky
May 29---Andrew's Birthday Celebration
May 30---Hinton Avenue Youth Sunday
June 3---Youth Group weekly lunch & fellowship get-togethers begin
June 6---Going away party for the Kasters
June 11---Helped Eddie move into the Moosetrap
June 13-16---Virginia Annual Conference in Hampton
June 18---Science Museum of VA with the Youth Group
June 19---Washington National Zoo with April
June 20---Youth Group cooks for Project Transformation interns
June 24---Began volunteering as reader for PT
July 2---Lina's Art Show at Albemarle High School
July 3---Picked up Johnathan in Roanoke, visited the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, and enjoyed the Independence Day festivities in Scottsville
July 4---Fireworks at the Parsonage
July 5---Mini Golf & First Aid Kit stocking w/the crew
July 8---UMYF Running & Sonnets Group gets started
July 10-17---Youth Group Summer Mission Trip to West Palm Beach, Florida
July 19-22---Catholic Marketing Network Show in Somerset, NJ
July 25---Youth Group Water Sports & Fellowship at Lake Monticello
August 1---Farewell Service for Bishop Pennel at Reveille UMC in Richmond
August 3---Stony Creek Ruritan Club Scholarship Dinner
August 4---Project Transformation Family Fun Night
August 10---Mom's Birthday Lunch
August 15---Youth Group Missions Celebration Dinner
August 21---Busch Gardens with the youth group
August 23-25---SCC Reteat at Westview on the James
August 26-27---Residential Community Retreat at Richmond Hill
August 28---Helped first year students move into the dorms
August 29---Youth Sunday in the morning; District Youth Rally in the evening
August 30---Wesley Ice Cream Social
August 31---Student Activities Fair
September 2---Wesley Kickoff Picnic
September 4---Kirk & Bethany's Wedding in Strasburg
September 5---Helped serve communion at Wesley Memorial
September 6---First thesis meeting w/Professor Warren
September 8---Residential Community Common Meals get started
September 11-12---The Dwelling plays host to Africa University Professor Patrick Matsikinyiri (we introduce him to the wonders of UVA football)
September 15---Grace UMC Revival with Alex & April
September 17---Board of Higher Ed Ministry Meeting at the Foundation
September 18---Virginia 51, Akron 0
September 19---Youth Group Fall Kickoff Picnic
September 22---Religion & Politics Twilight Retreat
September 24---UMYF's Dinner on the Town small group begins
September 25---My very last Camp Rainbow CORE Staff Meeting; Scott visits for the Syracuse football game; We walk to Starr Hill
September 28---Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote . . .
October 1-3---Worship Leader for Harvest of Hope Young Adults Weekend at Camp Brethren Woods
October 7---Virginia 30, Clemson 10
October 8-9---Youth Group Visioning Retreat at Westview
October 10---Ocran UMC in Sutherland; District Conference at Aldersgate
October 11-12---Got to (finally!) see two of Meredith's field hockey games at Albemarle High School
October 15---Wesley Foundation Hayride
October 16---Florida State football game on the HUGE screen at the Dwelling (score unreportable)
October 20---Folding Party with the great folks from the Wesley Foundation's Administrative Board
October 21-23---April & I visit Duke Divinity School---I tour the campus and meet with professors, she's offered the job of a lifetime, and we win the football game 37-16
October 26---Shawshank Redemption for Faith in Film
October 28---Michael Marinak's funeral
October 30---AIDS Services Group's Youth Summit at Westminster Presbyterian Church, followed by the United Methodist Men's annual Pancake Supper at Hinton Avenue
October 31---Youth Group: How Would Jesus Vote?
November 2---Oi ve . ..
November 6---Virginia 16, Maryland 0
November 7---Charge Conference at Hinton Avenue, complete with a multi-media presentation from the youth!
November 12-14---Reflection Group leader for the Southeastern Jurisdiction's Exploring Ministries Conference at Lake Junaluska
November 16---Women's Basketball Season tips off with a loss to the Russian all-star team
November 19---Virginia 88, Robert Morris 55
November 20---Wesley Foundation Work Day, with GT Win on the radio
November 21---Virginia 78, Arizona 60
November 25-26---Thanksgiving Celebrations in Colonial Heights & Prince George
November 28---UMYF Thanksgiving Feast
November 30---Residential Community Thanksiving Dinner
December 1---HIV/AIDS Vigil in Charlottesville
December 3---In Richmond w/April for the men's basketball game
December 9---Wesley Mem. Advent Service
December 12---Ahearns' Christmas Open House
December 17-18---Youth Group Advent Retreat in Baltimore
December 19---Service of Joy and Light at Hinton Avenue
December 22---Exchanging Christmas presents w/April & fam.
December 23-26---Christmas in Tennessee
December 29---Back to TN, this time with April
December 30---Continental Tire Bowl in Charlotte with Johnathan, Johnny, Brian, & April
December 31---Unicoi County Veterans' Memorial with all the aunts and uncles; food, games, and cards to ring in the new year!