Why I'm Thinking of Elephants this Christmas

Hi, everyone! 

Elephants are my favorite animals. I can’t explain exactly why, but there’s something about them that just speaks to me. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to see them in the wild a handful of times and there is something totally magical about them. Like many distinctive animals, I’m amazed at their very existence. How can something this massive not only be alive, but move through the world with such a high level of intelligence and emotionality? How can something with a nose and teeth that long seem so majestic? I find them truly phenomenal. 

A few months ago, I got to introduce Mike to the experience of seeing elephants in the wild when we were on our honeymoon in South Africa. Because of the number of them in the game park where we were going, I was quite sure we would find them this time. Indeed, each day that we were in the park, we came upon a number of elephants… 

… sometimes quite close by:

They were beautiful. 

They were cute.

They were funny.  

They were mesmerizing. 

I loved every minute of it.

But it was our last morning there that we had an elephant experience unlike any I’d had before. We were driving down the road and we spotted a single bull elephant—one of the largest I’d ever seen—a good distance away. 

Several cars were following him and he was heading our direction.  Remembering that elephants can be very dangerous—even deadly, we decided to stop so that he wouldn’t feel trapped between us and the other cars. He wasn’t running toward us, but he wasn’t ambling either. He was clearly on a mission, even if that mission was just demonstrating that he was fully aware of his power and wasn’t afraid to use it if anything or anyone was standing in his way.  

As he approached, we reasoned that we could just reverse slowly to give him more space. No sooner had we said this, though, than another car pulled up behind us, leaving us stuck. We had no real choice but to sit quietly and hope that this massive creature wouldn’t become upset by our trespassing in his home.  

I was in the driver’s seat, which in S. Africa is on the right hand side, and the window was rolled down. By the time I thought to roll it up, I didn’t want to disturb him with any motions or noises, so I just left it.  Before I knew it, the bull was right next to us, and as he passed by, I just saw its giant eye watching me, keeping me in check, reminiscent of the t-rex from Jurassic Park. 

(I was frozen and couldn’t actually take any photos at this point, so this is from Mike’s perspective.)

The rest of the day, I was surging with adrenaline. Even now, when I remember this moment, I return to this initial response:  

I’ve been so fortunate to be able to be in truly breathtaking places in nature and have seen remarkable (and very dangerous) animals in the wild. I don’t know exactly why this was the encounter that did it for me, but I’ve never felt such an overwhelming mix of terror, awe, and relief. Though I probably couldn’t have reached out and touched him (considering most of the time, I can’t even reach the machine to take a ticket at a parking garage), the elephant could easily have reached his trunk into the car. Though we weren’t exactly in danger, we certainly weren’t safe. 

Strangely enough, I’ve thought back to this experience a number of times as we’ve approached Advent this year, the time in the liturgical calendar when Christians anticipate Christmas and with it, the entry of God into the world in the person of Jesus. A few years ago, I came across two concepts which Christians believe to be simultaneously true of God: transcendent and immanent. God is transcendent in that God is beyond human understanding, not constrained to the limits of our experience. God is immanent in that God, through nature, through people, and most especially through Jesus, operates within human experience. I find this paradox—that God’s presence both pervades the world and exists beyond it—incredibly beautiful and endlessly compelling. 

At Advent in particular, Christians tend to focus on the immanence of God, as we talk about the way that God became a baby born to a poor couple who had no real social or political power. We marvel at the way that the God of the universe comes to us in subtle, humble ways in our own lives, and we consider how God often speaks in small moments, in small places, through small people. I love these ideas. I eat them up. They are my spiritual bread and butter and they sustain me throughout the year in moments of self-doubt, God-doubt, or just general life-y struggle.

But this year, with the footsteps of that elephant still echoing in my memory, I have been challenged to remember the transcendence of God in the Christmas story. Like an elephant marching steadily toward you, the societal celebration of Christmas is impossible to miss, at least in places like the US where Christianity is the dominant religion. As every sale and holiday party and calendar makes clear, Christmas is coming whether we like it or not; we can’t just reverse away from it. But what if I saw God’s entry into the world a bit like this massive bull elephant—not just inevitable but unpredictable? Not just beautiful but risky? 

I’m not saying that we should think that the Christmas story is about God entering the world to harm it. It’s very clearly the opposite. But how would my reading of Christmas change if I were to feel the same way about God approaching my life as I did with that elephant approaching our car? What if I was was profoundly aware, at a primal level, of my inability to reach out to God, but also of God’s ability—if God chose—to reach out to me? What if I felt the immensity, the power, the divinity of God’s presence? Would that make the simultaneous immanence of this story all the more powerful? What if I actually believed that as Christmas passes me by, my life could change in some irreversible way?

Christmas is upon us. For those of you who celebrate this time in one way or another, I certainly hope you feel a sense of closeness and comfort. But I also hope you feel some awe, some otherworldliness, some sense of the sacred.

Whatever and whenever you celebrate, I hope that 2019 ends well for you and that your 2020 opens with hope.

Sarah/Mouse 

The Transferable Nature of Love

After the joyful busyness of our wedding in May slipped into happy memories, Mike and I got down to some practical tasks as we attempted to combined households for the first time. Among them was one many newly married people undertake: we opened up a joint checking account. A bit mundane, perhaps, especially in comparison to the preceding weeks, but still exciting in its own private, utilitarian way. In the process of figuring out how we will manage our finances, I have had occasion to consider bank transfers, specifically how money that once belonged to one of us becomes officially ours when it gets deposited into that account. This is also true with the house that we live in. On May 25, 2019 and for the fifteen years prior, it was Mike’s house, but as of May 26, 2019, it was our house. [And, for the record, it is technically in the middle of our street… you’re welcome. :D]. 

I’ve been thinking about how relationships can work this way too. 

Long before our wedding—in fact, in the first few weeks of knowing Mike—I came to love his family and friends. Now, it just so happens that they are fundamentally wonderful people. They are good, good folks who are really enjoyable to be around; I would spend time with them even if Mike weren’t in the picture. But the fact remains that my love for them is informed by his love for them.

Part of being in love with Mike involves stepping into his love for other people; I don’t see my love for his people as a separate entity from his:

     

Rather, I see it as mapping directly onto his:

He transfers his love to me, which explains how, over time, they become no longer just Mike’s people but our people.

I realize that you might be saying, “Sarah Jackson, this is all very obvious. As people spend time with their loved ones’ loved ones, they tend to take them on, as it were. All you’ve done is add a few Word doc-quality graphics to illustrate the point.” Granted. But I would add two things: 1.) I am a child of the 90s and will never stop marveling at the ability to apply a gradient to a basic geometric shape at the click of a button. 2.) I’ve recently begun to think that the transfer of love can be more complicated and profound than I originally thought.

I have a friend—we’ll call her Maggie—who has someone in her life—we’ll call her Kate—who is, by most standards, a bit of a mess. Without going into too many details, I will say that Kate’s series of personal struggles have landed her in legal trouble, have hindered her from having fulfilling romantic relationships, and have caused much angst and heartache to the few people who have stuck with her through it all, Maggie being chief among them. The entire time I’ve known Maggie, I have heard stories about Kate and have been impressed by Maggie’s continued love for Kate even as she attempts to navigate the relationship so it is healthier for herself. While Maggie has distanced herself somewhat from Kate out of necessity, her love for her friend is undiminished. 

A few months ago, I happened to think about Kate, whom I’ve never met, and realized, to my surprise, that I love her. This was quite a shock to me because, apart from the love I owe her as a human, there is no reason for me to love her. She has hurt my friend deeply and repeatedly. She has chosen paths in life that are destructive to herself and others. I do not think she is someone with whom I would like to spend any significant amount of time. And yet, there it undeniably was: a love for Kate.

The only possible explanation I can think of is that over time, Maggie transferred her love for Kate to me. Her love turned into my love. This wasn’t a conscious choice on either of our parts. I think it is just the nature of love.

In the Christian Bible, we read, “We love because [God] first loved us” (1 John 4:19). This is one of the most popular verses in Christian circles and I’ve heard it over and over since I was a child. Most of my life, I understood it in one of two ways, one instructional and one phycological. First, I considered how humans are capable of love because we have God’s primary and preeminent model, most especially in the person of Jesus. In other words, “We love because God showed us how to love.” Any love we have is an imitation of God’s much bigger love:

The second interpretation that I’ve considered is that humans are capable of love because we feel loved. In other words, “We love because God’s love for us brings forth our created capacity to love.”  My love is a response to God’s much bigger love:

I think these ideas get at some of the truth, but I’m also starting to see the verse in more spatial, even geographical, terms. If I love God, if I am in love with God, then I step into God’s love that already exists. In other words, “We love because we can choose to enter God’s infinite sphere of love.” My love is a location within God’s love:

  

The particular coordinates of that location depend on my environment, circumstances, and personality, but the main point is that I have a choice to dwell in God’s loving activity. While I can’t get away from God’s love for me, (Psalm 139 and the book of Jonah make that pretty clear!) I can (and sadly often do) choose to step away from the participatory action of God’s love. But like an eternal dance, God’s love is ongoing, and I can rejoin at any point. 

This way of understanding 1 John 4:19 is helpful to me because I don’t feel like I have to muster up love from nothing or from deep within myself. Instead, I need only look for God’s love around me and join it, knowing that when I do, God’s love for people, for the world, for Godself, for me, for 90’s quality gradients, probably—all of it!—transfers to me.

Have a good week! 

Sarah/Mouse