Who knew or could even guess that I would become the mother of an adult-child who seems to love going to the shopping mall? We think it is the combination of the smooth, carpeted, wheelchair ride, the bright lights, the cacophony of sounds including the background shopping Muzak, that make it one of Temma’s favorite places to go. We are thus beginning a new tradition of going to the mall right around the busiest shopping day of the year, Christmas Eve. “It’s for Temma’s delight,” I rationalize to myself and a few others, while secretly rather enjoying joining the crowds with the assurance of a parking place near to an entrance with Temma’s handicapped placard in Ruby, her van. This year we made the trek the day before the Eve of Christmas Day, finding one of the few handicapped parking spaces left near one of the many, many entrances to the huge Mall nearest our home. Falling asleep in the Ruby ride, Temma quickly opened her eyes, becoming alert and attentive when we hit the carpet and the crowds.

Our first stop was a lunch reservation at the Cheesecake Factory, where Temma had the lunch that we packed for her tube-feeding while we enjoyed our restaurant lunch. Then it was off to a nearby department store to find a new winter coat for Temma’s dad (he’s delighted), and to the Santa village photo op where we found a fake wintry scene covering up Santa himself and the long, long lines of kids and parents waiting for a photo of Santa. There was a beautiful salesman hawking opportunities to win Bull’s game tickets, who took our family photos. They’re blurry, but for someone certainly not being paid to take photographs of families behind the Santa village where Santa himself is invisible, they are OK! We made our way walking around the mall, dodging the people, stopping for some delicious gelato, reminiscent of last September, hanging out with crowds in Florence, Italy, sharing gelato treats.

“We do it for Temma’s delight.” This Advent season I’ve been thinking about caring for and nurturing Temma’s body, Tim’s body, my own, and the physical bodies of those I love. One of my devotion guides, Fr. Richard Rohr, writes this Advent season:

“We are remarkably material beings. When we speak of bearing the image of God, I believe no small part of that is a physical bearing. You may have heard it said, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” Many of us, in pursuit of the spiritual, become woefully neglectful of the physical. We concern ourselves with a doctrine of salvation that is oriented around one underlying hope: heaven. And our concepts of heaven are often disembodied—a spiritual goal to transcend the material world eternally….” (Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations, Week Fifty-Two, “Holy Incarnation.”)

Caring for Temma’s body; caring for Mom’s failing 96-year-old body along with hospice and nurse aides; preaching at a dear friend’s celebration of life, putting her body to rest and caring for the grieving body of friends who lost a lifetime partner, mom, aunt, and good friend this Advent; all of it can feel like just a lot of laborious, messy, tiring work at times, yet to believe that God became flesh makes it holy work. To discover the joy of tending to Christ in our weak, powerful, human, and holy bodies is a gift. 

Author Cole Arthur Riley offers this Advent prayer, reminding us to honor experiences of our own helplessness:  

God of the womb, 

It is not lost on us that you submitted to the body of a woman, trusting in it to protect and grow you. As we remember the nine months you dwelt in the womb, the body of God being nurtured and carried, remind us that our own bodies are worthy of such care and tenderness. May this be a season of sacred pause, as we allow time to be near to our own bodies, to protect and strengthen them. In a world that demands so much of us, remind us that Christ did not come to us in physical independence, allowing the world to take and use him without limitation. Show us the face of the Christ who was gravely dependent, who needed to be held, fed, washed. Who needed to be soothed and rocked to sleep. If we are to honor the divine in us, may it be this divinity—fully embodied, fully dignified in the body. Amen. (Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human (New York: Convergent, 2024), 231. 

Merry Christmas!