“Twelfth Night” (a cocktail for the last day of Christmas)

Recipe

• 1.5oz Gin
• 1oz Dry Madeira
• .75oz Cointreau
• .25oz Cinnamon Syrup
• .25oz Cranberry Juice
• .25oz Orange Juice
• Pinch of ground clove
• Orange Wheel garnish

Shake all ingredients, including the clove. Strain into a chilled coupe. Express an orange peel over the top. Garnish with an orange wheel and two toothpicks.

* * * *

The final night of the 12-day Christmas season is called “Twelfth Night”. It’s the last day of gift-giving, decorations, many food and drink traditions (including wassail!), and a Shakespeare play—and now I have a cocktail for it! And don’t forget the “drumstick” garnishes in honor of the song’s 12 drummers drumming.

This is an amazing Christmas cocktail. It has dark fruit notes, with a touch of brightness, and a lot of complexity and depth without being a “sweet” drink. It definitely straddles the line between a sipper and easy drinking. It is a slight variation of this drink in honor of the play.

The ingredients are mostly self-explanatory, except for the madeira. I don’t have a ton of experience with it, but I know there’s huge variation between the different types and brands. For this I used Broadbent Rainwater Medium Dry Madeira. Your mileage may vary depending on what you find. You may be able to substitute a port or even a dark sweet vermouth.

Enjoy this drink and have the merriest of final Christmas evenings before we head into the season of Epiphany!

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“It’s Still Christmas” (a Holy Day Cocktail)

Recipe

Drink Base

• .5oz Brandy
• .5oz Jamaican Rum
• .5oz Dry Curacao
• .25oz Allspice Dram
• 1 dash Angostura Bitters
• .5oz Demerara Syrup

Drink Topping

• 2oz Strong Earl Grey Tea
• 2oz Steamed Oat Milk
• 2 dashes Rose Water (optional)
• Garnish with Grated Cinnamon and Nutmeg

Served hot. Add the spirits, bitters, and demerara syrup to a mug and stir together. Brew the Earl Grey Tea extra hot and extra strong and add 2oz of it to the mug with the spirits. In a separate container, add 2 dashes of Rose Water to the oat milk and steam it. Pour over the drink in the mug and garnish with freshly ground cinnamon and nutmeg.

* * * *

I was not raised with the Christian Church Calendar, so imagine my joy when I found out that, historically speaking, Christmas is not just a single day, but a 12-day Christian festival!

And so, to remind us all that Christmas is still going on, I bring you this cocktail–a beautiful hot drink to help us through these darkest days of the year. It is a merger of The Embassy cocktail and the fantastic “S’No Problem” by my favorite cocktail YouTuber, Anders Erickson.

The main flavor note is warm spice, with some dark funk and molasses. The first few sips catch the floral notes of rose, bergamot, and orange. But as the flavors mix, it settles into an almost chamomile flavor that calms and soothes.

Herod’s Delusion (A Drink for the Holy Innocents)

Recipe

• 2 Shots of Espresso
• 1oz Caramelized Fig Syrup
• 3 dashes Black Walnut Bitters
• 4oz Oat Milk, Steamed
• 4 Drops Angostura Bitters

Pour espresso over the fig syrup. Add walnut bitters to the milk and steam it. Put four drops of Angostura on top of the foam.

* * * *

December 28th is a Christian Holy Day that reflects on the slaughter of the “Holy Innocents”–infants massacred in Bethlehem by King Herod, who was trying to kill the infant Jesus. It is an incredibly dark part of the Christmas story which we can often overlook in the midst of all the joy and pageantry of the season.

In Matthew 2, the wise men come to Herod saying they’re looking for an infant in Bethelehem who would grow up to become king (which was news to Herod). He told them to let him know when they had found this baby, but after finding Jesus they heeded the warning of a dream and left without telling Herod.

In a rage, he “killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under”, trying to kill Jesus. But Mary and Joseph had already fled.

The story brings up a lot of questions, both historical and theological–and there are no easy answers (here’s a reflection on it from my old pastor).

But the Christian Church has come to honor these infants as the first martyrs of Christianity. They died not only for Jesus, but also in his place. Augustine beautifully says, “they are the first buds of the Church killed by the frost of persecution”.

It is with a lot of these themes in mind that I offer this drink. It may seem trite and minimizing to make a latte in “honor” of such a dark event, but I find these creative and sensory experiences truly aid my own reflection. The intentionality and car that goes into the preparation involves my full self and helps me participate in this more deeply. Hopefully it does the same for you.

And the drink is full of more depth and symbolism than you might think. Bitters represent weeping. Figs are a scriptural symbol for Israel as a nation. Walnuts are an ancient symbol of fertility and children, and in Christianity they were used as an image of the Trinity (due to their layers). The Angostura drops remind us of the bloodshed on that day.

This is a warming, comforting drink in this cold season. It perfectly balances the bitter and the sweet, which is precisely what we strive to do with this story on this day.

Welcome to the Advent “O Antiphons” (& My “O’Fashioned” Cocktails)

Last year I learned about a series of prayers and reflection that the Church has historically used in the seven days leading up to Christmas. This is the first year I’m going to try and engage them, and I want to bring you all along. I also want to give you a bunch of cocktails to go along with them.

The “O Antiphons”

Let me introduce you to the O Antiphons, seven short Advent prayers that go back at least to the 6th-century.*

If you’ve been around religious settings during Christmas time, you’ve probably been exposed to the O Antiphons without even knowing it: the hymn “O Come O Come Emmanuel” incorporates all of them into its verses.

The O Antiphons come from the book of Isaiah, and are a series of seven titles attributed to the prophesied Messiah. Each day has a brief prayer focusing on one of these titles as a way focus our Advent longing on the God we need in Jesus. Here they are. As we get to each one, I’ll link to the post and cocktail for that day.

• O Wisdom | Wise Sage O’Fashioned (Bourbon)
• O Adonai | Burning Bush O’Fashioned (Rye)
• O Root of Jesse | Family Tree O’Fashioned (Vodka)
• O Key of David | Emancipation O’Fashioned (Gin)
• O Dayspring | Radiance O’Fashioned (Tequila/Mezcal)
• O Desire of Nations | Ambassador O’Fashioned (Scotch)
• O Emmanuel | Incarnation o’Fashioned (Rum)

Yeah, there are some titles a lot of us are likely not very familiar with or know what they mean. The idea here is that you meditate on one each day in the week leading to Christmas and you pray the brief antiphon during evening prayers as a way to add focus.

Transfiguration: Christmas Revealed (An Epiphany Reflection)

This Epiphany reflection is the final meditation from the Liberti Church 2019 Advent and Christmas Prayerbook.

__________

The Transfiguration has always bothered me deeply. Jesus takes his closest friends to a mountain and is “transfigured”: his clothes turn white, he talks with some Old Testament prophets, God says nice things about him; everything then calms and they walk down the mountain like nothing happened.

But… what is a “transfiguration”? Translators use that word because no one knows what this moment is or was. “Transfigure” doesn’t mean just a change in appearance, but an actual change in substance and form.  There’s simply no word in language that can communicate it. “

Transfigure”, then, is an almost nonsensical word. It’s merely a placeholder for something whose meaning we can’t ever know. So even though the words sit there in black-and-white before us, we will never know nor have access to what this actually means or is saying.

Mary: Waiting for a Redeemer [guest post]

This Advent meditation is part of the Liberti Church 2019 Advent and Christmas Prayerbook, and it is by Liberti member Jordan Cupo.

__________

As a child, the joy of Christmas morning was unmatched. Wide awake in my bed with anticipation, I would watch the clock count down. I was raised to believe that Santa might not come to kids who wake their parents up before 7am on Christmas morning. Once that magical hour struck, it was a flurry of shouts and laughter as a tornado of flying bows, ribbon, and wrapping paper unfurled in the living room beneath the Christmas tree.

Proclamations of joy aren’t hard to find this time of year, even outside of the church. And there are many reasons to be joyful in this season. There is something special about the smell of freshly baked cookies, gatherings of family and friends, gift-giving, candles, evergreens, and hot chocolate.

Yet, the joy of the Christmas season stands in stark contrast to the broken circumstances of our world. We see others who gather at Christmas, and it reminds us of our own loneliness. We see tables filled with plenty, and it reminds us of our own hunger. We see the gifts of others, and it reminds us of our own financial stress.

Tamar: Waiting for Justice [guest post]

This Advent meditation is part of the Liberti Church 2019 Advent and Christmas Prayerbook, and it is by Liberti member Jessa Stevens.

__________

I started a company six years ago and I truly felt I was following God’s plan for my life. I saw him leading me through challenges, making connections, providing financially. I was filled with hope and motivation. I felt like what I was doing was helping people, healing friends and family. I was doing something I loved that connected me to God and his vision for my life.

If you’ve spoken to me in the last year, however, the road has been more bumpy and more challenging. And surprisingly, though at times I’ve been angry, confused, and discontent with the struggles of this company, I’ve been relying more on God daily than I had when I was praising him for all the ease and fun of this job.

Rahab: Waiting for Judgment [guest post]

This Advent meditation is part of the Liberti Church 2019 Advent and Christmas Prayerbook, and it is by Amanda Mahnke.

__________

Growing up, I was always intrigued by the story of Rahab. As a tween and teen, it was somewhat perplexing to me that the Bible celebrated this woman as righteous for lying to protect the Israelite spies. Given Rahab’s less-than-reputable profession —and a wealth of biblical heroes who did far worse than she — I’m not sure why the deceit was my biggest hangup. I do know, though, that ruminating on Rahab’s story was an important step in my journey toward a less black-and-white, judgmental kind of faith.

The story of Rahab begins as Joshua and his army are preparing to destroy the Canaanite city of Jericho as an offering to the Lord. In an act of treason, Rahab hides the enemy spies and lies to her own government officials regarding their whereabouts. We have no real way of knowing why she does this. What we do know is that, somehow, this Canaanite prostitute has heard about the miracles of the Israelite God, and she has believed.

Ruth: Waiting for a Redeemer [guest post]

This Advent meditation is part of the Liberti Church 2019 Advent and Christmas Prayerbook, and it is by Liberti seminary intern Tara Ann Wooward.

__________

The first time the phrase “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” meant something was when my beloved brother returned home from college—and the second time was when I moved away to seminary. Home takes on a new meaning once it’s been left behind.

Yet, home can also be elusive and painful. For anyone who has experienced exile or homelessness, job or school relocation, the question “where are you from?” can provoke painful memories of loss and loneliness. In a time of unprecedented transience, we might wonder where and when we will ever truly feel at home again.

This Advent, Pray with the Mothers of Jesus

Yesterday marked the beginning of Advent 2019, a period of time which the Christian Church has historically set aside to meditate on Jesus’ coming into the world at Christmas. It’s usually a time of reflection, meditation, and preparation, leading up to the full-on celebration that is Christmas.

To help focus us in this time, people at my church designed a prayerbook built around the women named in the genealogies of Jesus in the gospels: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary.

You can find downloadable and and web versions of the prayerbook here. Or, if a direct link is easier: PDF / EPUB / MOBI (Kindle) / Web.

Different people put together the daily prayer liturgies, reflections, art, poetry, and seasonal meditations, so there’s variety and depth for those that appreciate and connect with such things. Though it is a product of a particular church congregation, it is put together in such away that anyone, anywhere could engage with it and benefit from it. So download and share it widely and sit with it deeply. We all hope it will be a useful way to stop, reflect, and connect during this season.

“Darkest Before the Dawn” [a sermon]

During the Advent and Christmas season, my church did a sermon series going through the key texts of Handel’s Messiah.

I got to preach during that series and only recently realized I never posted it here.

I’m beginning to see that light and darkness are constant themes through my preaching, and in this sermon, those themes are explicitly in the text. God’s people have returned from exile to their homeland, but it still hurts. Things aren’t the way they remembered, and they keep encountering difficulties and old temptations at every turn.

And so God acknowledged the darkness, but promises light. Is that enough, though? How do we not just sit back and say, “yeah, yeah yeah–I’ve heard this all before” and then continue on steeped in our cynicism? In this sermon (as with others I’ve preached), I try to press more deeply into the darkness to see what God might say. The text is Isaiah 60.1-3, and here’s the sermon audio. Feel free to send me any thoughts, questions or concerns:

You can also download it here, or subscribe to our podcast. If reading is more your style, here are my notes for your perusal.

Demand a Miracle (Merry Christmas) [from W.H. Auden’s “For the Time Being”]

This is from the Advent portion of W. H. Auden’s Christmas Oratorio, For the Time Being. The full text is under copyright, but it’s in this book, if you’re interested.

From Part I:

[T]ime never moves and nothing can ever happen:
I mean that although there’s a person we know all about
Still bearing our name and loving himself as before,
That person has become a fiction; our true existence
Is decided by no one and has no importance to love.

That is why we despair; that is why we would welcome
The nursery bogey or the winecellar ghost, why even
The violent howling of winter and war has become
Like a juke-box tune that we dare not stop. We are afraid
Of pain but more afraid of silence; for no nightmare
Of hostile objects could be as terrible as this Void.
This is the Abomination. This is the wrath of God.

Part II, Chorus:

Alone, alone, about a dreadful wood
Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind,
Dreading to find its Father lest it find
The Goodness it has dreaded is not good:
Alone, alone, about our dreadful wood.

Where is that Law for which we broke our own,
Where now that Justice for which Flesh resigned
Her hereditary right to passion, Mind
His will to absolute power? Gone. Gone.
Where is that Law for which we broke our own?

The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.
Was it to meet such grinning evidence
We left our richly odoured ignorance?
Was the triumphant answer to be this?
The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.

We who must die demand a miracle.
How could the Eternal do a temporal act,
The Infinite become a finite fact?
Nothing can save us that is possible:
We who must die demand a miracle.

My Grandfather’s Passing (Hope in Death?)

Today is the sixth anniversary of my Grandfather’s death. I am reposting this reflection I wrote at the time.

This past Sunday, the day after Christmas, I watched my grandfather die. This is the first death I’ve experienced of someone very close to me. I’ve known people who had died, sure, but no one as close as this.

This man walked with me and I with him for my entire life. I sat on his knee and was tickled by his hands. I grew up hearing legends about him, and I walked in a general sense of awe and disbelief when in his presence.

His name was (is?) Lester Travis Williamson, or as I knew him for most my life: Peep (a mispronunciation due to the first grandchild’s toddler lisp).

Peep represented for me a tenacity and determinedness of love that great stories of tragedy and triumph are built upon. As their old pastor said during the funeral, he was a man that if you asked for a crumb would give you the entire loaf and then chase you out the door to give you another loaf for the road.

But this is not to be confused with the contemporary pictures of the sentimental, gratuitously giving man–cheerful, talkative, jocular, and always-optimistic. If Peep was anything, he was the quintessential man of his generation–America’s vision of a “real man”–quiet, determined, and strong. He spoke with intention in every syllable, meaning what he said and saying what he meant.

A Theology of Clean Water, Christmas, & Advent

Tomorrow is my 31st birthday, and instead of any gifts or Facebook Wall well-wishes, I’m asking people to give $31 on my campaign page at Charity: Water to give access to clean water to those in developing country.

But it is also Advent and Christmas season, giving an even deeper and fuller reason to give, especially if you would call yourself a Christian.

Yes, as Christians we ought to care about the pain and suffering of the world no matter what chapter and verse we can cite on a particular issue. But water, however, is uniquely theological and full of meaning.

A Theology of Water & Advent

Water is an essential and mystical part of the Christian story and message, giving us unique motivations and resources for addressing the issue of clean water. The Israel story begins with God creating the world out of the murky depths. The Israelite people are set free from bondage to a prince of death and find their redemption by passing through a Red Sea, which would have held certain death and return to bondage; they enter the Promised Land in a similar fashion. God promises to sprinkle clean his people with the waters of redemption. It is by more than one water well that Patriarchs find their wives and Christ finds a woman in need of redemption. It is in the world to come that the Tree of Life is seen once more, and a River of Life flows from its roots offering life and salvation to all who drink.

Forget Gifts. Give Clean Water for My Birthday

[TL;DR: Instead of gifts for my birthday, I’m asking for donations to Charity: Water to give clean drinking water to those with none. Give on my Campaign Page.]

The picture on this post is from my trip to Israel earlier this year. It’s from En Gedi, an oasis in the the desert, near the Dead, Masada, and the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. It is literally a random spring in the middle of the vast Israel wilderness.

I thought of this image as I was listening to a recent episode of The Liturgists podcast on suffering. They offered interviews, art, music, and poetry about the pain and injustice which exist on a global scale.

They lamented that many such programs leave us with no ability to do something in response. But they offered a way. They interviewed the founder of Charity: Water, a non-profit that focuses on delivering sustainable clean water wells in underserved parts of the world.

One of the best ways they have found to raise money is to ask others to donate their birthdays to Charity: Water. Instead of getting gifts, people would encourage others to give that gift-money to Charity: Water.

So that’s what I’m doing for my 31st birthday on December 20th.