Advent Vespers

I finally attended an Augsburg Advent Vespers service last night. I say finally, because, I’ve been wanting to attend this event for about fifteen years. Ever since I graduated from Augsburg College and began receiving invitations to the service as an Augsburg alumni. Is timing everything? Maybe, so maybe there’s some cosmic reason that it took me fifteen years to go.

When I went back to college to finish my undergrad degree, my world was slowly falling apart. I’d been in some ways, happily married, and in other ways, more personal ways, more unhappy than happy. In hindsight, I can say that I didn’t know that I had a right to be personally happy and have my own goals and dreams. When I was single, I was going to school at the University of Minnesota, first at Morris, Minnesota, and then, after one semester and one too many blizzards, I moved back home with my parents in Minneapolis and transferred to the Minneapolis campus. I worked full-time nights, and paid my own way through college.

After Kathleen and Erin were born, I took night classes, not giving up on that four year degree. I also loved going to school, loved learning and meeting new people. But once we moved to Owatonna, and I soon became pregnant again, I gave up (at least for a while) on the idea of finishing. I guess I believed I’d traded in my own life for a home and family. Then, one day, a miracle occurred, or at least I believed it was a miracle at the time, and really, I guess it was. I received a postcard in the mail advertising Augsburg’s Weekend College. Imagine, I could finish my degree on the weekends, every other weekend, in fact. This postcard came at just the right time in my life. A miracle, no?

It seemed like a miracle, in many ways, not in the least in that it was something I wanted really badly, but didn’t think I deserved. I was brought up, thinking that private colleges were for rich people, and just generally, not for people like me. Steve, my husband, had attended Augsburg for a while, and I was somewhat jealous and baffled by his opportunity to attend a private college and just walk away from it (he’d had a scholarship even, and dropped out). I had to somehow believe that I could go to a private college, and that I could find the money to go, if they accepted me.

By this time, I had not worked outside the home for quite some time, and to say my self-confidence was waning would have been an understatement. Usually, too, when I wanted something, Steve would find a way to make me feel small for even asking. So, when I finally approached him about it, and he said, “yes” and helped me fill out the financial aid forms, it was like a dream come true. I was really going to finish college, and once again, I had dreams for myself. My imagination was reawakening to possibilities. It’s hard for me now, to imagine a place as an adult where I had to ask someone else’s permission to do something good for myself. My role as a wife and mother had usurped my sense of self so easily.

I met with an advisor at Augsburg, and we reviewed my transcripts from the U and it soon became apparent that the quickest way for me to finish college was to get the English degree I had started towards at the U, especially since I had completed more upper level English credits than anything else. Wordsworth, anyone? At the time, it didn’t dawn on me that I might have to find a job with this degree, all I knew was that I loved reading and writing. I did take communication courses, which I also liked, and so decided on a Communication minor.

Well, a funny thing happened on my journey back to school, I started growing. I started making friends on these weekends in the cities who were not like my church-lady friends in Owatonna. We’d look forward to our lunch together on Saturday, in between morning and afternoon classes. These women were much more frank about their relationships and their lives, their language not peppered with “The Lord this, and the Lord that.” As I grew closer to the friends I was making, and closer to the person who I was, I realized that Steve and I were really not close at all. I began to wonder, really wonder, what had happened to me?

To be able to attend school, my parents agreed to watch my children for me every other weekend, and I stayed with them overnight, also. Classes were scheduled for Friday nights, Saturday morning and afternoon, and Sunday morning. Most times, Steve would drive us all up, and then pick me and the girls up on Sunday, driving us home by Sunday evening, when I’d barely have time to get them ready for the school week. This was really hard on the girls. Kathleen was a young teen, and Erin and Megan in grade school. They all missed out on birthday parties and hanging with their friends on the weekends, and they began to resent staying with my mom and dad. On one Friday, before we left for Minneapolis, I knew Erin and Megan’s hamster Teddy was dying, and I just lied and told them he would be fine, knowing he’d be dead when we returned. He was.

I completed one year of weekend college. During the past year, my marriage was falling fast apart. A young woman had called me up and told me my husband loved her, not me. She was a dancer at a strip club. Steve continued to tour with Prince and was often gone for months at a time. The girls felt adrift, and I know now that I was not really able to be present for them. No one had ever really been present for me in my life, so I had no clue what that was. The church-ladies were telling me that God would save my marriage, and I really, really wanted to believe that, but I also wanted the nightmare to end. I wanted to wake up. More than one instructor at Augsburg encouraged me to write, and to keep writing. My philosophy instructor counseled me when I confided in him that my marriage was a mess. The Augsburg community was embracing and empowering.

I filed for divorce. Steve was on his second dancer girlfriend, this one not as friendly as the first, and I couldn’t stand being stuck in the chaos anymore. He’d profess his love for me and the girls and then rarely come home. The house was in foreclosure and our bills in collection, even though Steve made good money. This was not the white picket fence I’d opted for, this was like a chain link fence around a cemetery. Obviously, God was not up to saving this particular marriage, and I didn’t even care why or why not anymore. I had no clue how I would support myself and my three girls, but I did know that if God wouldn’t save my marriage, I had to save myself and my daughters. I asked Steve to move out, he moved back to Minneapolis.

My parents were there for me as much as they could be. My car was not very reliable, and my mom and dad graciously allowed me to use my mom’s car to be able to finish school. One more year of school, I thought, and everything would be okay. Only thing, during my last year in school, we found out that Kathleen was pregnant. I nearly dropped out, but my friends at Augsburg convinced me not to.

In between writing papers and studying, I was parenting a very sad and scared pregnant teenager. Megan was diagnosed with depression, and Erin was left alone way too much. Graduation was in June, and Kathleen’s baby was due in June. I really wanted to march, so much of my life had not been about me, I wanted this small ritual. I wondered, would life always be this complex? The baby waited until after I marched, and all three of my children and my parents attended my graduation.

I had no clue what the next part of my life would look like. Divorced, soon to be grandmother, and wondering, how to parent a teen mom? How to single parent? As so many parents do, I can only say, I did my best at the time. The challenges seemed insurmountable, most of the time. I was often weary- nearly lost in the chaos of life. But even if I felt that way; I wasn’t lost, and finishing my degree at Augsburg gave me hope. In the nick of time, with the coming collapse of the economy, having a degree gave me the opportunity to provide a home for my family. I was able to find a job I loved, at the Gainey Conference Center of the University of St. Thomas. This job gave me the opportunity for graduate school.

So, last night at this advent vesper service so much of this came flooding back to me, in the candlelight and Christmas light of the beautiful downtown church, in the hush of the evening, in the angelic sounds of the choirs, in the magic of the orchestra. The air was swirling with history, religious and personal. In this space I was able to contemplate, to remember, to be grateful. We are all alright now, fifteen years later. Perhaps miracles are our ability to continue to start over, again. To have hope. Advent, waiting in twilight for morning to come, again.