Thursday in the Third Week of Advent

Blessing for the Longest Night

by Jan Richardson

All throughout these months

as the shadows

have lengthened,

this blessing has been

gathering itself,

making ready,

preparing for

this night.

It has practiced

walking in the dark,

traveling with

its eyes closed,

feeling its way

by memory

by touch

by the pull of the moon

even as it wanes.

So believe me

when I tell you

this blessing will

reach you

even if you

have not light enough

to read it;

it will find you

even though you cannot

see it coming.

You will know

the moment of its

arriving

by your release

of the breath

you have held

so long;

a loosening

of the clenching

in your hands,

of the clutch

around your heart;

a thinning

of the darkness

that had drawn itself

around you.

This blessing

does not mean

to take the night away

but it knows

its hidden roads,

knows the resting spots

along the path,

knows what it means

to travel

in the company

of a friend.

So when

this blessing comes,

take its hand.

Get up.

Set out on the road

you cannot see.

This is the night

when you can trust

that any direction

you go,

you will be walking

toward the dawn.

© Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com

- See more at: http://adventdoor.com/2011/12/19/winter-solstice-blessing-for-the-longest-night/#sthash.HcWczdp7.dpuf

Wednesday in the Third Week of Advent

A Reflection from Iona

The land is waiting for the frost,

to destroy the diseased plants, to cleanse the soil of pests;

waiting for the snow to blanket and protect new shoots;

the world is waiting for the shortest day, the longest night,

for the turning of the year and the return of the light.

The people are waiting, waiting for justice - 

to change their lives.

Refugees are waiting, in their in-between world,

to return home, for the past to be restored,

or for the future to be different....

The world is waiting.

Prayer

God of latent life and growing shoots,

we wait for you in an expectant world:

we long for your wisdom to be at work in our lives

and, with our brothers and sisters,

we yearn for your justice to be done on earth.

Amen

From Advent Readings from Iona by Brian Woodcock and Jan Sutch Pickard

Tuesday in the Third Week of Advent

Fine Particulate Matter
by Ron Cebik


I am made of stuff ,
Fine particulate matter,
Or so I was told
By the somber minister
As she made a mark
Drawing a cross on my brow 
With black soot and grease 
Made holy by some bishop 
Unaware of death
Having left its dark icon 
Beneath the surface
Indelibly on the soul
Immune to dogmas
Meant to calm the anxious heart
Beating to order
Warriors that take up arms 
Against the assaults
Fearful institutions wage
Lest the free walk out
Into the daylight of truth
That o ers nothing, 
Demanding everything 
Excepting the soul,
Yours to keep until the day
It is given up
In the blowing winds of change, 
Breaking forever
The mold you made to hold
The pearl of great price,
Fine particulate matter, 
Dancing in the wind, 
Grounded in sacred memories 
Balancing our lives
On the edge of not knowing 
And uncertain faith,
We seek our unique meaning 
In the swirling dust
Shifting shapes before our eyes 
Preventing contact
With anything substantial
To a rm the truth
We are more than what we seem.

Thus again we kneel
Receiving the timeless sign
Only others see
Hidden from our line of sight, 
Blessed denial
Of how fragile the life we hold 
Together in hope
The time will never arrive
When the black thumb leafs 
Through the prayer book searching 
The proper collect
To signify it is now
The journey begins
To the edge of what lies beyond

Imagination.

©Ron Cebik 2008 

Monday in the Third Week of Advent

Ready for Silence
By Madeleine L’Engle

Then hear now the silence
He comes in the silence
in silence he enters
the womb of the bearer
in silence he goes to
the realm of the shadows
redeeming and shriving
in silence he moves from
the grave cloths, the dark tomb
in silence he rises
ascends to the glory
leaving his promise
leaving his comfort
leaving his silence

So come now, Lord Jesus
Come in your silence
breaking our noising
laughter of panic
breaking this earth’s time
breaking us breaking us
quickly Lord Jesus
make no long tarrying

When will you come
and how will you come
and will we be ready
for silence
your silence.

Amen.

Third Sunday in Advent

In light of the historic climate agreement reached yesterday in Paris in which 195 nations, rich and poor, signed a covenant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is the first globally unified step taken to address the urgent need to protect creation from encroaching climate change. For this landmark consensus, we give thanks! And so today's reflection is from 

Joy of Heaven, to Earth Come Down
by The Rev'd. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas

The world into which we were born is shuddering before our eyes. Maybe half the world's species could vanish before the century is out. Almost all scientists agree that unless we move swiftly toward energy conservation and efficiency unless we make a transition to clean, safe, renewable energy, unless we redesign the infrastructure of our economy so that it is no longer based on fossil fuels  - and do this at top speed - then we face runaway climate change. Without decisive action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the result of global warming - rising seas, extreme weather events, heat waves and droughts, food and water shortages - will cause unimaginable hardship. ....

That is one big picture of reality. Here is another, just as real. God is the maker of heaven and earth, of all that is real, seen and unseen. Our Creator God loves the universe into being - every leaf and twig, every dolphin and galaxy. God in Christ redeemed it all, fills it all, and longs to restore it all. And God the Holy Spirit empowers us to become healers of the earth, taking action especially on behalf of those who are weak, hungry, marginalized, or poor, since they are the ones with whom Jesus particularly identifies....

How wonderful it would be if, one hundred years from now, our descendants looked back to us with gratitude for stepping up boldly in the face of the ecological crisis and for acting quickly and lovingly to protect life on this planet...


From the Third Sunday in Advent, pp. 41-2.

Saturday in the Second Week of Advent

Peace

by Rachel Jones

Peace: it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. — anonymous

Last Advent, I was in the midst of a huge life transition – one of those that involved a moving truck, lots of boxes, and about 15 gallons of salty tears. I knew that my life was changing, and even though I was very grateful for the change, I felt like EVERYTHING was changing RIGHT THIS MINUTE, and there were moments when I was sure my head was going to explode in a cloud of exhaustion and worry before I ever got a single box packed and ready to move.

I would set myself task lists every night, and before I would let myself go ahead and cry and be sad, I had to get my tasks done. So many times, in the midst of cleaning, packing, organizing, and throwing away, I’d find myself talked out of my crying fit. Putting things in order and seeing that I really could find a little place of peace in between the boxes and heavy conversations made the nights not so dark or scary. Even on nights when I wasn’t able to keep the tears at bay, I was able to find some peace inside the assurance that God was definitely up to something, that I had not been brought this far to be dropped or forgotten.

The peace I was able to curl upside of wasn’t that dovey-hippy-demilitarized kind of peace we so often think of; this peace was certain, solid, and insistent that even though things weren’t OK, or all right, or even close to normal, at some point (because God is good) things would be just right. I think that may be the best thing I’ve ever learned during Advent, maybe one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned as a Jesus person. Things in this life rarely look or sound or feel the way we think they should. We have to reconcile ourselves to living in a broken and dying world, and still have the nerve to fall in love with it, every single day.

We have to live with the hard edges, hurt, and injustice, and be utterly, righteously, and supremely convinced that it will not be this way, forever, that somewhere all is calm and all is bright. We have to be smart enough to be simple-minded in our relentless conviction in the childlike belief that things will get better, will be the way they should be, will be reconciled in ways we cannot possibly fathom or do on our own, so long as we honestly do our part of loving and believing in a God who is greater than we can ask for or imagine.

Prayer for Quiet Confidence

O God of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our strength: By the might of thy Spirit lift us, we pray thee, to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (Book of Common Prayer, p. 832).

Friday in the Second Week of Advent

Song
by Allen Ginsberg

The weight of the world

             is love.
Under the burden
             of solitude,
under the burden
             of dissatisfaction

             the weight,
the weight we carry
             is love.

Who can deny?
             In dreams
it touches
             the body,
in thought
             constructs
a miracle,
             in imagination
anguishes
             till born
in human—

looks out of the heart
             burning with purity—
for the burden of life
             is love,
but we carry the weight
             wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
             at last,
must rest in the arms
             of love.
No rest
             without love,
no sleep
             without dreams
of love—
             be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
             or machines,
the final wish
             is love
—cannot be bitter,
             cannot deny,
cannot withhold
             if denied:

the weight is too heavy

             —must give
for no return
             as thought
is given
             in solitude
in all the excellence
             of its excess.

The warm bodies
             shine together
in the darkness,
             the hand moves
to the center
             of the flesh,
the skin trembles
             in happiness
and the soul comes
             joyful to the eye—

yes, yes,
             that’s what
I wanted,
             I always wanted,
I always wanted,
             to return
to the body
             where I was born.

Amen.

Thursday in the Second Week of Advent

Today is the Feast Day of John of the Cross

John of the Cross (San Juan de la Cruz) (24 June 1542 – 14 December 1591), born Juan de Yepes Álvarez, was a major figure of the Counter-Reformation, a Spanish mystic, Catholic saint, Carmelite friar and priest, born at Fontiveros, Old Castile. Saint John of the Cross was a reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered, along with Saint Teresa of Ávila, as a founder of the Discalced Carmelites. He is also known for his writings.

John learned the importance of self-sacrificing love from his parents. His father gave up wealth, status, and comfort when he married a weaver's daughter and was disowned by his noble family. After his father died, his mother kept the destitute family together as they wandered homeless in search of work. These were the examples of sacrifice that John followed with his own great love -- God. 

From the writings:

“Some of these beginners, too, make little of their faults, and at other times become over-sad when they see themselves fall into them, thinking themselves to have been saints already; and thus they become angry and impatient with themselves, which is another imperfection. Often they beseech God, with great yearnings, that He will take from them their imperfections and faults, but they do this that they may find themselves at peace, and may not be troubled by them, rather than for God's sake; not realizing that, if He should take their imperfections from them, they would probably become prouder and more presumptuous still. They dislike praising others and love to be praised themselves; sometimes they seek out such praise. Herein they are like the foolish virgins, who, when their lamps could not be lit, sought oil from others.” 

                                                                                            ― John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul



“ To reach satisfaction in all, desire satisfaction in nothing. To come to possess all, desire the possession of nothing. To arrive at being all, desire to be nothing. To come to the knowledge of all, desire the knowledge of nothing. To come to enjoy what you have not, you must go by a way in which you enjoy not. To come to the possession you have not, you must go by a way in which you possess not. To come to what you are not, you must go by a way in which you are not.   

                                                                                                                   ― John of the Cross

“I came into the unknown
and stayed there unknowing
rising beyond all science.

I did not know the door
but when I found the way,
unknowing where I was,
I learned enormous things,
but what I felt I cannot say,
for I remained unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

It was the perfect realm
of holiness and peace.
In deepest solitude
I found the narrow way:
a secret giving such release
that I was stunned and stammering,
rising beyond all science.

I was so far inside,
so dazed and far away
my senses were released
from feelings of my own.
My mind had found a surer way:
a knowledge of unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

And he who does arrive
collapses as in sleep,
for all he knew before
now seems a lowly thing,
and so his knowledge grows so deep
that he remains unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

The higher he ascends
the darker is the wood;
it is the shadowy cloud
that clarified the night,
and so the one who understood
remains always unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

This knowledge by unknowing
is such a soaring force
that scholars argue long
but never leave the ground.
Their knowledge always fails the source:
to understand unknowing,
rising beyond all science.

This knowledge is supreme
crossing a blazing height;
though formal reason tries
it crumbles in the dark,
but one who would control the night
by knowledge of unknowing
will rise beyond all science.

And if you wish to hear:
the highest science leads
to an ecstatic feeling
of the most holy Being;
and from his mercy comes his deed:
to let us stay unknowing,
rising beyond all science.” 

                              ― John of the Cross



“There is a........reason also why the soul has traveled safely in.....obscurity; it has suffered: for the way of suffering is safer, and also more profitable, than that of rejoicing and of action. In suffering God gives strength, but in action and in joy the soul does but show its own weakness and imperfections. And in suffering, the soul practices and acquires virtue, and becomes pure, wiser, and more cautious.” 
                           
                                                                                                    ― Saint John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul

Wednesday in the Second Week of Advent

Lost

by David Wagoner  

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you,

If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.

Amen.

Tuesday in the Second Week of Advent

Every Land by Ursula Le Guin The holy land is everywhere. —Black Elk Watch where the branches of the willows bend See where the waters of the rivers tend Graves in the rock, cradles in the sand Every land is the holy land. Here was the battle to the bitter end Here's where the enemy killed the friend Blood on the rock, tears on the sand Every land is the holy land. Willow by the water bending in the wind Bent till it's broken and it cannot stand Listen to the word the messengers send Life from the living rock, death in the sand Every land is the holy land. "Every Land" by Ursula K. Le Guin, from Finding My Elegy. © Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.

Monday in the Second Week of Advent

Waiting in the Darkness
by Richard Rohr

The darkness will never totally go away. I've worked long enough in ministry to know that darkness isn't going to disappear, but that, as John's Gospel says,"the light shines on inside of the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it" (1:5). Such is the Christian form of yin-yang, our own belief in paradox and mystery.

We must all hope and work to eliminate darkness, especially in many of the great social issues of our time. We wish world hunger would be eliminated. We wish that we could stop using the earth's resources on armaments. We wish that we could stop killing people....But at a certain point , we ave to surrender to the fact that the darkness has always been here, and the only real question is how to receive the light and spread the light.


From Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent (Franciscan Media, 2008) pp. 26-7.

Sunday in the Second Week of Advent

Advent Dawn by Thomas R. Smith Seven-thirty. Driving northwest out of town, the snowscape dusky, sky tinted smoky peach. In the rear view mirror, a bright orange glow suffuses the stubbly treeline. Suddenly a column of brightness shoots from the horizon, a pillar of fire! One eye on the road, I watch behind me the head of a golden child begin to push up between the black knees of the hills. Two weeks out from Solstice, the sun so near winter it seems to rise in the south. A fiery angel stands over his cradle of branches. And what strange travelers come to honor him? And what gift will I bring to him this day? "Advent Dawn" by Thomas R. Smith from The Glory. © Red Dragonfly Press, 2015.

Saturday in the First Week of Advent

Spiritual Mom

by Paul Hostovsky

Mom got spiritual in her late fifties, and we really had no patience for all the forgiveness. It was disconcerting the way she’d kneel down on the floor in the middle of the conversation and hug the dog, whispering affirmations into its long ear, stroking and folding it inside out like a pocket. When she emptied her bank account and gave all the money to whoever asked, wandering around downtown, reaching into her purse to offer whatever her fingers touched first, it was the last straw. We did an intervention, as they call it in the field of addiction. We sat her down and confronted her on her spiritual habit. The room grew quiet as Mom wept softly, her eyes searching the floor for what to say. The silence was terrible—even the dog cocked its head in that doglike listening way for some kind of affirmation that Mom had heard us, and understood, and would cease her spiritual ways, or at least be in the world a little more and no longer walking around like she didn’t have a colon, with one foot in Heaven and an ear to the hot little mouth of God. "Spiritual Mom" by Paul Hostovsky from The Bad Guys. © Future Cycle Press, 2015.

Friday in the First Week in Advent

A Sky Full of Children
by Madeleine L'Engle

I walk out onto the deck of my cottage, looking up at the great river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky. A sliver of a moon hangs in the southwest, with the evening star gently in the curve.

Evening. Evening of this day. Evening of my own life.

I look at the stars and wonder. How old is the universe? All kinds of estimates have been made and, as far as we can tell, not one is accurate. All we know is that once upon a time or, rather, once before time, Christ called everything into being in a great breath of creativity - waters, land, green growing things, birds and beasts, and finally human creatures - the beginning, the genesis, not in ordinary Earth days; the Bible makes it quite clear that God's time is different from our time. A thousand years for us is no more than the blink of an eye to God. But in God's good time the universe came into being, opening up from a tiny flower of nothingness to great clouds of hydrogen gas to swirling galaxies. In God's good time came solar systems and planets and ultimately this planet on which I stand on this autumn evening as the earth makes its graceful dance around the sun. It takes one Earth day, one Earth night, to make a full turn, part of the intricate pattern of the universe. And God called it good, very good.

A sky full of God's children!...I stand on the deck of my cottage, looking at the sky full of God's children, and know that I am one of them.

Amen.



From Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas, Orbis Books, 2001.

Thursday in the First Week of Advent

A Prayer for Advent from "All Desires Known"
by Janet Morley


O God My Dark My Silence

O God my dark my silence
whose love enfolded me
before I breathed alone
whose hands caressed me
while I was still unformed
to whom I have been given
before my heart remembers
who knew me speechless
whose touch unmakes me
whose stillness finds me
for ever unprepared

Wednesday in the First Week of Advent

It is hard to believe that it is again, the first week in Advent. Again. Just like last year, and the year before, and the year before that, here we are beginning our story, again. Our same age-old story, in a new year, presumably in a new way, and yet, it is not a new story, not even close. For some of us, Advent could easily feel like a rut, like a broken record, like iTunes stuck on repeat until we have heard that same old song…enough already. It’s the sort of perpetual retelling that we lament when we look at whatever the unchanging disappointments are in each of our lives. The diet we just can’t seem to follow. The slack we cannot seem to cut the folks who annoy us. The temper we cannot seem to hold when our blood pressure is in the red zone. For some of us, Advent is just: same sorry story, different day, I think the cleaned up version of the bumper sticker would say. Is that really Advent? The same old unfulfilled promise of peace on earth in a new year?

 I don’t think so. I think rather, that maybe we need to re-vision or re-frame what we expect of Advent. To that end, our Advent theme this year is: Awaiting the New Creation. It is a theme that suggests that we expect, not something entirely different or new, but maybe something we already know something about, something that feels like it has already happened, like it is already true, and at the same time, something that is totally yet to come, completely out of our experience, something that we, as yet, know nothing of. So this year we will try to balance our experience of that which is already here and at the same time, our hope for that which has not quite arrived. We will wait with Creation for the coming of what we know will be a New Creation, a New Creation that has been promised by our God who dared to join us in the flesh.

And if there is one thing that can be said definitively of God, it is that God keeps God's promises.
And God promised in last Sunday's Gospel from Luke: "Jesus told them a parable: Look at the fig tree and all of the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the Kingdom of God is near." I remember those leaves. Don't you? Those leaves of new creation that sprout every year; every year a new chance to bear fresh, plump, nourishing fruit.

For that is how Creation, and the New Creation work. It’s a rhythm, not a replacement. It's an ongoing cycle, not a linear sequence. And so as our preacher Amanda said on Sunday morning, God is not finished. God is never finished with us. As long as there is a growing season ahead, there is hope. As long as we begin the cycle that takes us to Easter, then the New Creation is on its way.
 All of this is to say that our cycle of life that awaits a New Creation cannot measured in ordinary time. And so rather than a prelude of four temporal weeks leading up to the birth of our Savior, maybe Advent is more like a period of refreshment along a continuum of hope. Advent as a reminder that the Kingdom (if I might use that secular word for the divine nirvana) is not yet here, but that it is near; near enough that we would do well to lift our noses from the grindstones of our lives and refresh ourselves and our expectations and our collective dream of a world without poverty and violence and fear.

And so I think we can prepare for the New Creation by remembering how to hope for it. This is the designated time for hope!

Onward!