Swords into plowshares

If you look at this passage and really ponder it, you will see the deep longing of humanity for peace. Sometimes I find myself weeping at the words, "swords into plowshares":

Isaiah 2:1–5

The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

In days to come
the mountain of the LORD’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the LORD!

Now take a look at something The Rev. Canon Carol L. Wade of the National Cathedral has to say:

Advent takes us on a journey where darkness unfurls into light. It offers the opportunity to discover God’s light and God’s work in our lives and encourages us to bring that to others. Isaiah says that we are to study. Even in Christ’s school of prayer, studying comes with homework. So this is your assignment. Prayerfully read Isaiah 2:1-5 each day this week. You will be hard pressed to find a more magnificent work of poetry and compelling vision of peace. And watch; keep alert to how our angers, hostilities and petty meannesses are bent into God’s peace.

The school of prayer has homework! How true. How can I expect nation not to lift sword against nation if I cannot tame my own tendency toward "angers, hostilities and petty meannesses"? This is good homework, this self-examination.

Let us cultivate an aspiration for peace, indeed.

Space for the Child of Mary

Here's something really lovely from an Advent homily by a Lutheran pastor whose blog I just discovered:

You can’t go wrong if you follow her example, you people who live in the time of the great fulfillment. You can’t go wrong if you also learn to say to God: “Let it be to me according to your Word” and if you learn to trust every promise God makes you, no matter how impossible, how shocking, how unreasonable. You can’t go wrong if you open up your heart and your life and give space for the Child of Mary to come and live in you, bringing you the joy of presence. It won’t mean an easy time in this world - how she found that out! - but it will mean the joy of a life that death cannot bring to an end. For it will be God’s life, the life He reaches us all in His Son, the Child of Mary, the Mother of God. Blessed be He! Blessed be He forever! Amen.

-- William Weedon

Oh my! I just found an excerpt from Death by Suburb by Dave Goetz and it really speaks to me. Take a look:

I am annoyed by most Advent sermons, which can be summarized as “Find some time to be quiet amid the hubbub to find Jesus.”

Yeah, right. I can’t seem to discipline my life for solitude the other 11 months, yet somehow during one of the most religiously programmatic and economically crazy times of the year, I’m suppose to find time to be still. To wait on the Lord. To say no to the self and say yes to God.

Not going to happen. No matter my good intentions after leaving the 11 o’clock service. My disciplines go on vacation, perhaps Cancun, in December; I never start new ones. Or, should I say, it hasn’t happened yet. Perhaps another 44 seasons of Advent sermons will change me.

I think the real Advent message is this: Don’t try to swim against the consumeristic current this Advent Season.

Let the riptide carry you out into the deep, where you can drown in personal debt, a fuller loneliness, and a complete immersion into your self. Give until you're physically sick. Push yourself to the limits. Give your kids everything they ask for, and then feel guilty that you didn’t do quite enough. Never say no to any invitation to a party. And always, always - give a gift to everyone, especially to your dog groomer and the assistant substitute Sunday School teacher. Do everything with excellence this Christmas season!

January may be the month when I’m most open to the message of silence, when my distended, bloated sense of self is near the end of itself, like a carnival grinding to a halt before it moves to the next city. January’s spirituality question is, actually, the old Dr. Phil question: “So how did that work for you?”

The hope of Advent may actually be the promise of grace in January.

There's a lot to be said for this. Especially Dr. Phil's question!

From Bach's Magnificat

"For he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed."

Waiting transformed

Oh my. I found an article called My Greatest Advent Discovery Revisited and Retooled by The Rev. Dr. Mark D. Roberts who is clearly a man after my own heart! I love what he says about waiting:

A few years ago I was waiting in a long line at Costco. In spite of my best efforts to find the shortest line, of course I ended up in the slowest moving line of all. As I stood there, I could feel my blood pressure rising. The more I waited, the more frustrated I became. Words I never say (well, almost never) filled my mind, and I'm not referring to "Happy Holidays." "Why do I always get in the slowest line?" I asked myself. "And why is this taking so long?" I grumbled under my breath.

Then, all of a sudden, it dawned on me. I had one of those moments of grace, in which God managed to slip a word into my consciousness. As I stood in line at Costco, I was waiting. Waiting! I was doing exactly what Advent is all about. Of course I wasn't waiting for God to save me or anything momentous like that. I was simply waiting to get out of that store so I could go home. But, nevertheless, I was waiting. I was forced to experience something that's at the very heart of Advent.

So I decided, right then and there in the line at Costco, that I was going to use the experience of waiting in line as an Advent reminder. In that moment, and in similar moments yet to come, I was going to remember what Advent is all about. I was going to put myself back into the shoes of the Jews who were waiting for the Messiah. And I was going to remember that I too am waiting for Christ to return.

As I decided to let the experience of forced waiting be a moment of Advent reflection rather than a cause for getting an ulcer, I found my anger quickly drain away. Waiting in line at Costco became, not a trial to be endured, but a moment of grace. And get this: I even found myself thanking God for the chance to slow down a bit and wait. This was, indeed, a miracle.

By the time I got to check out, my heart was peaceful, even joyous. I felt as if I had discovered a treasure. The next Sunday I shared my discovery with my congregation at Irvine Presbyterian Church. In the days that followed, many of my flock told me how much their Advent had been improved by thinking of waiting in line, not as a curse, but as a potential blessing.

I well remember when I decided to consider waiting in line as "free meditation". I heartily recommend it.

Have you not heard?

It was many years ago that I made my first retreat at All Saints Convent in Catonsville, Maryland. While there, I came across a holy card that quoted Rabindranath Tagore. It was my first introduction to the luminous works of this mystical poet. Here's a sample that is perfect for Advent:

Have you not heard his silent steps?
He comes, comes, ever comes.
Every moment and every age,
every day and every night
he comes, comes, ever comes.
Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind,
but all their notes have always proclaimed,
"He comes, comes, ever comes."

-- Rabindranath Tagore

Victory

When I was a little girl, my Sunday School teachers and church choir director made it very plain that Advent was only partly about the coming of Christmas. It was really more about Christ's second coming in glory.

Today I found a blog with a posting that talks about that by referring to the Book of Revelation - also known as the Apocalypse:

Spoiler alert: if you want to know what the Apocalypse is about, I will happily summarize it for you in two words: God wins. The longer version is that no matter how mighty and oppressive earthly powers may be and no matter how dire the plight of the faithful may be, the victory is ultimately God's and those who hold fast to God and remain faithful will share in God's victory. All the rest, as they say, is commentary.

This is a book written from a pastoral perspective to people in times of persecution and affliction, a book designed to strengthen faith and give hope, a book that calls us all to repent and turn from the ways and values of the world and hold fast to God.

-- Paul

God wins. With the world (and the earth) facing such horrible calamities today, that's a good thing to know.

More on waiting

Waiting is an important guest to honor in the guest house of our humanity. If we consciously allow waiting to be our teacher, we can accommodate waiting more peacefully. If we welcome waiting as a spiritual discipline, waiting will present its spiritual gifts. Waiting contains some of our richest spiritual opportunities if we are conscious enough and courageous enough to name them and live into them.

-- Holly W. Whitcomb

Why are we addicted to hurry?

Now here's a question: When we have to slow down, can we do so easily or does it make us frustrated and nervous?

Here in Tulsa we are recovering from a severe ice storm right now and over 200,000 people are without power. And I'm one of them - no power either at home or at my office. So I'm hanging out at a coffee shop that's open (and has wi-fi!) and managing to stay warm. I could wish the place didn't have pop Christmas music blaring forth but, heck, beggars can't be choosers! A lot of people in this town are having to stop their busyness whether they want to or not. Here's another comment on that state of affairs from the same priest I quoted yesterday:

The poet David Whyte says that we move at a great velocity in this society, and that one of the laws of physics is that we can only see what is traveling at the same speed as we are. If we stop, stand, raise our heads, we will behold people we have not seen. We will notice the night sky laced with stars. We will see the faces of those we hold dear. We will be confronted by that Christ in his many different disguises. We will find ourselves noticing, awakening, stirring. And without a doubt, we will find ourselves feeling uncomfortable. When we stop, we might discover our own meanness, our own latent cruelty, our own stinginess, our own hard hearts, our own rigid insistence that we have to be right. Advent gives us space and time to know anew that there is time to prepare, time to allow our flinty hearts to soften, time to slow enough that we might see the living Christ in our midst, bringing redemption near, near as our breath, near as a heartbeat.

--Mary C. Earle

How can we repent when we don't know ourselves well enough to do so? And how can we know ourselves if we don't stop for a while and pay attention to what's within?

Waiting

Esperanza

It's hard to wait. This morning I had an appointment to get my teeth cleaned. Now I really dislike being trapped in the dentist's chair! But it was good practice for me in my aspiration to learn to wait with patience and acceptance. Here is part of an Advent meditation on waiting by an Episcopal priest with a ministry of spiritual direction:

We have waited in silence on your loving-kindness, O God. —Psalms 48:8

Most of the time, we don’t wait. And we certainly don’t wait in silence. Most of the time, we hurry and we push. We split time into tenths of seconds. We fret when a traffic light turns red and holds us up for a bit. The press of hurrying creates harried and hassled souls, disconnected from life and from kindness itself.

By contrast, in Spanish, the verb esperar means both “to hope” and “to wait.” I have a native plant called esperanza in my gardens. It grows and blooms in the driest conditions, offering copious blossoms in gold or orange. When the blooms come, I am reminded of waiting in silence on loving-kindness. I am reminded of something that my usual pace all but obliterates: there is a way of being and knowing that is grounded in timing I did not create. There is a way of being and knowing that dimly remembers that waiting in hope is an attitude of faith.

-- Mary C. Earle

Advent 2

Today we focus on the role of John the Baptist, the great forerunner who urged us to repent. The word "repent" does not mean "feel very, very guilty and sorry about your sins." It means "turn around; change direction."

Here's an excerpt from an Advent 2 sermon I found on line:

I believe that the strength of any community does not lie in how much they have or how advanced they are, but in the kindness and compassion shown to its weakest and most vulnerable members. The church, above all other organizations, must show leadership in this issue. We must participate, with others in the calls for repentance, in the call to prepare for the Prince of Peace, the Christ of God.

The One Who Is to Come proclaimed by John the Baptizer came and preached a new way. Where the world advocated the solving of disputes through war, he proclaimed peace. Where the world proclaimed success through acquisition, he proclaimed success through sharing. Where the world proclaimed success through power, he proclaimed the power of vulnerability. Where the world proclaimed winning, he proclaimed and lived the power of the cross.

We await the Messiah - the one who proclaimed the power of a God who can bring light from darkness, hope from despair, love from hatred, life from death and community from division.

-- Beth W. Johnston

Silent, helpless, utterly dependent

Sketch by Da Vinci

In Advent Christ rested in Mary – still, silent, helpless, utterly dependent. The Creator trusted Himself to His creature….This was a foreshadowing of what the Incarnation would mean for us; for in us too, Christ rests as He rested in Mary. From the moment when the Christ life is conceived in us, our life is intended for one thing, the expression of His love, His love for God and for the world….We must allow the Christ life to grow in us in rest. Our whole being must fold upon Christ’s rest in us, as the earth folds upon the seed.

-- Caryll Houselander

"You are the new day"

While this is not explicity religious, I think you can see why I think of it as an Advent piece:

I will love you more than me and more than yesterday,
if you can but prove to me you are the new day.
Send the sun in time for dawn,
let the birds all hail the morning;
love of life will urge me say,
"You are the new day."
When I lay me down at night knowing we must pay,
thoughts occur that this night might stay yesterday.
Thoughts that we, as humans small,
could slow worlds and end it all
lie around me where they fall, before the new day.
One more day when time is running out for everyone;
like a breath I knew would come
I reach for the new day.
Hope is my philosophy,
just needs days in which to be,
love of life means hope for me
borne on a new day.

- John David

St. Nicholas Day

Saint Nicholas Saving Seafarers

The Limbourg Brothers

The Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York

Today we remember St. Nicholas who died December 6, in the year 343, and, through the developing legend, became our modern-day Santa Claus. Traditionally, the church blesses candy canes on this day. (They look like a bishop's crook!)

Here's a little something about Nicholas:

Saint Nicholas was renowned for his great kindness and his generous aid to those in distress. Among the kind and miraculous acts attributed to him are saving three young girls from prostitution by secretly providing them with dowries, raising three murdered boys from the dead, and saving sailors caught in stormy seas. For these reasons, he is considered the patron saint of children, unmarried girls, and sailors, among others.

Advent 1 Meditation

Sacred longing

Longing by John Pickle

Longing. It is an evocative word. And I would assert it is an Advent word. The world is longing, indeed, for the return of Christ. May we have strength enough to wait with godly hope.

When we were given the capacity to love, to speak, to decide, to dream, to hope and create and suffer, we were also given the longing to be known by the One who most wants to be completely known. It is a longing woven into the very fabric of the image in which we were made.

— Robert Benson in Between the Dreaming and the Coming True

Annunciation

When I was fourteen years old and in the ninth grade, my English teacher handed me a copy of Death Be Not Proud one day and asked me to read it for the class. It was my first encounter with John Donne and I was hooked. Here's another of his Holy Sonnets that is focused on the Advent mystery:

Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo, faithful virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He will wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.

Ere by the spheres time was created, thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy Son and Brother;
Whom thou conceivst, conceived; yea thou art now
Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother;
Thou hast light in dark, and shutst in little room,
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.

-- John Donne

Fire is a fitting sign

I came across the devotional works of Edward Hays some years ago and I have appreciated his writings ever since. Here's a sample:

Advent, like its cousin Lent, is a season for prayer and reformation of our hearts. Since it comes at winter time, fire is a fitting sign to help us celebrate Advent… If Christ is to come more fully into our lives this Christmas, if God is to become really incarnate for us, then fire will have to be present in our prayer. Our worship and devotion will have to stoke the kind of fire in our souls that can truly change our hearts. Ours is a great responsibility not to waste this Advent time.

-- Edward Hays in A Pilgrim’s Almanac

Someone once brought me a photograph of the altar of a church in France. Over the altar was a stained glass window depicting the burning bush. It was all flame. I used that photo as a support for my meditation for a long time.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our "God is a consuming fire."

-- Hebrews 12: 28, 29

Come quickly, Lord Jesus

I've told you before how much I admire Henri Nouwen's works. Here's an Advent prayer that he wrote:

Lord Jesus, Master of both the light and the darkness, send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas. We who have so much to do seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day. We who are anxious over many things look forward to your coming among us. We who are blessed in so many ways long for the complete joy of your kingdom. We whose hearts are heavy seek the joy of your presence. We are your people, walking in darkness, yet seeking the light. To you we say, "Come Lord Jesus!" Amen.

It can be hard to find quiet places during this season of busyness. Not long ago a sixteen year old told me that he sometimes sits in the car on the street outside his home in order to have the silence and solitude he needs for reflection. I was really impressed. We can find that time, that place, for meditation and contemplation if we're motivated. So, let us not neglect to spend this season of gestation in the silence of holy waiting.

No greater gift

I'd like to introduce you to somebody known on the web as Real Live Preacher. His real name is Gordon Atkinson and he's the pastor of a very interesting Baptist Church in San Antonio. Here's something he said that I think is quite wonderful:

God, I don’t have great faith, but I can be faithful. My belief in you may be seasonal, but my faithfulness will not. I will follow in the way of Christ. I will act as though my life and the lives of others matter. I will love. I have no greater gift to offer than my life. Take it.

And this is from his church's website:

Covenant is a contemplative congregation - a thoughtful bunch of folks. We are an intimate group of friends who worship God together, play together, and support each other in good times and hard times. We are seeking to have our own lives changed by the Spirit of God. This is a place where you can ask questions and seek answers. We do not all believe the same things, but we do love each other.

Covenant is where children are cherished, people are patient, and everyone knows your name.

I'm not used to congregations describing themselves as contemplative and I'm impressed by it. Sounds like a place of real depth where a person can grow in a wonderfully authentic way. I'd love to visit it one day.