Seed the Hope... Resist the Sleep (John Legend and the Roots)

It can take a while for us to fully say the need as we walk forward in Advent, but there comes a time when Advent compels us to do more: respond and resist. So this week on the Advent Music Prject we recall how we SEED THE HOPE of God's coming reign, and RESIST THE SLEEP of un-remembering who and whose we are.

Advent can be a beautiful time of yearning and waiting, but it should also be a time of acting and transforming. After all, Advent looks forward, not backward. It preceeds Christmas to remind us that God's coming is not complete, that Christ still acts in the world and is bringing about a beautiful transformation of all that is broken into wholeness.

In response to the staggering needs of this world and the hopes we each carry in our hearts, we speak and act. We do the hard work of hoping not merely with our words, but with our hands, with our time, and with our lives. We tend the roots of new life wherever it is found.

In response to the social systems designed to lull us into inaction by confusing consumerism with community and entertainment with engagement, we resist the slumber of passivity and apathy. We move, we speak, we learn, we question, we call out for transformation. We remember that this world belongs to God, and let the fire of our passion burn bright.

"There's something in your heart

And it's in your eyes

It's the fire

Inside you

Let it burn

You don't say good luck

You say don't give up

It's the fire

Inside you

Let it burn"

The Fire perf. The Roots (feat. John Legend). Lyrics HERE.

This could be interpreted as a song about personal success, but both the Roots and John Legend have shown consciousness beyond their own interests in their music. There's also a way in which when we Seed the Hope and Resist the Sleep, we live in recognition that our destinies are bound together, and that what seeds hope in the lives of others reverberates back to our own. 

In the end, we don't save the world, but we create spaces for the God Who Comes to move in and take hold. Yet without tending to the places of new life among us, Advent cannot do its full work of providing safe, dark space for seeds to grow, a womb of waiting for the God-with-Us who brings all things to light and life. So we work in Advent, and allow Advent to do its work in us, seeding the hope and resisting the sleep, both being drawn and drawing others into the renewal this season offers.

"Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all. Repay no one evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without cearsing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despire the words of the prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil."                                                    - 1 Thess 5: 13b-22

Where are you being called to seed the hope or resist the sleep this Advent season?

May you feel new energy, even in these shortest days, for the work of compassion and hope, the passion of engagement and action we so sorely need from one another.

                                                                                            - Anna

**This week, we'll take YOUR suggestions for what songs help you Seed the Hope or Resist the Sleep. Post a YouTube link with your thoughts and we'll re-post them all on our Saturday post.**

Tues Dec. 6 - A Time to Speak (Eliza Gilkyson)

      

            Sometimes the beginning of an answer to our deepest needs is someone's invitation to name them, to speak them out, without fear or judgment. This kind of naming, this kind of speaking, this lamenting is a faithful, necessary model given by our ancestors of faith. Beyond that, it is an inherent human need.  But as someone who was raised in a culture devoted to self-sufficiency, stony strength and rationality, I am not prone to the kind of lament modeled for us in the Psalms or even in today’s song. As a young person, I observed people like my father (whose emotions still reside right under his skin, perhaps some around his very strong vocal chords, too), those who couldn’t restrict their emotions to the cultural box of reserve and control, dismissed, "dealt with" or boxed out by others. Message received, social/communal circles of my youth: weeping is for funerals, and anger, raised voices are not for us.

            So, now as an adult, I am on the LONG road to reclaiming this powerful gift that I’ve abdicated to the social status quo.  Most days I still feel severely limited in my capacity for public emotion sharing.  I have, however, learned to recognize and cherish those few blessed saints who, full of grace, invite, question and prod me, to pull out my laments; those who encourage hollering and even the occasional curse word (when the situation calls for it); and those who wait in the moments when I can not word my emotion, but can only sigh.

            There is an added burden that gets piled on top of our sadness, longing, or pain when we are unable to name them. Likewise there is some kind of release, easing, healing even, when our burden may be shared with another. In the church I come from part of our confessions claim that God helps us to hear the voices of people long silenced.  This confession points to the great sin of the silencing that happened/is happening to many people groups across history; it also affirms, for me, the great power of voice and the sacred gift of being heard. This advent perhaps we could take up this very important justice practice for ourselves, as well as those around us.

Word of God, give to us those who will listen us into our own language, releasing our laments, our frustrations and our confusions; Easing us out of the bondage of silence, into the blessedness of a shared journey.

                                    -Lindsey

**Today I offer a prayer of thankgiving and blessing for those who invite our voices and hear our laments. You are invited to add a comment with the names of those for whom you are thankful as a litany.