"earth is white ground is cold its hard to see the seeds you've sown all our life and love buried beneath the snow days are short, the dark is deep move along on cautious feet..."
In these last days before Christmas, a song that is a simple prayer, a meditation, and a promise:
"be still, my love,
keep holding on
through the cold December gray
we will
have faith,
'cause there's a Savior on the --
a Savior on the way."
Savior on the Way (acoustic, 2012) by Danny Mitchell
"so turn your eyes dead east
and be the very first to see
the rising sun"
May your feet carry you forward with trust, may your eyes be open to the Light.
Some days the words just will not come. They are dried up
under our scorching sadness, they are snatched away by the shock of tragedy,
disjointed by the world in which we feel like strangers, or simply fatigued by
deep lamenting through the dark night. Some days our words are just not sufficient,
a paltry vocabulary to try and name the vast Mysteries.
This weekend the sadness of many precious lives lost,
overwhelmed me. The responses of tongues wagging and fingers pointing
(including my own) exhausted me. The anger over our collective
unwillingness to build peace, burned through me. And now I have nothing left, no
words, only sadness and fatigue and the ever-encroaching desire to forget, to simplify,
to move on.
This week AMP will look at ways in which we Hold the Mystery. A theme originally
chosen (at least for my part) with an eye toward the Divine mysteries of the season,
the wonder, the amazement, the parts of our story that are just beyond us.But, today, in light of the tragic events of
this weekend, I must confess that I am having trouble accessing that kind of
mystery.
That sense of benevolent mystery, that other-worldly peace of
the starry darkness, the wonder of God incarnate in a baby: those are not what
I am feeling today.I find, instead,
that I am stuck on more immediate mysteries. There is so much about this world
that I do not understand: suffering and apathy, brokenness, violence and our
human need to hold on to these things so tightly, cutting ourselves every which
way but loose from their grasp on us.
We cannot escape the realization that part of the
mystery of this season is painful. Because between the evening news and the
candlelight Christmas Eve service, between the realityof the world and
the hope of God making the world new,
there is a crushing sense that things should not, and cannot, be this way.Between these counter points there is a void,
a space where we cannot fully understand, cannot even fully name our dual
reality; a space of sighs, it empties us, again and again, as we wait there for
the advent of our hope realized.
There are moments in this space where the mystery, the un-knowing,
the incomprehensibility are greater than our words, there are moments in which
music and melodies move us powerfully, as words cannot; and moments beyond even
our musical expression, moments in which all we may do is fall silent.
And so we do fall silent today. I chose today’s video
because there is no sound. I invite you to give yourself to the silence for a
few moments today, trusting it to help us hold
the mysteries. May we find something solid about silence, something stable,
restful. May it be a place of realigning ourselves, a place where that which is
within us may rise to the surface and find release. May the silence lead us to
dwell with the heavy questions, the deep despair, the neediness of creation; even
as we dwell with the mysteries of Advent, of God moving in creation, breathing
in the deep silences, slowly, steadily, in time with our heartbeat, as together
we wait.
Do not
fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When
you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers they
shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you. -Isaiah 43:1-2
When I was a kid, the most difficult waiting of this season
had to do with the rule that we could only advance the mouse on our advent calendar one
day at a time toward Christmas.Some
days my brother and I would move the mouse several times, back and forth, between
the previous and current days; with the kind of twitchy frustration that
causes children to groan or sigh and flail themselves onto the nearest couch or
chair. WHY GOD, did you make advent so
long?!
As an adult, I confess, I am not much better with
waiting.But I do recognize that beyond
the realm of advent calendars and four Sundays set aside for themes of “waiting
and expectation,” there is another kind of wait. There are those among us that have been waiting life times, literally;
those who have said the need and said
it again and screamed the need and still are waiting for an answer.I think
of family members who waited their whole lives before trying to reconcile, of the countless
people who work and wait generation to generation to bring peace to homelands rife
with conflict, and of all the waiting in between: months of unemployment, years of
trying to let go of hurt.
Some times, we wait so long that the waiting itself becomes a force in our lives.
Our situation doesn’t seem to change, that loved one doesn’t change, that problem
does not get resolved; instead, in the face of all this waiting, all of the
sameness around us, we change. Waiting can empty us. Waiting can
develop in us capacities and characteristics we had not recognized in ourselves,
both good and bad (perseverance, wisdom, bitterness, cynicism…).
Oh heaven, oh heaven I wake with good intentions But the day it always lasts too long Then I'm gone Then I'm gone Then I'm gone
This is what I hear when Sande sings “will you recognize me?”
It has been so long that my expectation, my good intention, has been lost; so
long, in fact, that I feel as though I have been lost. “The day always lasts
too long, then I’m gone.”The kind of emptying that long waiting can
bring to us can be painful, it can be exhausting; but it can also be constructive,
clearing away parts of us that may have held us back at one time, making space
for good risk taking, emptying us for something new. Then again (and just to be
clear) sometimes the emptying-wait just sucks.
But the Good News of this Advent season is that God waits with us. In the long history
of our faith, both before the birth of Emmanuel and after, God was with the
people, as they waited, as their days and years grew long, when they didn’t
remember who they were and when they didn’t live into that identity. God was with them. God is with us. So
the answer to our song’s question is a divine “yes.” Yes, I will recognize you,
empty or full, whatever the waiting brings to you, however it changes you. I
will recognize you, for you
are mine.
In your emptying and in your filling, may God With Us, keep you through the wait.
In [Jesus] all things were created... he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." -- Colossians 1:16-17 selected At a young age I realized this eternal truth about great pop music while listening to Paul Simon's Graceland album: a truly great song is one where I can mishear the lyrics and love both the true and false versions equally well. This is true of most Iron and Wine songs, and Walking Far From Home is one I particularly love precisely because there are so many delightful and thought-provoking things to mishear.
The delicious mystery is what keeps my eyes and ears open, not just to this song, but to the world. I have no idea what the ultimate meaning of the song is, but I sense that it has something to do with awareness, loving the broken and the lost, and hope. These are all ideas that remind me again of our theme for this week: what helps? What helps with our longings and our brokenness? What helps with the waiting? Iron and Wine reminds me that what helps is keeping our eyes truly open to what's going on around us, taking in the grace and the grime.
Walking Far From Home is like a lullaby for the world as I'd want it written: sad and gorgeous, compassionate and hopeful, tragic, honest and humane. For me, it speaks of our essential identity as wanderers in this world, and yet of the ways in which we are ultimately drawn back together in God's embrace. It invites us to open our eyes and celebrate the beauty of Creation, even in its broken state.
The lyrics are worth reading HERE, but it's also good just to "mishear" the first time around... what do you hear?
This song invites us, in the words of Mary Oliver, to be "a bride married to amazement,/ ...the bridegroom, taking the world into [our] arms." Or, to take the challenge further, as Mother Francis Dominica states, to remember that "Nothing in your life is so insignificant, so small, that God cannot be found at its center." This song challenges me to look for beauty and meaning (manifestations of God) in all places, even the strange and painful, the outcast and despairing. I may not see God immediately, or even at all, but at the end I will have looked with my whole eyes and my whole Spirit, and maybe in that way will have embodied God's presence in that space.
I like to think that Jesus' healing ministry began with his unflinching gaze upon the rejected, the sinners and the lost that acknowledged their deep humanity beyond their brokenness. Conversely, any of us who have sat at the side of a stranger who was ill or dying, or a friend who had become lost in their own despair knows that sometimes the only possible response is to look, to look with love and grace and peace into the mystery of this one human life which touches all human life... and with that look acknowledge that life is more than just the meat of things; that there is an awe-ful beauty at the heart of our lives, and it is there, sometimes, where we are able to fall back into God's embrace.
Saw a wet road
form a circle
and it came like a call, came like a call
from the Lord. - Iron and Wine
May we allow ourselves to look fully and deeply at the things we love and the things that hurt in these days, seeking God at the center and knowing peace along the way.
"Christmas Blues, don't know what to do, I'm all alone, no one t'tell my troubles to It's just another lonely Christmas, without you. Christmas... I'm feelin' down, Looking through my window, for you to come around-- but the only thing I see is the snow that's fallin' down..."
- G. Love "Christmas Blues"
For those of us who are deeply committed to social justice, we sometimes run the risk of ignoring the holy everydayness of ours and others' lives. Let's not get so lofty in our talk of religious and existential longings for justice and God's peace during Advent that we forget all the "ordinary" stuff for which we also long and wait. Health, jobs, centeredness, patience, relationships, wholeness... relationships. I say it twice because after all, for most people in the U.S. who were raised secular or casually Christian, Christmas is primarily about enjoying holiday cheer via parties, feasting, special events and present-giving. In other words: fellowship.
Even when our family, friends and loved ones drive us crazy, they leave their mark on our holidays. Even when we have had to walk away from family brokenness, create our home-places elsewhere, or reclaim our solitude as a sign of strength, we still operate on the power of our human connections. We are social creatures, and festival and holidays are things that, hopefully... sometimes... on a good day when the wind is fair... bring us together.
And while I may roll my eyes a lot of romanticized holiday pop songs for being silly or just plain creepy (can anyone say 'date rape'? I'm looking at you, "Baby, It's Cold Outside"...) it makes a lot of sense that we should name the desire for companionship, love and closeness with family and friends during a season where it's mostly just cold and dark.I'll Be Home for Christmas, isn't just saccharine sentiment. Most of us would rather not be nursing broken relationships, or be alone or lonely during the holidays, and I like songs that take that a little seriously, and a little tongue-in-cheek:
"Christmas Blues" by G. Love and Special Sauce
"yes there are times in life when we all need a second chance yes there are times in life when we just can't stand to stand alone, -- in a empty home -- So Happy Christmas, wherever you might be... and on this Christmas time, I hope that you're thinkin' 'bout me -- Happy Christmas, Baby..."
So let's not be afraid to name the common, mundane, everyday things we hope and long for during these days of Advent as well. Certainly, we keep them in perspective with the most dire and pervasive issues in our world, but they are needs as real as anything else, and have their place in the order of things.
May we be gentle with ourselves in our daily brokenness and everyday dreams, and yet and still dare to draw close to friends and family this Advent: for companionship and love, for fellowship and grace, to share in the festive birth of Christ together.
Maybe Advent is best understood at night, sitting with the streetlit world, hearing ambulance sirens as we watch and pray. Likewise, maybe the story of Advent is best understood starting not with thepromises of Isaiah, but with its anguished cries to God:
"Your sacred cities have become a desert... and all we treasure lies in ruins. After this, O LORD, will you hold yourself back?
Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?"
Isaiah 64:10-12
'Respiration' by Black Star feat. Common:(lyrics: here)
**Advisory: Some strong language. Clean version and pretty sweet orig. music video HERE
'Respiration' is about telling the truth from your corner of the world. I especially love its intro about taggers (graffiti-ers) talking about their aerosol work: on two cars they've written,
"ALL YOU CAN SEE IS... CRIME IN THE CITY."
On this end of Advent, our job is to tell the truth about the world and cry out to God about a Creation gone terribly awry. As Kara Root, preacher at Lake Nokomis Presbyterian, stated this week: "Advent begins with a great cry of disappointment." Disappointment in ourselves, certainly, but also in the world and even in God.
During Advent we boldly name our disappointment and pain, knowing that God is NOT ultimately absent or unmoved. God is here - even as God is still coming. Because of this, as Kara stated, we can "stand bravely with our broken hearts and the broken hearts of the world... waiting to be mended."
How do we speak our broken hearts in these coming days? What do you see even from your limited perspective that still needs voice and naming?
In the darkness of a very real night, may we boldly tell the truth about our world and hold out our lives to God.
“For [all] creation waits in eager longing…” Romans 8:19
Advent means “coming.” We wait for the advent of many things. We wait for the advent of world peace, we wait to be reconciled with that relative we have not spoken to in so long, we wait for our healing to come, we wait for an end to violence on our streets, we wait through the loneliness of lengthening winter hours... we wait to feel loved, to be better, to encounter the Divine; for freedom from fear, for acceptance; to be heard, to feel safe, to have enough. We wait.
It is part of our human condition: people from all walks of life wait for - long for - healing, peace, safety, love. This waiting necessitates some sense of hope; for Christians this hope is rooted in the promised return of Christ and the redemption of the world. But that comes a little later. For now, at the onset of this season, when we reflect on what is coming/what is not yet here, let us pause at the waiting, and wonder together: what does our waiting have to teach? What may we glean from the practice of waiting?
As we listen to this heartsong of hope from an Orthodox Jewish man, what does it means to wait together with all creation? For what are we waiting?
For what are you waiting this Advent season?
May we wait in the darkness of these shortening days, dreaming together of the coming light.
