Remember, Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old.
-Psalm 25:6
I wish I was more
stubborn. It runs in my family. I had a couple famously stubborn grandparents,
and then there’s my stubborn mother/father (according to my father/mother), and
certain other relatives bearing this particular resemblance. But not me; I guess, because there had to be
at least one compromiser in the family, or it's an unfortunate symptom of my need to people please. At any rate, stubbornness has been something I’ve
had to cultivate.
But there are just
some things upon which we must insist. I learned this lesson from my stubborn mother, who her kids along to
union rallies and public protests at the capitol building: upon the rights and dignity of workers, we must insist. I learned
this lesson from my stubborn father, whom I watched step into the middle of conflict, big or
small, employing integrity and honesty to mediate: upon peace and reconciliation we must insist. I do not laud
stubbornness for stubbornness sake, not for insisting on its own way or on
frivolous preferences, but when it comes
to the well-being of others, issues of justice, showing mercy and love to our
neighbors, we must insist. Stubbornly insist.
Sometimes the
right response to the needs that are uncovered, heard, spoken in the spirit of
Advent, is to join our voices in saying
the need, join our wills in the insistence that these needs (ours and
others’) be addressed. Sometimes all our
hope has to feed on is sheer stubbornness; a refusal to give up, a refusal to
forget, a refusal to go to sleep.
Stubborn Love by The Lumineers
Do you ever wonder
how God experiences waiting? What is waiting like for the God who first desired
to wipe out violence among the first people populating the earth; the God who
has longed for a family since the first promise of descendants as numerous as the stars? Traditionally, during advent we remember the
waiting of the people of God, across centuries, their longing for a Messiah to
come. But we also remember that they did not wait in a Divinity void. Generation after generation God dwelt,
spoke, provided, called, delivered, and lead her people. Stubborn God so
longed for us, that eventually God became the message of Love: breathing,
walking, and giving Loveself to the
world.
This Love echoes
in our song today; a song about love that in spite of pain, and in opposition
to indifference, remains; screaming out, refusing to leave, it can’t be told
otherwise. This stubborn love is the path of the followers of God. As the birth
of the babe in Bethlehem (and his life, death and resurrection) teach us, it is love above all, upon which we must
insist.
What is the God of Stubborn Love calling you to
insist upon today? On whose behalf is the
God of Insistent Love inviting you to stubborn today?
Divine Love, make us stubborn in our concern for one another, empower us to insist on behalf of the vulnerable among us, and hold us all together with a love that refuses to let us go.
-Lindsey
**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.**
