Waiting for Hope While Living From It
Another medley for you this week—
a beautiful portion of an Advent poem I love,
an inspiring quote about the universe and stars swirling,
and a reflection about my own journey with Advent this season.
x
Jessie
As the short days shorten, and
the long nights lengthen, teach me
the grace of looking,
the grace of listening,
the grace of loving,
the grace of seeing
Thy fragile beauty,
so close at hand.
— Stephen Cherry, from the poem “Feeder” in Barefoot Ways
“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 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 [the Creator] 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 that quite clear that God’s time is different than 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 it 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.”
Sometimes, when I think about this, I actually can’t. Even when I know it to be true. It’s as if part of the brain is quarantined—the place that allows for truth, mystery, knowledge, wisdom, utmost vulnerability (which means utmost risk)—is sectioned off. And yet, it seems to me that very place that is sectioned off allows for this Great Divine Mystery to live and breathe and be a possibility for me. Any body practitioner or somatic intuit knows that life is in the unseen, that the body keeps the record—the story. I can’t help but see the truth in this: the Body keeps the Story. The Body has been known as the Church—a community of believers that live out and into their gifts from the creator from believing in the Babe that brought new breath to each of us if we want it (and I do!)—and from that renewal we become part of the Body with our gifts of life working together—being a bone, a beating heart, eyes, ears, and hands of the Babe who came, was, died, and came back to life. (And will come again—Advent—the waiting for the Peace that was Born to Be in and over all the Earth.). It is here that Easter comes into the season—because in the death to ourselves and to our deceptive ways Hope enters our hearts and then flows into our hands. This is possible because Hope—Christ--entered our reality where no hope lives (literally we can't believe in it because we see the "reality" all around us)—and augmented our humanity and the rest of creation. He continued on the story by resurrecting. We’re at the juncture of this Story where hope isn't around us—even though It is. All we have to do is believe, as so many of the stores slogans express. It is belief. It is a choice.
In it is also a surrender—a surrender of the heartache from heartbreak that is too much to bare and to bear. Too much to be vulnerable in and with and too heavy a load to carry. And yet I find this truth at work in my own heart: when I live from hope—I go through a door—a threshold—and into a reality where my ‘heaviness’ is light. Where I am carried. Where I am as present as can be in my body, mind, soul. Pain diminishes because Jesus heals the heart, comforts the grief, nourishes the loss, and tends to the bruises. (Maybe that's why the sacred texts literally describe Jesus as "the door".) Healing and restoration give way to lament and mourning which give rise to joy and light. The Son shines. The new Day has Come. Hope Lives. Peace is Born again.
And again, and again and again as we grow and become whole hearts through transformation. (The God who weeps, knows loss and enters into our reality—rather than diminishes and dissolves us because the “pain” is awkward, untouchable, and “unacceptable”.)
Advent is a season where hope is truly an embodied expression of belief. And when I may not be able to “get there”—maybe it just means that this god of Love is healing me all the more, (healing my compartmentalization and healing my heart)—and that I get the gift of being reminded that in the space is not distance but a warm bond of love that flows again. This past week, surrounded by ears, eyes, hearts, and words, I was encouraged by believers. In that, I felt the spirit gently remind me that he is with me—he’s just simply in the other room, and like a babe growing up, I am asked to trust him. And you know what? He knows that that is the very thing that needs restoration in me.
How do you trust the god of Love, the babe Incarnate, the Creator Divine? Or, what is your (her) story with his story? And have you found peace in that? Perhaps, take a few minutes to journal about this tonight.