An Advent Offering

Bethlehem Star

“The root of Christian love is not the will to love, but the faith that one is loved.  The faith that one is loved by God.  That faith that one is loved by God although unworthy—or, rather irrespective of one’s worth!”

New Seeds

Each Advent as the church begins a new year; the world winds down an old year through an increasingly frenetic pace of celebrating holidays.

When did a holy day become a cause for anxiety?  Is the coming of the Christ child a time for worrying and fretting?

I ask myself these questions each time the church year begins as I find myself in a mall, or worrying about what to serve my family for Christmas dinner.  At the outset, of course, I know how I want to receive the gift of quieting down in Advent, in order to rejoice in a new way with the coming of Christ.

And yet, each year I succumb to the pace around me and fall short of a quiet Advent and joy-filled Christmas.

We have heard this message again and again about a holy advent—a quiet advent—and we fit some quiet in when we have a chance.  We are trying to understand what getting ready for the Christ is all about.

This advent I am asking myself some different questions.

Is it possible to get ready to receive the outpouring of God in Christ?

And my answer is no.

This Christ who came to save the world is not an event or a day.  This Christ is the savior of my life, redeemer of my soul.

I cannot hope to get ready to meet this Christ by observing some quiet during the Advent season.

I can only offer myself to the beauty that is Christmas.

The quiet night, the bright star, a young man and woman with a new baby in a lowly place.

I can offer all my hopes and all my sorrows.

 All my fear and all my joys.

My whole self.

I can offer myself completely this year,

And I can praise the God who chooses to love even me.

Blessings,

Debra

Living Happily

 

It is not that someone else is preventing you from living happily; you yourself do not know what you want.  Rather than admit this, you pretend that someone is keeping you from exercising your liberty.  Who is this?  It is you yourself.”

New Seeds

Last weekend I visited with my son Alexander in Lexington, Kentucky.  During a free afternoon and feeling a bit tired, I went back to my hotel room and watched the movie “Invictus”.  The word means unconquered and the story takes place in South Africa in the first months of a new government headed by Nelson Mandela. In the movie, Nelson Mandela-played by Morgan Freeman- continues to offer the hand of forgiveness rather than the sting of revenge.  The fruit of forgiveness is invariably freedom for the forgiven and the forgiver.

Woven through the story is the poem “Vindictus”, by William Ernest Henley.  The poem was written from a sick bed in hospital. Henley used his experience of suffering to write about the unconquerable freedom within the human soul.  Here is the last stanza of the poem:

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

What Merton and Henley and the movie Invictus all have in common is the inalienable choice that human beings have to be free or to be enslaved.  Let me be clear about this.  We cannot always choose our circumstances, but we can choose freedom of spirit regardless of circumstances.  History is illuminated by human witnesses who regardless of their circumstances chose freedom.  I can name a few here: Portia and her companions, Dostoyevsky, and Victor Frankl. 

Freedom is essential for growth in the spiritual life.  Christ serves as our guide to this way of life, doesn’t He?  Never subject to anyone or any circumstance, Jesus kept His eyes on God and listened to Him above all other voices that clamored for His attention.  Over and over again, it is the behavior of freedom that creates the compassion of Love.  True love is also truly free, and wants only the best for the other.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2Cor 3:17

Freedom is a touchstone of the heart.  When I do not experience spiritual freedom, which is my inheritance, then I know that I have allowed some other attachments to cloud my perceptions. 

Christ invites us to live in freedom.  Let us welcome freedom.  Let us live freedom, and let us become witnesses ourselves to true freedom in Christ.

For the complete version of Invictus go to:

http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/william-ernest-henley/invictus/

The Song of God

 Heart Nebula

I will hear Your voice and I will hear all harmonies You have created, singing Your hymns.

New Seeds

 Listening for the song of God is another way of talking about discernment.   A life of spiritual discernment is a life lived with one’s ear to the sky and one’s heart open to surprise.

Merton invites us to consider the Gospel of the universal sound of God’s voice, which echoes through the creation as song and as silence.

Each hum, each melody, has something of the Divine within it.  If my heart is tuned to God’s harmonies then I will vibrate with God’s tones as a tuning fork when struck causes a string to vibrate.  Both are tuned to the same pitch.  It is called sympathetic vibration.

We are already tuned to the sound of God’s voice and we

 will be able to hear God when we are quiet within.  That hymn is being sung within you right now.

 

Contemplative prayer begins to lead us into the deeply quiet interior of the heart, but it is only a beginning.

It is important to remember that just as God is the author of the hymns sung by the universe, God is also the author of our prayer and our silence.

When we keep our lives filled with other sounds, it is hard to hear the Divine voice.

We may not be able to find a completely silent place in our daily lives.  We need to cultivate the silence within, so that we will carry that silent sanctuary wherever we go.

The silent heart is natural to us.  We were created to leave space for God and to respond to the sound of God’s voice.

This is why many of us, once we have tasted contemplative prayer, yearn for more. 

And more is within you.  God yearns for you with a deeper longing than you can imagine.

Open yourself to silence—the natural silence that was born in you at your creation.

And then-

Listen for the hymn of God.

Blessings,

Debra