What Shall We Offer You, Beloved?

Candlelight Labyrinth Walk

Last Friday the Center for Spiritual Development hosted a Candlelight Advent Labyrinth Walk.  The night was brisk, the labyrinth dusted with swept snow and filled with small votive candles.  This was our symbolic gesture to remind us of the light in the darkness.

I handed out prayer cards to enable people to focus on the Advent prayer that God was inviting within them as they stepped onto the labyrinth.  The first part of the prayer concerned itself with offering, particularly what we desire to offer to God this Advent.

What shall we offer You,  Beloved?

We know that our culture refers to this as a gift-giving time of year, and we are right to pay attention to the gifts that we want to give to others. 

On the starry, cold night of the labyrinth walk, we wondered in our prayer about what we might want to offer to God.  Shall we offer our anxieties and expectations?  Shall we offer our joys and thanksgivings?  Our offerings are meant to connect us to the God of gifts, and to make space for the God of the manger.

What shall we offer You,  Beloved?

An offering is presented for acceptance or rejection.  It is something that is precious.    Even our less attractive qualities are precious to the God of Advent.  Whatever it takes to make a place in our hearts for the birth of Christ is a suitable offering. 

What shall we offer You,  Beloved?

As we near the fourth Sunday in Advent, let us make room.  The Christ child needs a place to dwell, a place to be born again.  That place could be within you or within me.

What shall we offer You,  Beloved?

Blessings,

Debra

 

 

Adoration

“God touches us with a touch that is emptiness and empties us.  He moves us with a simplicity that simplifies us.”

New Seeds

Last week I wrote about getting ready for the coming of the Christ child and ended my thoughts offering to praise God instead of thinking that I knew how to get ready.

This week I want to share with you the ways in which God has been simplifying my Advent.

I was invited on Tuesday to go and hear the Baltimore Choral Arts concert of sacred music and readings.  The beauty of the Basilica and the music transported me into a place of deep adoration.

Saturday evening we went to the liturgy of lessons and carols at the University of the South, and again deep silence and soaring music invited me to remember that adoration is perhaps the most significant aspect of greeting the Christ child at any season and any time.

Adoration is the quiet yet insistent attention that we offer to the Beloved One.

 It is the love that grows out of deep intimacy and thankfulness.

Adoration is the intention to will one thing-a love for God.

Adoring God is simple, but I make it complicated.

I want to be in charge of my adoration as well as all the other things that I do, but God invites me to become empty—to become still.

To come near and adore God-

as a baby in a manger, as a man along the road, as a Savior crucified and risen.

There is no end to the ways that God comes to me.  Or to you.

Come Let Us Adore Him!

To inspire your advent adoration listen to the choir at King’s College

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awd9gO_b3hQ&feature=BF&list=QL&index=2