The Long Way Home: Wild Advent

Very early on, humans learn to settle for way less than we deserve. We feel hungry, cold, and tired, which can lead to fear, frustration, and anger. In the absence of loving care, human nervous systems cannot thrive. They often do survive, however. 

But we're created for so much more than mere survival. Made in the image of God, we are created by Love, for love. 

Humans are endlessly resilient, adapting to all sorts of substandard environments: War, poverty, abuse, and addictions of all kinds... The remarkable ways our brains and bodies change to accommodate various unimaginable and horrific stressors are, to me, signs of the existence of a loving creator who ultimately desires our flourishing.

There is a story in the Hebrew Bible of Moses leading the ancient Israelites through the treacherous wilderness out of Egypt, where they had been enslaved. The people were not led by the shorter route through potentially dangerous Philistine territory; instead, God leads them along the longer route. According to the biblical writers, by the shorter route, the people may have decided to retreat back to Egypt, where, despite their forced servitude, they had learned to settle. 

Sometimes, frustrating though it may seem, the long way home is crucial to the changes necessary for our flourishing. (Nobody says wilderness is easy!) This being human is a guest house, the poet Rumi suggests. Try to welcome everything, even the hard stuff. 

We are created by Love for love. Settling for less is, I suppose, mostly optional. I pray you will choose otherwise.

May you soften enough to receive the Love that you deserve. 

Because I love you, here's a sweet excerpt from Margery Williams Bianco's The Velveteen Rabbit...
 

'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit. 

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.' 

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?' 

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.'

💛

Wild About Joseph: Wild Advent

I am totally taken by Joseph’s willingness to listen to his conscience. Matthew's gospel calls him a righteous man. I call him a bad ass superhero. He didn’t have to go through with his marriage to Mary, and yet he did. He became the protector of Mary and her unborn child, Jesus. Stronger people with more resources should be the protectors of the vulnerable. That is just the way it should be, I believe.

We don’t know so many of the specific details of the Christmas story. We are left with questions. It’s okay to wonder, imagine, and put ourselves in the place of the different characters. What would we have done in Joseph’s place? In Mary’s? Perhaps we have experienced circumstances somewhat similar to these in our contemporary lives. Would we be so brave?

These bible stories are a wilderness. We walk in faith that the stories can be anchors for our lives, but often there are unanswered questions that concern us. Perhaps that is the point. What if we were to walk into the wilderness of the holy scriptures with all our questions, sticking with them despite (maybe even because of) our uncertainty?  That seems to be what Joseph did. One courageous step at a time, he did what he knew was the next right(eous) thing. And thank God he did.

The Blur of Grief: Wild Advent

  

Blur seems like an appropriate word for that first holiday after the loss of a loved one. Nothing is clear. Nothing is certain. The world goes on around us at a dizzying pace. In our foggy, shaky, blurry-ass reality, shock can, thankfully, dull the pain somewhat. We are forced to move slowly, to feel our way, slogging slowly through each exhausting moment, day, week, month... 

Been there.

Years later, when I wrote Back to Happy, I wanted to offer practical advice for the newly grieving, such as making a daily list of simple tasks to complete, e.g., brushing your teeth, making your bed...  For me, checking completed tasks off a list offered an instant dopamine hit. It was practical. Practical advice was what I needed. Writing that little book was one way to make meaning out of the incomprehensible. There are other ways. 

Grief is a wilderness, and God is endlessly creative. God meets us there in a variety of ways. God comes in natural ways; in the scent of a real, freshly cut Christmas tree, in the peaceful silence of the first snowfall. God comes in the form of fellow humans who sit quietly with us, bring us meals, pray for us, and love us back to some semblance of our former selves. God shows up in supernatural ways, too, often with an intensity that takes years to process and assimilate.  

Grief is a blurry-ass wilderness— you have permission to sit this Christmas out if you need to. But do stay open to the possibility of Emmanuel, of God with us. 

And do brush your teeth.

Allow: Wild Advent

Beavers seem to be taking over the peaceful little stream that meanders along behind our house. They have constructed a new dam downstream from their other, larger one, which begs the question: How many dams does one beaver family really need? Yesterday, thanks to the nature cam our son installed to keep an eye on the very busy beavers,  we got the chance to check out a gorgeous great blue heron. A pleasant surprise, she/he was a magnificent creature. (According to at least one source, it can be difficult to tell male great blues from females.)  

So much is out of our control: Nature, the stock market, other people, the passing of time...ugh. Discernment and trust and a modicum of acceptance, therefore, must, of necessity, be a daily practice.

It's as though we must constantly remind ourselves," that worked out, and so did that one - never dreamed that could ever happen..." Like the ancient Israelites who were guided safely through the wilderness, we often discover God has been walking with us all the way. It's about trust. 

It's about allowing God to be God.

Allowing is a practice of observing and "bearing the truth," poet Danna Faulds writes. Sometimes, when it comes to faith, allowing God to be God becomes our last best, most miraculous resort.

Allow 

There is no controlling life.

Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado.

Dam a stream and it will create a new channel.

Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet.

Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground.

The only safety lies in letting it all in –

the wild and the weak; fear, fantasies, failures, and success.

When loss rips off the doors of the heart, or sadness veils your

vision with despair,

Practice becomes simply bearing the truth.

In the choice to let go of your known way of being,

the whole world is revealed to your new eyes.

~~Danna Faulds

Angelic Influencers: Wild Advent

Consider with me the incredible way the Christmas story has spread throughout the world. I mean, that story! Mary and Joseph travel on foot, maybe donkey, from Nazareth to Bethlehem to register for the census. It's about a 65-mile journey. Their hike was twice as long as mine! And she was pregnant! They had to travel light. 

Likely, they were with a group that would have helped look after Mary. Likely, they would have shared provisions along the route. They may have made new friends along the way. That's the nature of a pilgrimage. 

When Joseph and Mary arrive in Bethlehem, as the story goes, there is no hotel room available. Mary is in active labor. She gives birth outside, under the stars, likely with the help of local women. Luke's Gospel tells of shepherds receiving an angelic visitation announcing Jesus' birth. The shepherds travel to Bethlehem to behold the little family in their temporary shelter, surrounded by livestock. 

There was no Instagram or Facebook then, yet remarkably, this story spread widely around the world in unique ways, reflecting each local context. I feel like that's the whole point - to see God in ourselves - and in our neighbors.

It is wild, totally wild, to consider how the story of Jesus' birth spread to the ends of the earth. Clearly, social media's got nothing on the angels.

Travelling Light: Wild Advent

A few years ago, I hiked 30 or so miles of the Appalachian Trail with my husband during one of the hottest weeks of the summer. In my backpack were things I would never use. It was so heavy. 

The ancient people who traveled through the wilderness knew how to travel light. The wilderness was about survival under the most difficult circumstances. The wilderness was about learning to let go of control and trust the Creator of the universe. 

In the Hebrew Bible, luminaries like Moses and Hagar met God in the terrible wildness of the natural world. Jesus seemed to enter the wilderness somewhat willingly after his baptism. Meeting physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges there, Jesus emerged from the wilderness ready to get the job done. Wilderness experiences can shape us, make us stronger, more resilient, and trusting of God. Excess stuff only slows us down.

💛

Travelling Light

Because sometimes we travel heavy
and those heady times we can barely
imagine the freebody movement of dance.

Because sometimes we travel dark

and from those hard paths we can’t even
conjure an image of sunrise or moonrise or starlight or fire.

Because sometimes we travel solo

and those lonely times we forget all the others
we’ve travelled with lovingly
travelled with home.

Because sometimes we need to be 
travelling lightly
because sometimes we’re in need of
regular reminding
that light comes in circles
and waves
and small moments
and light
comes to find us
and light comes with hope.

~~Pádraig Ó Tuoma

Blessing What's Holy: Wild Advent

                                                                           

How the Stars Get in Your Bones

 

Sapphire, diamond, emerald, quartz:

think of every hard thing

that carries its own brilliance,

shining with the luster that comes

only from uncountable ages

in the earth, in the dark,

buried beneath unimaginable weight,

bearing what seemed impossible,

bearing it still.

 

And you, shouldering the grief

you had thought so solid, so impermeable,

the terrible anguish

you carried as a burden

now become—

who can say what day it happened?—

a beginning.

 

See how the sorrow in you

slowly makes its own light,

how it conjures its own fire.

 

See how radiant

even your despair has become

in the grace of that sun.

 

Did you think this would happen

by holding the weight of the world,

by giving in to the press of sadness

and time?

 

I tell you, this blazing in you—

it does not come by choosing

the most difficult way, the most daunting;

it does not come by the sheer force

of your will.

It comes from the helpless place in you

that, despite all, cannot help but hope,

the part of you that does not know

how not to keep turning

toward this world,

to keep turning your face

toward this sky,

to keep turning your heart

toward this unendurable earth,

knowing your heart will break

but turning it still.

 

I tell you,

this is how the stars

get in your bones.

 

This is how the brightness

makes a home in you,

as you open to the hope that burnishes

every fractured thing it finds

and sets it shimmering,

a generous light that will not cease,

no matter how deep the darkness grows,

no matter how long the night becomes. 

 

Still, still, still

the secret of secrets

keeps turning in you,

becoming beautiful,

becoming blessed,

kindling the luminous way

by which you will emerge,

carrying your shattered heart

like a constellation within you,

singing to the day

that will not fail to come.

 

—Jan Richardson

The faith traditions of others can feel like a wilderness. unless we 

make a conscious effort to learn about them. Author Barbara Brown Taylor writes in her book, Holy Envy, that when she began to explore faith traditions different from her own, she found aspects she admired and wanted to emulate.

Every year for each of the eight nights of Hanukkah, my daughter, who was raised an Episcopalian, lights a candle on a menorah, a gift from her beloved teacher, mentor, and friend. I love that she does this. 

In these last darkest days of the year, perhaps we are called, as author Jan Richardson so poignantly writes, to keep turning our hearts toward "this unendurable earth," this wilderness of a life, not in spite of its hardships, but rather with them. "This is how the stars get in our bones," Richardson suggests. 

God knows this is no easy task. Horrific events call for human response. How do we "keep the faith" in light of such atrocities?  Perhaps that's the whole point of embracing any religion: to help us navigate the dark times with grace, to help us "kindle the luminous," each in our own ways, and with admiration and appreciation of and for the faith of others. 

 May the light of the One Holy Presence bless us, sustain us, and open our hearts to the needs of others, that all may know deep in their bones the brilliance of Your love. 💛

The One: Wild Advent

The "Wilderness Man," himself, John the Baptizer, needed to know. Was Jesus the One they had been waiting for? Naturally, Jesus doesn't give him a direct answer; he simply points to the facts. The blind can see, the deaf can hear, the lame can walk, poor people are doing a lot better, John. ~~Matthew 11:2-11

Don't we all have questions for God? Even the one who came to prepare the way for Jesus needed to be sure. 

But what if the beloved has already arrived? What if the signs really are all around us? I love the suggestion from one contemplative: Turn to Love, and the one you await will appear. 

The One

So many signs,

so many people raise our hopes,

and then fade in history's crowd and clutter.

Will this be the Christmas when ....?

But we do not await some traveler from a far shore,

some miracle for a while withheld, then granted.

We await the blossoming of what is already within,

"as a farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth."

The One we await is the Beloved, present here,

the spirit of love, embodied already.

Many may bear that fruit, but it is also within you.

Turn to love, and the One you await will appear.

 ~~Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Let Love Flow: Wild Advent

This morning, as I was greeting students in a Vinyasa (flow) yoga class, I noticed a woman in the back unrolling a bright pink mat. Immediately drawn by its vibrant color and wanting to introduce myself to a new student, I approached her. She was kind enough to let me snap a picture.

Let Love Flow! Isn't it a great maxim? I think this is the kind of motto I can employ as I work to combine my ministry in the Episcopal Church with my yoga teaching. 

After all, they're both about flow. 

We know about the importance of blood flow for our physical health and well-being. That's why we exercise, eat right, and watch our blood pressure, etc. But what about our love flow? How often do we take into consideration the healthy maximization of inflow and outflow of love? Does love tend to flow freely out from us, or are we cautious and tentative? Does it flow back to us from others with ease? Or are there barriers?

The poet Rumi wrote:  

Yes, Rumi! All the barriers. They are legion. They are different for each of us at different junctures of our lives.  Also, they are more common than not.

Of course, we have the words of Jesus in John's Gospel:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. ~~Jn. 13:34-35

What are we waiting for? What are the barriers to the love flow we desire...with God, with beloved friends and family? With our neighbors, and those we might consider enemies...

What practices or changes might facilitate a healthier love flow?

Perhaps this Advent will be the one. We might, at long last, forgive someone or allow someone to help us for a change. Maybe this Advent, in this wilderness of a life, we will finally let go, a little, our tendency to control, any unrealistic expectations, and trust that God's really got us.

Spiritual Practice:  Loving kindness meditation. Also, yoga.💛 

 

 

Second Coming Over Coffee: Wild Advent

The Second Coming

by William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

    Chapter one of scholar Elaine Pagels' new book, Miracles and Wonder, is a wilderness, and I love it! It's treacherous territory, for sure. In it, Pagels explores Jesus' conception and birth from both a historical and theological perspective, offering a fascinating (and potentially disruptive) investigation into the truth of our beloved Christmas story. While she is not the first academic to venture down this provocative and perilous path, Pagels makes a thorough and compelling case for the possible paternity of Jesus of Nazareth. 

Reading Pagels' scandalous proposition over coffee prompted a morning reflection on the famous William Butler Yeats poem, "The Second Coming." Written in 1919, after the First World War and the devastating flu pandemic, Yeats' poem ponders the possibilities of the Second Coming. I wonder if Yeats, writing during a perilous time in history, was seeking truth similar to Pagels. What if the Second Coming of Christ was a truth bomb of epic proportions? 

Personally, this does not trouble me at all. It actually excites me. It makes scripture all the more interesting. One example: Pagels notes the genealogy in Matthew's Gospel that lists some unlikely women, such as Tamar, Ruth, and Rahab, alongside the men. (You'll want to look into this, trust me!) 

There's a saying in the little-known apocryphal text, the Gospel of Thomas, about which Elaine Pagels has also written:  

Jeshua says, If you are searching, you must not stop until you find.

When you find, however, you will become troubled. Your confusion will give way to wonder. In wonder you will reign over all things. Your sovereignty will be your rest.

What if there's more mystery in the history of the Jesus story than we've been previously told? What if the second coming turns out to be a devastating revelation for the ages? 

I think I would only love Jesus more. If that's even possible.

And with Thy Spirit: Wild Advent

                                 “Spirit is not in the I but between I and You.” 

                                    ~~Martin Buber, I and Thou💛

I don't know about you, but to consider that we're created by something existing outside our mortal comprehension feels like something of a wilderness to me. As finite beings pondering the infinite, the right and good, and natural inclination from ancient times seems to have been to pray.

“Let us pray.”

It is a simple bidding, an invitation to turn our hearts, minds, and voices toward something greater than ourselves. 

In our Episcopal service, prior to praying together, the celebrant says to the congregation, “The Lord be with you,” to which the people respond, “And also with you.” One person at our early service generally responds, “And with thy spirit.” 

It’s from the Rite I liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer. It's old.

“And with thy spirit.” God be with you and with my spirit, too. 

I and Thou. God with us. It's mind-blowing if you really think about it. 

So try not to think too hard. Just be. I and Thou. Together In Spirit.

Happy Advent. Happy wandering in this mysterious wilderness that is Emmanuel, God with us.