“When you have thrown
the cloak of evening
across me,
and when you have drawn
your midnight hand
across my face;
when you have made my soul
as dark as the nighttime sky,
and when the shadows
are my only companions;
then, O God,
turn my face upward,
that I may know
the grace of stars
and give myself to rest.”
~Jan L. Richardson
Last week I remarked that, for my money, no one writes more eloquently about Advent, than Jan Richardson. Her book, Night Visions, continues to be my go-to Advent text. The ways in which her collage images and phrases capture the longing and expectation of these waiting days always stuns me.
The last two weeks in worship we have read the scriptures of the apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians. This past Sunday had us imagining his words as those of a Christmas letter. Instead of the usual outpouring of the events of the last year, the triumphs of children or the demise of health or a parent’s condition, we imagined his words of affirmation and love coming to us. We also imagined what it would feel like to send those words as our own Christmas letter. As I did this, these ancient words became alive for me again in new ways. Ahhh…..the gift of living word!
The reality is that Paul was writing his letter to this community of new faith from prison. His new faith had got him into a heap of trouble. It would seem to me that when a person is in prison they have ample time to reflect on the people and places that have shaped them. There is, I’m sure, plenty of time to think on those you love, those who have made you crazy, those relationships in which you have regrets. Paul used his prison time to try to build up and instruct the many people who had come to understand the Way of Jesus as a life-changer, those who were willing to go out on this faith limb with him. To that I say ‘God bless him’.
The ‘cloak of evening’ is thrown over people in myriad ways and can feel like an experience of prison. For instance, I know those who are staring straight into the face of a first Christmas without a loved one. That blanket is mighty heavy. Others I know are wrestling with the ways a ‘midnight hand’ has altered their lives…..separation, divorce, illness, job loss, struggling children.at this time of year, nighttime dark souls can become a double whammy of hurt and sorrow and bone deep pain. To those in this place, again, I say ‘God bless you.’
Cloudy nights do not allow us the view of the stars that clear ones do. And yet we know the stars are in the heavens blinking their shiny messages to us. Dark soul times often obscure our vision of the Holy, keeping us from connecting with the Eternal relationship that never walks out the door. And to this I say ‘God bless us’.
On this Advent day, may we be feel the release from whatever prison holds us. May we be blessed by the grace of stars and find rest in this place.
