We began our worship on Sunday with a poem by Jan Richardson called Blessing the Way. It begins…
With every step
you take,
this blessing rises up
to meet you.
It has been waiting
long ages for you.
Look close
and you can see
the layers of it,
how it has been fashioned
by those who walked
this road before you,
how it has been created
of nothing but
their determination
and their dreaming,
how it has taken
its form
from an ancient hope
that drew them forward
and made a way for them
when no way could be
seen.
As we read the scriptures for the second Sunday of Advent…the prophet Isaiah and Mark’s gospel story of John the Baptist, I was reminded of this long history of which I am a part. I did not choose this Christian household but was born into it. Like most, we adopt the traditions, faith or otherwise, of our parents. Though I can wrestle with what it means to hitch my star to this complex and often flawed expression of what it means to be human and our relationship with the More, I am never far from remembering that I am connected to a long line of others who have faithfully wrestled. I stand in the ‘determination’ and the ‘dreaming’ of so many. We all do, don’t we?
We live in a culture that often over emphasizes the individual. When I look at my life story it is all about relationship and the invisible lines of connection that weave through community and time. The path I now walk was opened up to me by all those who have suffered, celebrated and sacrificed in an effort to create a more just and beautiful world, by those who have offered lessons and kind words for the journey, by those who held an ‘ancient hope’ that kept drawing them forward, a hope they lovingly placed in my outstretched hand.
Look closer
and you will see
this blessing
is not finished,
that you are part
of the path
it is preparing,
that you are how
this blessing means
to be a voice
within the wilderness
and a welcome
for the way.
Standing at this threshold time of year, as darkness descends a little bit more each day, we can take all the blessing we can get. I am thankful this day in particular for those who have shaped my journey and urged me to claim my ‘voice within the wilderness’. These encouragers are too numerous to be believed. But it is safe to say they have been the light that has illuminated my path and for that I am grateful.
Who has been an ‘ancient hope’ for you? Who has been a light in your darkness? May we name them and whisper their names into the winter sky as we continue on this Advent journey.
