“tell it as a story
about darkness
giving birth to
light, about
seemingly endless
waiting, and
about that which
lies at the end of
all our waiting
with each
telling, more
of the story
comes to light
darkness can
become the
tending place
in which our
longings for
healing, justice,
and peace grow
and come to
birth.”
~Jan L. Richardson

And so the winter days are unfolding. Here in Minnesota these days have been held under an even greater blanket of snow than usual and the weekend promises even more. Cold temperatures which seem more like February are already filling our bones and causing people to walk around in the shoulders-to-ear, guarded fashion, eyes straight ahead looking ever toward the goal of the next warm place.

For those of us who are trying to pay attention to the season of Advent, the cold and snow provide the perfect backdrop to the play in which we are actors. This landscape spells longing and longing is really one of the major feelings of Advent. Longing for what is unseen. Longing for what might be born in us. Longing to be awakened to the goodness and kindness the world often hides. Longing………so much longing.

If we allow the commercial world of Christmas sales to guide these days, we miss, I believe, such an important part of the process of this life’s journey. To come face-to-face with the longings in our lives is an important task, a task that should not be left to the realm of regret. And so an Advent practice of reflection on our longings can bring us to a deeper understanding of what it means to be a person of faith, any faith really, not just the one that captures these December days.

Someplace in the darkness of our inner life something lurks. Not something frightening or evil, but something for which we long sometimes even beyond our knowing. For some it is meaning, for others a sense of peace. For some it is being loved, for others it is a place and experience of being known. Being known for who we really are not just what we do or what we own. For others it is a sense of hope that all will be well, in their lives and the lives of those they love.

This longing is multiplied by the fact that we are beings held together through community, through national and international connections . We long for the understanding and cooperation that would put an end to war. We long for the recognition of greed that harms the innocent. We long for the honoring of our blessed Earth home.

What longings are pulling at your heartstrings? What tugs at your soul in a way that will not let you go? On these days, in the middle of this season of waiting and watching, may the One who travels ever near, hear your often silent voice and affirm your path.

“You won’t be able to control your thoughts. They are like birds that fly from your grasping hands. But if you relax, those birds may perch on your shoulder, and then you can walk, taking them where you want them to go.”~Horoscope, December 8, 2010

When I opened the paper this morning and read my horoscope, I didn’t so much laugh as I felt resigned, perhaps even redeemed. Redeemed from a night when sleep would not come. Or at least would not come at the ‘proper’ time. This is the second night this week when I have done battle with my eyelids. Monday night I also had bizarre sleeping patterns, finally getting up at four in the morning and giving in to the circling thoughts that kept my mind too busy for sleep.

I am normally a ‘very good sleeper’ just as I am a ‘very good eater’. I listen with all the compassion I can muster to many of my friends who struggle with insomnia. The nutritional and physical gymnastics they go through to get a good night’s sleep frankly exhausts me. But last night, when my brain would not stop its work, I began to feel a kinship with them like never before. I can chalk it up to stress, the general work load that is December, the pattern of the moon, what I ate, what I didn’t eat. But mostly I think it was a mixture of creativity and anxiety.

The creativity comes from many projects that are in a state of transition….dreamed but not yet in motion or realized. The anxiety comes from the same source……big thoughts that are swimming in my gray matter but not yet fully formed. Ever had this experience? The difficulty with not being able to turn that part of your brain off for the sake of sleep is that, in the nocturnal state, our vulnerability begins to add all the other worries we carry just below surface. The little pain becomes something grave. The door we see opening suddenly smacks shut. The people we are sure of in our waking hours can seem less our allies in the fog of sleeplessness.

So in this hyper-thought place, I decided to do the only thing I knew how to do. I began being present to my own breath. Holding myself as still as possible, I began riding the wave of the energy that gives me life. Soon I realized that my breathing had become a prayer: “Let sleep come. Let sleep come. Let sleep come.” The Spirit and I had come to an agreement and we were co-existing.

The Buddhists refer to my nighttime experience as ‘monkey mind’. But today’s horoscope gave me a different image, one I find helpful. Birds. The thoughts which were flying around could have been the harbingers of creativity that need a nest in which to rest. My real work is to relax enough, to breathe deeply enough, to allow them to perch on my shoulders so I can hear their song.

Are they doves? Crows? Chickadees? Cardinals? I’m not sure. But if today….or tonight…finds you unable to focus the gifts of your thoughts, I invite you to imagine these invisible thorns allowing them to become companions. Companions with wings set to travel with you through the ups and downs of this cold, winter day.

Who knows what message they might deliver, what Advent song they might sing?

Reading this morning’s newspaper, I was surprised to read the ‘celebrity tweet of the day’: “Looking at the pattern of our existence from birth to death, we can see the way in which we are fundamentally nurtured by other’s affections.” The author of this twitter message? The Dalai Lama!

I had to sit for some time trying to comprehend that the Dalai Lama has a Twitter account. This seemed impossible to me and yet, from what I have read, he is someone whose very existence has been dedicated to helping people live full, rich and spiritual lives grounded in the present. So why should I be surprised?

His message, of course, was not a surprising one. Looking for the patterns in our lives. Honoring the ways in which we are inextricably woven together as humans. Naming the importance of a caring, compassionate, loving way in which we move in the world. Reflecting on many of the inane things people write with their precious 140 characters on Twitter, this message is a profound one. And one that provides a challenge to be lived out each day.

It reminded me of a scene I experienced many summers ago. I was vacationing in Bayfield, Wisconsin and we were driving up the main highway toward the sweet little village of Cornocopia. That evening we were set to go to Big Top Chautauqua to hear a concert by Zen Buddhist priests. Driving at a leisurely pace to the town named for the overflowing horn of plenty, I saw some action on a playground to the right of the car. I turned to see 6 to 8 Buddhist priests, saffron robes flowing out from their small, trim bodies, swinging and playing on the equipment. Their smiles were radiant as they became physical manifestations of joy. These grown men were bathing in the affection of one another. The sight should have been odd but somehow wasn’t. It seemed the most natural thing in the world.

Reading the message from this wise man, I felt a sadness that moved into a prayer for all the people who do not know this kind of affection, this human interaction that breeds birth to death stories in us. I thought of the people I know who find it difficult to form relationships that last, that go deep, that makes crevices in their cells. I thought of the children who may never know the kind of affection that will help them form into their best selves, which will see them through life’s struggles. My heart goes out to all those who never know the kind of affection the Dalai Lama speaks of.

But my heart also goes out to all the people who know the affection of others and who do not take it for granted. Those who are painting an epic story of their lives through the kindness and love that has been poured into them. Those who have been loved unconditionally from the time they slipped into this world until they are carried lovingly Home.

Affection…….it is ours to share. Today and every day.

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.” ~Mary Oliver

Only a few days into this theme of ‘In Days to Come…..Great Joy’, and I had already begun to feel guilty. Over the first few days of Advent, I had been writing words, preparing for worship, trying to let the intention of the church’s theme get into the marrow of my bones. Just as I was settling into it, I would read the newspaper or watch to the television report. Or I would catch the eye of one of the many folks standing at an intersection on my daily drive.  In that instant, I would recognize the nagging at the pit of my stomach. How could I be ‘preaching’ joy, inviting people to stay awake to the joy that comes to them, when so much around us seems to speak to the opposite?

Then I read these words of Mary Oliver, the poet who can always say just the right words to wake me up to the Holy, wake me up to myself, wake me up to the world. It is true that devastating things happen every day, right under our noses and in far away places we will never see. Redemption……whatever that means……also is often in short supply. But love still comes to us, still enters the crevices of our days and the black holes of the universe, in ways that surprise and bring us what can only be called great joy. And on that I am willing to stake my life. Are you?

And so I have spent the last week, watching and anticipating great joy as it comes my way. I have watched our son’s enormous, black dog play in the snow, acting more like a young child who is experiencing this fluffy water for the first time, than the canine he is. I have laughed as he comes to the door with a huge, bulbous puff of white covering his nose. He looks like a distant cousin of Rudolph. I have watched as two of the babies I know best in our church community seem to be growing and discovering the world in virtual leaps and bounds. Their eyes and spirits are drinking in the unconditional love that washes over them. Yesterday, I was privileged to be present for a Christmas play staged by our youth, an original work, in which they struggled with what it means to understand and invent the Christmas story in their lives. I have eaten meals with my husband and son, talked with our son who is away at college, and laughed and felt the deep joy one has in knowing such a great love. On Sunday, I was blessed by sharing in prayer and singing with people I have known for decades and some I’ve known for only a few weeks. I sang happy birthday to a young woman I have known since she was five years old and I relished the gift of having been able to watch her life unfold. So many joys…..

For the most part, the news remains unchanged and there is much yet to be changed, saved, re-framed, salvaged, and, even redeemed. Perhaps all this will happen or perhaps it will not. But as one who has been called to sing tidings of great joy, I will continue to do my part. Since I agree that joy was not meant to be a crumb, I am doing my level best to bake a cake of it. Perhaps I will adorn that cake with candles and share that sweet light with the world.

Liberator God,
Why did your exiled people look backwards so much?
Did it make them feel safer, and give them courage,
these stories of the path you made through the sea
for their ancestors to escape captivity?……….
Take us out of our backward-facing seat.
Turn us round to see what you will do.
Show us today’s exiles and captives,
chains to be broken, pathways to open up.
New things, liberator God –
things that have never been written,
things we would never have thought of,
things for a New Age dawning!
~Brian Woodcock & Jan Sutch Pickard, Advent Readings from Iona

It is easy to forget that Advent is a now and not-yet time. That it is not just the really soft-sell that leads us to the splash of Christmas. It is a time of anticipation for how Emmanuel, God-with-Us, is being born in our day. It is also a time of honoring the birthing moments of God that have taken place over the life of Creation. As humans, one of our challenges, one of many, is to not take the moments of God’s in-breaking and freeze them in time, make them static.. build up little altars to them. This is what we often refer to as ‘putting God in a box’ so we can be the ones in control. In the church, this often gets articulated with words like: ‘ But we have always done it that way.’ or “This is how we(with a capial ‘W’) do it.’.

One of the great gifts of Advent is that we have never done it this way before! Each year we have the opportunity to be attentive to the many ways the Holy breaks into our lives each and every day. Just like that first Christmas when the Christ Child came in the unexpected way of entering the world as a little baby, we don’t really get to decide how God shows up.  Our real work is to keep our eyes and hearts open to the reality that it is happening…..again and again and again. Advent provides the intentional time of seeing  it, of choosing to be present.

This prayer by Iona community members Brian Woodcock and Jan Sutch Pickard reminds us of how often we are looking…..even facing….in the wrong direction. This happens sometimes by chance but most often, I believe, out of choice. To be awake to God’s movement in our lives carries a certain risk, a risk of being called to places and people who make us uncomfortable. Like the shepherds in the Christmas story, we’d like to just mind our own business watching over the sheep we know, in fields that are familiar. We don’t want to look up and see any stars that might cause us to have to go in a direction ‘we’ve never gone before’. We don’t really want to hear angels singing because we might have to sing along, or even become one of these messengers-of-God, and who knows where that could lead? We don’t want to chance having to pack up our family and all our belongings and head across the desert on camels, carrying a really precious gift headed to some far off, unknown destination.

And yet, if we allow ourselves we can remember at least one time when something caused us to take a step out of ‘ the way we’ve always done’ our lives, and something new and wonderful happened. Like falling in love….or finding a new friendship….or discovering a solution to a plaguing problem…..or fulfilling a life-long dream…….or landing a new job…..or opening a treasure that had been hidden in plain sight.  Something surprising entered the path of our day and everything changed.

This is the work…..the liberation….of Advent. Are you up for it?

“I have a friend who is so deeply connected with God that he can see joy where I expect only sadness. He travels much and meets countless people. When he shares, he tells of the hidden joys he has found: someone who brought him hope and peace….little groups of people who are faithful to each other in the midst of turmoil….the small wonders of God. And I am disappointed sometimes because I want to hear ‘newspaper news’, exciting and exhilarating stories. But he never responds to my need for sensationalism. He just says, ‘I saw something very small and very beautiful, something that gave me much joy.'”
~ Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son

In Days to Come…Great Joy. This is our church’s theme for Advent. Once again I am coming face to face with the concept that, once you begin to live into one of these themes, once you start thinking about a particular word or phrase, similar words begin to pop up everywhere. Which is what happened to me this morning when I opened a newsletter I receive monthly. This quote by the beloved priest Henri Nouwen was tucked in at the bottom of one of the pages. I shook my head and thought: ‘Here we go. Joy will be cropping up everywhere.” There certainly could be worse things, right?

Joy. What does this word mean to you? Is joy the same thing as happiness? How does one achieve joy? Or is there even really anything we can do to claim this rich three-lettered prize? I had this conversation with two friends yesterday. As we walked further and further into joy-talk, we probably had more questions than answers. We agreed that being ‘in pursuit’ of joy rarely works. It usually leads mostly to disappointment, a loss of something that never existed based on expectations that were created out of a deep longing. I think we agreed that joy comes to us….most often in the smallest events and through something over which we have very little control. But when joy makes its entrance, we know it.

On Sunday, I offered people small booklets that simply had the words ‘Great Joy’ on the cover. I invited people to make a note about the experiences in their day that had brought them joy, perhaps even great joy. I suggested that this could become a practice during Advent. To be present to the joy that comes our way every day….not just on the mountain top days like Christmas or our birthday. But every day. Writing down these moments of joy,I believe, could provide us with the opportunity to see where joy brushes past us bringing a blessing to the ordinary movements of our life. The journal of these blessings could also provide an opportunity to honor those moments and offer our gratitude to a Universe that longs to have delight in us.

Where have you experienced joy already in this day? This day which is a gift, never to be repeated? Perhaps if we are awake and aware of the joy that is already present in our own lives we might have the courage…..and it does take courage……to reach out and offer a joy-filled act to another. I am imagining a pyramid scheme that is actually a good thing, that actually brings benefit to all involved. Joy building on joy.

Sounds to me like a pretty good way to walk the days of Advent.

“Sometimes we have difficulty believing we will see anything new. After all, we know the story. We’ve heard it year after year. What could we possibly see or hear that we have not seen or heard before?” ~Mary Lou Redding, While We Wait: Living the Questions of Advent

Advent…..the beginning. Yesterday was the beginning of the new church year, the first Sunday in Advent. Christian churches everywhere began their walk into a new year. During this short season that leads us toward the celebration of Christmas, we use words like ‘anticipation’, ‘expectation’, ‘waiting’, ‘watching’ to describe the spirit of these days. We watch and wait for the birth of the Christ in our midst. We anticipate a time when God’s presence among us will be visible, palpable, a time when the human family will live in the full light of the Holy. Like the gospel writers who told committed this story to print, we each have our own ways of how we believe this manifestation will come to be.

As I look out my office window right now, the skies are gray and snow and rain are spitting against the glass. The large oak tree which keeps me company daily, its strong presence a constant source of inspiration, is dripping in the starkness of the day. Advent comes to those of us in this part of the country during the darkest, often most somber part of the year. And yet this season holds within it the warmth and light of all that can be born from just such bleakness. Candles will be lit. Food will be shared. Gifts will be given. Hopes will be shared. Stories will light up the eyes of children, the heart of memory of those who are older. Sacred texts will tell of a surprising God who shows up in the most unexpected places.

Our work during this time is to follow the command of Matthew: “Keep awake, for you do not know on what day your God is coming.” Our work becomes the practice of being present for all the ways in which the Holy comes to us, not only in December days,but each day. Even in the madness that can become what we call Christmas, our work is to be always watchful for the goodness, the love, the kindness, the joy, that creeps into the most mundane and marvelous experiences that come our way. How will we see God….even in places we don’t want to believe possible? Like the mall. Or the traffic. Or Christmas music that is played over and over again. Or the newscast that tells of war in far off lands. Or the young man who holds the sign at the corner stoplight. Or the politician whose ideas drive us to distraction.

For in truth, God’s presence moves through all this and more. As people who watch and wait for the coming of Christ, how can we open our hearts to welcome the Child that lives in each of those we meet, in all the places where Breath moves? How can we make time and space for welcoming the Christ child that waits to be born us us?

Advent…..beginning…..what is beginning in you on this bleak, dark day?

We all drink from one water
We all breathe from one air
We rise from one ocean
And we live under one sky

Remember
We are one

The newborn baby cries the same
The laughter of children is universal
Everyone’s blood is red
And our hearts beat the same song

Remember
We are one

We are all brothers and sisters
Only one family, only one earth
Together we live
And together we die

Remember
We are one

Peace be on you
Brothers and Sisters
Peace be on you.

~Anwar Fazel

Yesterday I had the immense privilege to participate in an Interfaith Thanksgiving Service hosted at our church. This service is held every year on Thanksgiving morning and culminates a five week interfaith dialogue that is conducted by the Minneapolis downtown churches. The worship service rotates between the houses of worship and, very ten years or so, it is our turn. The service is led by several clergy from Protestant Christian communities, a priest from the Basilica of St. Mary, a rabbi from Temple Israel, a minister from the Unitarian Society and one of the imams from a Muslim house of worship. These clergy know one another as colleagues and friends and that respect and love they have for one another is visible.

Also in worship were people representing each of these communities. As we lifted our voices in song and shared prayers, I wondered whether a stranger to what was actually happening would understand the power of what they were observing. As we heard the sacred texts of each tradition read in Hebrew and sung in Arabic and translated and read in English, I thought of all the beauty in the languages, how they had held people together for centuries. As we heard the President’s Thanksgiving Day proclamation read and then joined our voices in singing together ‘America the Beautiful’, I looked around the gathered crowd to see tears that matched those on my own cheeks. It was truly a powerful moment of a shared sense of unity.

Later in the day I reflected on the courage and commitment it takes to build relationships as these people have done, as our congregations have tried to do. For the years these interfaith conversations have happened, much has happened in our world that would seek to divide our faith traditions. Institutional dogma has tried. Warring factions have tried. Political parties have tried. Those who profess to speak for their interpretation of any one of the traditions have tried.

But these downtown congregations keep coming back to the table. To drink coffee and eat cookies together. To ask one another the big questions, not only of our faith, but of our very lives. To try to understand what it means to practice a 21st century faith that found its birth thousands of years ago. To find a thread within our common humanity that binds us together for our day, for our time. To build a sense of understanding and respect for the traditions of the other.

Such courage, such faith, such compassion and commitment filled me with pride on this day set aside for gratitude. Pride and a deep, deep hope.

This week has come roaring down on me like a steam engine. I am not sure what happened that caused so many projects, so many systems to align to produce an overload. But it did and here I am in the midst of it all. For the most part, ‘it is all good’, as my son likes to say. Nothing is broken, no one is ill. All that needs to be accomplished will be done. But for now, I am a little on the frenzied side. I do know, however, that in the end I will recognize the blessings that have come my way even while, at the moment, they are invisible to me.

And aren’t blessings what this week is about? As we approach this Thursday when we will gather to celebrate Thanksgiving, it is a time to count our blessings. Whatever the original meaning of this holiday…..historical, national, political, religious…..it is a day when we can take a break from the normal rhythm of our life, take stock of all the goodness that has come our way, and offer thanks. It is my prayer that, no matter our life situation at this point of this year, everyone can find at least one thing they call a blessing. What is your blessing?

I am thinking of all the people who will have been involved in bringing the Thanksgiving dinner to any table. Unseen hands, full lives, people paid well and those who have worked for wages that neither fit the work or the effort, have all contributed to any meal that will be shared. From tables laid with china and crystal and those with disposables dinnerware served from long lines of strangers, lives we do not know have sacrificed for our feast. Those bent over potato fields.Those whose muscles ache from lifting pumpkins onto trucks. Farmers who raised turkeys also took their lives for our sake. In factories, people ran machines that churned butter and bottled cream. Truck drivers probably missed a child’s baseball game or concert so food would arrive at grocery stores in time for our holiday celebration. Women who checked out and bagged the groceries we purchased went home to soak their swollen feet after standing for hours on a concrete floor.

And then there are the hands, hands we know and love, who make the pies, mash the potatoes, create the stuffing just the way a grandmother did so many years ago, so we might not only have our stomachs fed but also our rich, deep memories.

As we approach this Thursday, let us never forget that the meal we will eat is a feast denied to the majority of the world. It is a meal that is filled with hard work, sacrifice, and great love. To sit down to such a feast is a blessing. A blessing which is accompanied by all the other blessings……at least one…..of which we are privileged to offer our gratitude.

I offer this prayer written by Brian Woodcock. If you are not a ‘natural’ pray-er, you might want to make it your own on Thursday: ” A blessing on this food and all who have prepared it. A blessing on this house and all who eat within it. A blessing on the work of buying and selling, of carrying and storing, of farming and harvesting. A blessing on the land and all who live upon it. A blessing on the rain and sun, the care of the Creator; a blessing on this food. Amen”

“There is plenty of room for you in God’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? ” ~John 14:2″ The Message, Eugene Peterson

This morning I was having a conversation with one of my colleagues who creates magic every week as a cook in our church kitchen. She was describing to me her joy at reaching a goal this past year. She had set the goal of planning menus so well that there was very little, if any, food that would go to waste. In the course of the conversation, she said something like, “I do not want to waste any food. I want to be able to re-home any food that is left over.”

Re-home? Have you heard this world before? I hadn’t. But the sound of it captured my imagination, softened my heart. I feel as if we hear the word ‘homeless’ so often these days and the plight of homelessness is ever present just outside the doors of our church. But ‘re-home’ is something new and different and a word that will make its way into my lexicon.

I think of the stories in the Hebrew scriptures in which God’s people were re-homed. Moses and his exodus brood traveled through the wilderness looking this way and that, complaining, gaining wisdom, waiting to be re-homed. Other prophets challenged and urged the people of Israel to wake up to the Holy’s movement in their lives and in their lands, in a sense, saying: “Come on people! Make a new home!”

In the Christian scriptures, Mary and Joseph and the Child Jesus, traveled from one place to another trying find a new home, a different home, where they could grow into the lives they were called to live. Saul had an experience of God on the road to Damascus and was re-homed into a life of following Jesus. He even got a new name out of the deal….re-homed and renamed…..all in one fell swoop.

So much in our world is longing to be re-homed. Looking past the obvious and easy things like old coats and boots, sofas and cookware, cars and bicycles that can find a new home through giveaways and thrift stores, there are much deeper and hope-filled longings humans have for their lives. Children who struggle with poverty and living on the fault lines along with the adults in their lives, long to be re-homed in a place of confidence and compassion, safety and peace, a warm, predictable meal.  Wounded souls and those with mental illness long to be re-homed in a safe, healthy world, in a mind and body that does not fail them. Those most lonely among us hope to be re-homed in a place where they can reach out and be touched by the unconditional love they believe God wants for them.

What needs to be re-homed in your life? What part of you feels lost, without a nest in which to settle? What home do you long for? What does it look like, sound like, feel like, smell like?

My prayer is that however home needs to appear for you, in whatever form, on whatever shore, that you find yourself walking through the door of the place that feels safe and soft and brings wholeness and hope to your days. May it be for you, for me, and for all.

Have a blessed weekend……………….