The Womb of God

Human
Divine
Ripe
Birthing eternity

I Don't Want to Wait in Vain

Advent
A ritual reenactment
waiting, hoping, longing
for a change
cosmic
cellular
dynamic
static
change
changing
changeling
child.
Christmas,
Twelve Days,
Epiphany.
Family and friends,
celebration and song,
gifts and (of) grace,
light and love,
promise of (and) peace.
A girl-child and her boy-child,
an ambivalent surrogate father,
whispers and conspiracies,
journeys and visitations.
Waiting for that day.
But I don't want to wait in vain.
What will the next days bring?
I want the world to be different.
I want to be different.
It's been a long time coming,
but I know my change is going to come.
Come soon Lord Jesus.

Advent's Advent

It's coming! It's here! So soon! Already!
I don't think I'm ready for Advent. But I don't get a vote. Ironically, I envy my Jewish kin for the calendrical nature of their observances. Of course we have a liturgical calendar in Christianity. But it is far from universal. Yet even in our great diversity there seems to be more unity around Advent (Good Friday and Easter) than any other time. And now it's here and I'm not ready.  I don't even have the Christmas music on my iPod yet!
Many of the sacred stories are about being ready and the consequences for being unprepared - belong left out, left behind, missing the celebration. Yet that is not my concern. I want to leisurely roll out my decorations to accompany my prayers week by week and luxuriate in the season. And I will. Starting today. Tonight. It has come so quickly.
Should this Advent season coincide with the Advent of the Messianic Age, I like to think I'd be better prepared than my home suggests.
The two to-do lists seem to be completely unrelated:
Decorate my home.
Repair the world.
Poinsettias and candles, the creche and nativity-themed art.
Cultivate peace, advocate for justice, mend broken relationships, provide for the poor and disenfranchised.
I'm not ready for the Messiah's return either.
Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Light Edging Darkness (Advent IV)

The circle is full of light.
There is seemingly no  room for even one more candle.
(Yet soon one more candle will indeed find its way to the heart of the circle-wreath.)
Now the complete circle of light shines light in all directions.
And at the far-flung edge of that light, the darkness waits, circling the light like a halo.
The light of the Bethlehem star extends far, but only so far.
The lights of Epiphany will come to blaze, then dim.
At the turning of the world one sunrise will commemorate an epoch-changing victory of light over darkness.
Yet there is still darkness in the world.
At the edge of the light, encircling the light, the darkness waits it own Advent. Soon, the darkness will return, gaining strength.
I long for the Advent that will banish all darkness, healing the world and all her broken souls.

Velvet Darkness (Advent III)

In the velvet darkness of the blackest night, burning bright, there's a guiding star, no matter what or who you are. There's a light (over at the Frankenstein place). There's a light (burning the fireplace). There's a light, light, in the darkness of everybody's life.

~ "Over at the Frankenstein Place," The Rocky Horror Picture Show motion picture soundtrack

We are at the darkest point of the year. Before we got into the habit of chronicling each day, month and year in almanacs, I can imagine that ancient peoples were not always certain when the tide of darkness began to turn. 

Expressions like "it's always darkest before the dawn" only make sense in retrospect. But in the velvet darkness, I can't tell whether more dark is coming or the light is on the way. There is a period of sojourn in the dark where our eyes cannot see whether the dark is deepening or the light is brightening. Until - the moment it becomes noticeably brighter.

The third candle of Advent adds just a bit more light to the first two candles. But it is enough to turn the tide. The light in the circle (of the wreath) is now an order of magnitude brighter than it was just moments before. The light in the world is growing too. The passing of the solstice  is a turn into the universal light of the sun. 

The fire of heaven bathes the earth in warmth and light. Spring will come and bring with it new life from the heart of the dark, cold earth and, flowering life planted in and by entwined bodies making and sharing their own heat and light in the winter's cold.

An Explosion of Light (Advent II)

This week the light doubles itself

and halves the darkness.

Each week following this one 

the single new light will add 

less and less light to the gathered light.

But this week's light is powerful, dazzling, dizzying.

And still it coexists with the dark.

The dark recedes but never disappears.

The darkness surrounds and pervades the edges of the light.

Soon there will be so much light

that the darkness will cower in corners.

But it will dot die, or flee or fade.

It will remain, waiting for its turn.

And its turn will come.

The darkness has its own season ~

a dark advent

and that is coming too.

But this week the light doubles itself

and halves the darkness.

Miscarried Hope, an Advent (I) Reflection

To what will this season give birth?
For what (whom) am I waiting?
For what do I long?

For hopes and dreams miscarried by disappointment.
The end of some lives, some hopes for life
washed out in a bloody painful flux.

Where is the promise of new life to take root and blossom,
in scarred wombs convulsing with the pains of miscarriage
parodying the pains that give birth to life?

And what of the empty wombs of barren women?
For what do they long and how will this holy season give birth to and for them?

Can the youth and fertility of one otherwise insignificant girl child restore us all?
Redeem us all?
Give life to us all?
Save us all?

I wait in the eclipsing darkness
shadowed by the light of a single candle
the deepest night with all its terrors is behind me
I feel its breath on my neck.

Before me is that single candle
and in its shadow
another
waiting.

What will the next explosion of light reveal?

Snake in the Grass

You sonofa....SNAKE!
Who told you to try to get your life together? You'd better act like you know! Who do you think you are? I don't want to hear about your daddy. Keep doing what you're doing and this little pain you feel today is nothing; you will know pain like you have never imagined.

Sound familiar? The photo may have misled you. This is not my take of Tiger Woods public/private conduct, but the gospel of the day, of this third week in Advent:

Luke 3:7 John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

This is an Advent Gospel? This IS an Advent Gospel. Mr. Woods is not the only one among us who has behaved as though he were hatched from an egg laid by a cold-blooded reptile.
It's not to late for him. It's never too late to repent. God hears, forgives, heals and restores. Even when people won't forget and can't forgive. Even when marriages fail. God forgives what we cannot. Even while we are living with the shameful and painful consequences of our actions, God is with us. Immanu El.

We wait. Watching and praying. For God who has come in Virgin-born human flesh, to come again.

Bah Humbug!

I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas. I love the festivals of Incarnation: Annunciation (and its overlap with Good Friday, then the long silent gestational unmarked season until) Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. I hate the commercializiation of Christmas.
What, I wonder, would happen if everyone who celebrates Christmas bought their gifts after Christmas to give on Epiphany, emulating the traveling sages?
I love blue and purple and white and gold. I don't like red and green (together; OK I like red).
I love Christmas carols and hate Christ-less holiday seasonal music/muzak.
I hate seeing Christmas decorations the day after Halloween - I love the Feast of All Saints and miss the Feast of All Souls.
And I dislike the syncretization of Christmas with Yuletide.

I love Christ-Mass and Advent wreaths and candles and angels and children's choirs and congregational singing. I love the themes of light and hope and peace and joy and the penitential themes: repentance and restoration and fear and death.

Come, holy child, come.
Transform our world, our hearts, our churches into Your Church.
Amen.