Words of Advent: Waiting

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Waiting, a word heavily weighted in time.  

Were a lifetime of waiting quantified, rolled out on a sheet of butcher paper, the length, I'm sure, might stretch dozens of fields beyond my vision, an art project begun, yet never finished.  Viewed from this angle, waiting strains the eyes and crushes the spirit.  

But an endless expanse of waiting eventually ends at some point, and in the journey along the way, bits of treasure are gathered up and the paper is filled with sketches, words, paint strokes, glitter, remnants of flower and earth attached with glue. And then and only then, waiting ceases to be an endless roll of blank paper, but a work in progress.  Poetry and song and love story in the making.  

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When we see that the yawning stretch of time is actually born of moment upon moment upon moment.  Waiting is a chain of time and story linked together by moments.

And when the fullness of time comes, the wait is satisfied.    

"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law..."

We wait, this Advent, for a gift already birthed; we wait for the continuous birth of this gift in our lives and hearts and world; and we wait, with eyes of faith, for consummation. 

But however long until the fullness of time, we wait, with hope, in moments.

Day four of a daily meditation, a practice of free writing on words of Advent this season...

Words of Advent: Light

Day three of a daily meditation, a practice of free writing on words of Advent this season...

Today's word is light.  

I loved this song when it came out, over ten years ago, and to this day the words speak fresh to me,

     Light of the world, You stepped down into darkness

     Opened my eyes, let me see

     Beauty that made this heart adore You

     Hope of a life spent with You.

Today, I started to sing it, thinking about light, and what illuminated is this word - "down."  Christ is the Light that stepped down, not so much in the sense of location, but in terms of surroundings, stature, position, glory.  He traded in his realms of brilliant splendor for the darkness of flesh and blood and earth.  His light stepped down, entered into our darkness and, unlike any before or after, was not overcome by it. 

Where the Light comes, eyes open and beauty is uncovered.

When the eyes see beauty, there is nothing more natural than adoration. 

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It is no profound observation that, here on earth, the most brilliant light often shines from the places of greatest darkness. 

The grieving Amish families reaching out in radical forgiveness and love to embrace the family of  the one who murdered their children.

Muslim and Christian women joining forces for peace in a nation torn apart by war and genocide.

Poetry from prison cells.

The younger woman at the nursing home, in a wheelchair with numerous fractures from a motorcycle accident, consoling a tearful neighbor and offering to help in her friend's darkness.

A worship service in the midst of earthquake rubble in Haiti.

The presence of peace in a dark hospital room, sitting beside a loved one who is dying.

A police officer kneeling beside a barefoot homeless man in the freezing cold, placing wool socks and boots on his feet.

Is it any wonder that the ones most intimately acquainted with the Light of Christ are the ones who have known this deep darkness?

More than two thousand years later, after this Light came down, he comes again, and again, and again - and the darkness still does not overcome, not even once. This Light shines into the corners and crevices of darkness in my life - in yours - the places of ache and pain, and even there, is not overcome but overtakes the darkness with light.  As the psalmist cries out in awe, "Even the darkness will not be dark to you....for darkness is as light to you."

In this Light, all things can be made beautiful.

In this Light, I fall on my face and adore.

Words of Advent: Watch

^{Watch.  Jesus' own words on watching seem, at first glance, to be a bit cryptic.}  

³³ Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. ³⁴ It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. ³⁵ Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning— ³⁶ lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. ³⁷ And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!” (Mark 13:33-37)

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The first place I turn to in my search for meaning is the dictionary, to pinpoint a few definitions for this word, "watch."  And I find a few more than a few...

intransitive verb

1  a : to keep vigil as a devotional exercise

    b : to be awake during the night

2  a : to be attentive or vigilant

    b : to keep guard

3  a : to keep someone or something under close observation

    b : to observe as a spectator 

4     : to be expectant : wait 

 

transitive verb

1      : to keep under guard

2   a : to observe closely in order to check on action or change

     b : to look at : observe 

     c : to look on at

3   a : to take care of : tend

     b : to be careful of 

4      : to be on the alert for : bide

Now, that's a lot of definitions for one word.  But when I look at Jesus' words in light of these definitions - and in light of the coming of Christ - it's as if a lamp were turned on in the darkness.

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Keep vigil, out of devotion to Me.  Be awake, spiritually attentive.  Keep guard, that you don't slip into complacency.  Observe Me, learn from what I do and how I am.  Be expectant, waiting for me.  Look at Me, see Me, let your eyes be fixed on Me, always.  Tend your faith, take care of your heart, that it would not grow cold.  Be on alert, passionate for My arrival in your everyday, for My presence on this earth, and for My return as King. 

As I open my heart and life this season to interruption, I open eyes to watch for - and with - this One, this Savior that I love.  I hear His passionate plea tugging at my spirit, shaking me awake, inviting me to see the more that I too often pass by in my lack of watchfulness.  

Will I be like the one in love, watching at the window for her beloved to come home?  The little girl looking expectantly for her Papa's car to pull into the driveway?  

Or will I be sleeping through it all?


 

Words of Advent: Interruption

ad·vent :

1) A coming into place, view or being; arrival: the advent of the holiday season

2) The coming of Christ into the world

3) The period beginning four Sundays before Christmas, observed in commemoration of the coming of Christ into the world

4) Second Coming

 

As we've tipped over into December, I know it could all be over sooner than the dust around me settles, and the last thing I want is to miss it.  To miss these weeks filled with days and hours and minutes of moments for my eyes to see what - or Who - it is I truly hunger for.  I need to sit myself down in this season of Advent and focus my eyes and heart beyond the blur.   And to do this, I need more than good intentions.  I need good practices.

For me, so often, the practice of writing leads my eyes where they need to go. So, this is what I will do, and I invite any to join with me if you find you're also in need of this intentionality.  I will write, just a little bit each day, on a different word related to this theme of advent.  I call it, simply, Words of Advent.  

And this is where I begin, four days in (better late than never, right?).  The word is interruption.

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I'll be honest, I often bristle or groan at the thought of interruption.  Just let me finish, steady the course, execute my plans, whatever.  I'm a so-called free spirited, wherever-the-wind-blows sort of gal, with one rather large caveat: as long as the wind doesn't blow me somewhere far beyond my comfort zone.  Oh, I like interruption, when it's saving me, or diverting my attention, from something less pleasant.  

But what about when the interruption costs me something, at least in my perception - even something I hold dear?  Like time or dreams, peace or health, happiness or accomplishment, rights or being right?  What if the interruption asks more of me than I feel I can give?

I can tell you this, it's a lot harder to remain thankful for these interruptions.  It's sometimes sludging-through-muck harder to see through to the pearl contained there.  These interruptions call forth my weaknesses, my fledgling faith, my flimsy veneer of selflessness.  

And doesn't this have everything to do with Advent?  The coming of the Christ then - and now - interrupts my life with something infinitely better than what I have going on or any treasure I hold tightly to my chest.  The question is, can I let go of what is against my chest this season - the things I cherish and the things that press my heart heavy - to receive the better gift?  

I'm unable to receive until I let go.  I won't let go if I refuse interruption.  So letting go begins with releasing fear and inviting Christ to interrupt my heart this season.

Yes, this is where I begin the journey.  From letting go to openness to longing for interruption, Christ, come, meet me here, beyond the doorway.
   

A birthday card for Papa

He never made a big deal of his birthday.  If anything, it was an excuse to throw an informal party; a reason to gather friends around the table for a meal of enchiladas or chimichangas; an occasion to savor raspberry pie smothered in ice cream, to play card games, to sit and tell stories and laugh over tea and popcorn. 

 

All he ever wanted for a gift was a handwritten card.  

And now, tomorrow marks five birthdays absent of him.  But, oh.  Not of his presence. 

I see, with time, that he is all around me.  He is inextricably woven with me, with the beginnings of my story.  My history is painted with many colorful strokes of his brush.  I carry him in my heart as I walk the present and enter the future without him by my side.  I would not exist without him.

My Papa.

I see his fingerprints across my unfinished canvas as I walk the halls of the nursing home I visit weekly, as I sit in rooms and ask questions and listen to stories and laugh his laugh and feel his pleasure of loving people coursing through my veins.  When I open my eyes and peek out beyond my own skin and touch soft translucent arms and kiss the tops of white crowned heads, I feel him.  I am here, in these halls and these rooms, because he opened the door years ago and led me in.  He showed me not to be afraid of failing bodies, to see past to the nuggets of gold.  

I remember well the small girl, trailing behind her Papa through the hallways of other nursing homes.  Sitting in dimly lit hospital-style rooms with him, engrossed in conversation as food fell from an old friend’s mouth while he chewed and talked.  Pretending to see, with him, the flowers and birds and mountains outside a window that looked across to another room, as this old man talked of sights that weren’t there, except in his mind.  Greeting the older woman who sat at a bench near the front door, always, her bags packed and waiting for her ride.  Singing Christmas carols in a room filled with beautiful white heads, wheelchairs and walkers, sharing cocoa and frosted sugar cookies and the joy of the season. 

This, sweet Papa of mine, is a piece of your legacy.  

And this is my card to you, lifted to heaven. 
I celebrate you.  

Happy birthday, with all my love.

 

Five-Minute Friday: Wonder

[I seem to have thrown off the whole "five-minute" stipulation of this writing exercise, so I'll try to get back to that in the New Year...]

"Only the most mature of us are able to be childlike.

And to be able to be childlike involves memory;

we must never forget any part of ourselves."

~Madeleine L' Engle

I remember, but in my mind more than my heart, what it felt like to wait and wait for Christmas.  The growing, gnawing, jittery anticipation.  It was, truly, my favorite time of year - and it couldn't come fast enough.  Oh, how this has changed. 

I remember, the nine-year old me.  Making a list - a long list, mind you - of all my stuffed animals.  A little over a hundred, I recall.  And I knew them all by name and I wrote each name on a scrap of paper, and over one hundred folded pieces filled a tin canister, from which I drew a name and devised a calendar for the month of December: which of my furry friends would sleep with me, each night, leading up to the ultimate slumber party.  None could be left out.  So, come Christmas Eve, I'd sleep beneath a hundred stuffed animals.  Strange as this may sound to adult ears, this was part of my journey of anticipation in the month of December.  It feels like one hundred years ago, but I remember.

And I miss this child that has forgotten hopeful anticipation.  Can I reach back into my memory and access childlike wonder at Christmas, pull it forward several decades later, live it out in a thirty-one year old version of me?  No, I don't need to sleep beneath a pile of animals (I wouldn't be opposed to it, but my husband may not be thrilled).  But instead this childlike heart cries out from beneath a pile of stuff that has grown through the years; not the joys and comforts of faux furry friends, but of sorrows and disappointments and heartache and loss.  And I want to throw it all off this year and say Enough, to climb out from beneath the pile and rediscover wonder and breathe again the air of joy and life that holds this season in a swaddling cloth of glory.

The Wonder of waiting for mystery.  

Waiting with hope.

Waiting with hunger.

The anticipation, each day, of the One I wait for.  The eager searching, eyes wide open, always hopeful.  The longing for this, the greatest Gift I'm given every day, but this time of year - this season - is wrapped in remembering and mystery.

And then, the sigh: this is the One we have waited for. 

This is Advent, and I am determined to find Him here, as a woman who carries her childlike self into this season and waits for the Christ to come and be born, anew, in her heart.

*Joining the fabulous Five-minute Friday gang once more, at Lisa Jo's blog, for a free-writing post on the prompt of "Wonder."

Just Write: White moon rising

If you've ever found yourself on the brink or in the depths of a dark season, it can seem like a long, gradual descent into a cave.  You may think you packed enough for the journey, but further in, realize you didn't bring enough layers or sturdy enough boots, batteries or kerosene, snacks or sustenance, for the conditions of cave dwelling.  You stumble along, eyes growing dim, until you reach a cave wall and your legs are too weak to turn around, so you sit for awhile in damp stillness.  If you've ever been here, where you call out and tire of your own voice reverberating back from piles of rock; where your eyes fail to see the light in your hands and your whole body aches from the journey; then you know.  You know how far below ground, how far from the light of the sun, it can seem in the heart of a cave.

How the cave can render you speechless.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Her voice calls to me, "Auntie Ber-Ber, will you tuck me in?"  I follow her to her room, where she snuggles into her pink princess bed, introducing me to her friends - Lovey and Bruno and Brownie - offering kisses and hugs through plush arms and sewn mouths.  I read her stories, but really, it's I who sits captivated as stories spill from four-year old lips.  

"You see that dog over there?" she points to the stuffed Schnauzer in a pile of animals.  "That's from the woman who wore the white hair today, the one at our house for Thanksgiving."  Her great-grandma, now in her ninth decade of life, my Papa's mama who has buried two of her boys, a husband and a granddaughter.  I smile deep in delight at this description, as only a child can give, and follow where her thoughts take her.

"I'll tell you one last story," she says, when I tell her reluctantly that I need to go so she can sleep,  "But, it's a real one."  She briefly closes long lashes over her eyes and brushes wisps of brown silk from her face.

"Once upon a time... there was Gramy and you and Rocardo, but," she whispers, "He wasn't Uncle Rocardo yet.  And the day came when you moved out of Gramy's house and went to your wedding and Gramy went back home to live by herself, and she was all alone, except for memories of me, when I come to visit her in the summer and she's happy.  And you and Uncle Rocardo and Gramy all moved into our house, and we were all sisters, and we lived happily ever after..."

I watch her face, mesmerized by purity and innocence and imagination, and my own isn't wide enough to contain this smile, and my heart isn't deep enough to hold this moment. 

Since when did real stories cease to begin with "Once upon a time" and end with "happily ever after?"  I can't even remember, but how hard it is to remain like a child.  She kisses my lips and I smell her hair, and we pray holding hands and stuffed animal paws, and I wish that she could stay here, in a world without caves.

"Jesus, please heal Auntie Ber-Ber's leg," her prayers interrupt my thoughts.  And I feel him kneeling on the floor beside me, wrapping me up in the faith of a child.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I'm on the bus, skimming over the top of the lake on a trail of concrete, and I crank my neck to see Mt. Rainier behind me, like a vision of snow jutting from the water in a haze of pink sky. 

I step off the bus and take the long way home.  Trekking uphill in a trail of soggy leaves, inhaling cold breaths, above lake and highway, away from the city.  My dimmed eyes catch the glory of Christmas lights looped outside on bushes and roofs, of trees no longer ablaze yet still adorned with the fading gold of late autumn, of the bone white moon in its pre-evening ascent.  

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My leg grows stronger on these walks and my heart beats warm, alive, beneath layers of skin and bone and jacket, with each step shedding ounces of heaviness.   

I am on the brink, a white moon rising from the depths.  And I whisper thanks to God that, even come the dark of night, there is still illumination.  My voice is freed, and still I stand and peer out in speechless wonder.

*Linking up with the oh-so-talented Heather King and the delightful crew of Just Write-ers