Awakening: 2nd Week of Advent
There are things in our lives that awaken us. Time stops. The world stands still as if every fiber of our neurotransmitters are wide open and for a moment the whole world is in a single moment.
In my life, those are moments around which I measure time: September 11, 2001 — death, dying and grieving — the October, 2008 automotive crash — 2012 selling our family home in Omaha — being called into something unknown with both joy and sorrow — now…learning news that will change the future for myself and others. And, standing in the depth of knowing what it means to be called — which doesn’t gloss over the hard parts, but gives meaning. Suffering becomes redemptive when it finds meaning — when it connects me to all those who love, grieve and give joy simultaneously. Two contrary emotions can exist at the same time. Equally, I have learned from others as they have journeyed through divorce, healing from violence, the loss of a child, birth, and receiving the diagnosis that leaves chronic illness as a life-teacher.
I often find myself anesthetized due to long-term information overwhelm. It takes more to stop me and cause me to suddenly “wake up” and I quake in the reality that I seem to have gotten numb to the drone of endless cable news reports. I read the story of John the Baptist and the birth of Jesus through my 2017 lens of drifting into the unfinished list of essential items for the perfect holiday. Always wanting my life to feel like the Hallmark Channel looks, I seem to become complacent about the real Christmas story –the irreversible immediacy of ‘everything-in-your-life-just-changed-and-there-is-no-going-back.’ Such is the week we enter in this Second Week of Advent.
It is hard to imagine what it meant for the Prophet John to see what others could not imagine. He saw something — knew something– about his cousin, Jesus, that couldn’t be ignored. There was an inner conviction that needed voice — a sure knowledge that required truth and a willingness to let go of his own expectations of life — because he was awakened to something that demanded attention. It’s hard for us in our world of Amazon and Apple to imagine having such singular knowing and then to act upon it. Self-gift for the sake of mission. Awakened to what was required without knowing the outcome.
Such is the call of Advent this year, for me — to rest in the grace of what is unknown and to entrust the gifts of heart that God has so generously shared with me — God who can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine — if only we believe.
But, there is no arrival at the manger — for the birth of God in our midst — if we do not take the first step on the journey and with hearts full of knowing what it means to love and still say “yes” which includes letting go.
This, my friends…is what it means to have FAITH, NOT FEAR.
One step at a time.
