I've had time to begin to more fully synthesize the unknowable concept of death. I find myself leaning toward meditations on seeking light, on finding life in the stark landscape of early Winter. Advent has always been a very sacred time of year for me. This year, our priest has asked those of us in our small house congregation to consider three reflection questions for each Sunday's lectionary readings. We've done this in the past, but this year he wants us to prepare responses to the three questions, and be prepared to discuss them the next Sunday.
There is no grief for me in this process, and if there is loss, it is of the sadness and darkness that I have felt in previous years as the light wanes and the long, cold nights of December descend. I'd like to share the three questions for Advent One here, as well as my responses.
Advent One, 2017
1. For
what are you on the watch this Advent?
2. How
are you being enriched in every way this Advent?
3. How
might you need to be roused in order to cling more tightly to God?
Advent is perhaps
my favorite season of the church year.
So many personal events have happened during its long, dark nights and
short, cold days…My first marriage (1975), my initial move to New York (1978),
and my mother’s death (2014) all occurred on December 7th, Pearl
Harbor Day. I was born on December 22nd,
the coldest and shortest day of the year in 1955. I have
always loved being born on the Solstice.
Sharp, bright pinpoints of light in the thick December night skies are a
source of wonder and comfort for me. In
spite of the cold and the dark of Advent, I find in it a great deal of comfort,
and more than a little joy. I am a
person of the shadows, and have always been on the edge, on the outside looking
in. I can place myself in the context of
the Arab refugee family who could only find a humble stable, or cave, in which
to give birth. When pregnant with my
first child, my first husband and I lived in a modest apartment in a very poor
section of Cincinnati. To get to my
charity hospital pre-natal care appointments, I rode two city busses across
town and spent several hours sitting on a folding chair in the basement
corridor of Children’s Hospital. I was a
child myself, preparing to give birth. I
certainly can relate to Mary sitting on a donkey, riding over the harsh desert
roads and finding someplace, any place safe to have her baby. In fact, it was during Advent that I began
lighting the Advent candles in 1975, while awaiting the birth of my own child. It’s now been 42 years that the Advent
candles have been lit in my household, although the children grew up and left,
and husband number one departed, to be followed by husband number two. Both were watchmen with me, waiting for a
sign, waiting for the Word from above, guidance for the journey ahead…
I am still on the
watch for a sign from God, a word, a call…to what service? That I do not yet know. But I know that a fire burns within me to do
more, to step out in faith and offer my life up in service. Where am I going? I am watching for a sign. Perhaps I’ll be led by a star, shining in the
East…
I am being enriched
this Advent by interacting with the aging, the aged…acquaintances, friends and relatives who are struggling with some form of cognitive
impairment as their brains age and their arteries harden. This is terrifying, yet enriching as I watch
them and those who are their caregivers find new ways of relating. Time becomes more elastic for the aged, who
begin to pass more easily from past to present to future. My work with the Hospice residents is also a
very enriching experience…I always come away from a work shift feeling honored
to have had the chance to sit quietly with the dying, to listen to them, to
pray with them, to hear their stories, and to enter – however briefly – that
space of waiting – like the hushed darkness of Advent – for the next life.
In terms of being
roused in order to cling more tightly to God – well, sometimes I feel that God
uses me as a rabble-rouser, stirring up uncomfortable ideas and questions
during Mass and in conversations… like bringing up the over-abundance of our
Thanksgiving feasts juxtaposed with the huge eyes of the starving children of
Yemen, or mentioning the uncomfortable (inconvenient?) truth that our Native
American sisters and brothers have quite another context for the event that
began the first Thanksgiving. I think I
rouse myself with these queries, and I certainly need to cling more tightly to
God. It’s a big, scary world out there,
full of darkness and light, and I am but a small, aging human who cannot begin
to stand up to its challenges without the grace of God. I believe that I am being roused by the fire
burning within me that constantly prods me, saying, “You could be doing more…” And
so I look to the heavens, and listen deeply.
And begin to follow that star.
