Advent reflections

The image you see above is a digital montage by Barbara Desrosiers, and is entitled Luminous Dawning

Meditating upon the birth of the Christ-child led me to combine the images of a baby, a cathedral, and dancing light. Luminous Dawning is an attempt to hint at the power of faith, the protection of the Almighty, and the eternal birth of hope despite this world of pain. Upon the completion of this piece I found a kindred spirit in the words of Meister Eckhart.

“The awakened heart is like a luminous sphere just giving without thought to any who may come close or gaze at it. The soul becomes blessedly lost to all but its own holy being.” ~Meister Eckhart, Jerusalem

The web site Explore Faith features a section, A Time of Miracles, which includes reflections on the seasons of Advent and Christmas. I've used a couple of them for our family's evening Advent reflections.

Last night, though, I was busy trying to get caught up with cookie baking, and had spent a large part of the day trying to find clothes with my daughter. And then driving home in almost blizzard conditions. My Advent/Christmas spirit was almost nonexistent, and I was thinking, "Heck with this--we can just skip the candle thing tonight." But my husband pursuaded Son in Ohio--the one who isn't into the whole "God" thing--to look for a poem. And Son actually came through with something quite lovely...

Someday, Perhaps
Judith A. Lindberg

It begins long before the first frost -
Somewhere between memory and reality.
It touches us with compassion
and whispers to us of hope.
It tiptoes into our hearts with elation
and opens our souls to faith.

Its name is Christmas and we have yet to learn
How to keep it close for more than
this one brief, shining moment.
Someday, perhaps... with love.

"Be a lamp unto yourself"

I haven't been posting about our Advent readings, but we've continued to have them. I've been battling writer's block. But I thought I'd share what I read tonight...

'Be a lamp unto yourself.
Don't search for light anywhere else;
the light is already there, the fire is already there.
Just probe a little deeper into your being, enquire.
Maybe much ash has gathered around the fire...
Just probe deep inside, and you will find the spark again.
And once you have found a single spark inside you,
you will become a flame, soon you will be a fire...
a fire that purifies, a fire that transforms,
a fire that gives you a new birth and a new being.
Be a lamp unto yourself.'
Last words of Gautama, the Buddha

And for music, I went with this. (Not entirely sure it goes with the Buddha quote, but I think the song is cool.)

Advent ritual: Day 1

As part of this exercise in choosing to live more intentionally, I'm trying to make sure we do some sort of evening ritual each day during Advent. We did something like this for the first time last year, but I'm still figuring this thing out. Son in Ohio is very vocal about being an unbeliever, and frequents a web site called "God Is Imaginary". So I'm trying to find readings that aren't necessarily religious--or not exclusively Christian, at any rate. Mostly, I want to make sure we're taking time to "ponder", to reconnect, to step back from the frantic December pace.

We were planning to start lighting Advent candles on Sunday night, but Daughter ended up having more homework than we thought, and Son was asleep early. Last night I was giving final exams. So tonight was the first night we actually did this thing, which, in case I wasn't entirely clear on this, I'm kind of making up as I go. But I've come up with something of a loose structure: light candle, do some sort of reading, and play a piece of music. And then one of the kids blows out the candle.

Son in Ohio mentioned something about Moses and the burning bush earlier today, and that inspired me to look up something I'd read several years ago by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner. I used it for tonight's reading:

Creation is the process of waking up. Take the story of Moses and the burning bush. Most people were taught that this story is about God performing a miracle to get Moses' attention. Now if you were God, how would you get someone's attention? Maybe split the Red Sea, maybe set up a pillar of fire--big time stuff. But why make a bush catch fire and not get burned up? Why would God do that?

I was once sitting at home in Boston in front of the fire, and I made this discovery. Do you know how long you have to watch wood burn before you know whether or not it's being consumed? Five minutes, which means there could be a miracle going on in your fireplace but you wouldn't know it unless you watched for five minutes.

The burning bush was not a miracle, it was a test. God wanted to see if God was dealing with somebody who would pay attention for five minutes. So creation begins with opening your eyes and paying attention. And when we pay attention, we discover the world, and when we discover the world, we discover that everything is connected--or at least a lot more things are connected than we had previously thought. We get a sense that there's something else going on.

God didn't create the world once and for all; God continuously creates the world. The process goes on all the time, and we try to be aware of it.

And the music was I played was Bach's Air from Suite No. 3 in D Major. When I looked through our music, it was what I could find that seemed to fit the bill: peaceful, but not dreary, and not overly long. I have no idea what music I'll be using tomorrow, so I'm open to suggestions.