Third Sunday of Advent

The prayer traditionally read this week begins "Stir up your power, O Lord." It's a real rousing beginning, and one that, for me, conjures up the idea of a coming storm. I think of too-warm weather, a sepia colored world, wind that slowly keeps rising, and a general feeling of tension in everything as creation waits for the clouds to break and the rain to pour down, drenching everything and everyone in its wake.


I must admit my thought of hard rain and the relief that comes when the gathering storm finally gives way provides a window into my own spiritual life. I had hopes that this season of Advent would be a time when my parched soul might find an end to its long drought. Maybe it's just that in these weeks when the message of God's love plays from every store PA system and non-stop-til-Christmas on the radio I thought that the withering and weak spirit within me might at last be stirred up and I could feel, again, the wonder that is a relationship with Christ.


However, with two weeks behind, I have yet to feel even a twinge of life from beneath my breast, much less a sense of being stirred up. And rather than rain that cures the dry, cracked ground, I find myself confronted by night after night of cold, clear stars: stars which, even though they are fire, are too far away to kindle anything within me.


I shouldn't, I suppose, be surprised at this. God really isn't one for getting stirred up. When people begged and hoped for a great champion to throw off the Roman yoke, they got a child who grew up to talk about love and peace. And as I look west for a sign of clouds growing and billowing on the horizon, there are only soft sunsets that give way to clear, cold nights that reveal the universe.


Earlier this year I would have responded to all this with anger, shaking my fist at the sky. Now, I suppose God has worn me down. Now I merely turn and go back inside, sheltering the tiny candle flame of hope that sputters in the gentle, chilly breeze. And this week, I pray for that stirring up, even as I'm coming to believe that God just doesn't work like that. That no matter how much I need a rain that saturates me from head to toe, I will walk out each night to find only dry air. As much as I need some hint that Christ is close to me, is still near, there is just the cold and starry night. While I am ready to welcome the billowing and powerful clouds of the storm, I see only clear skies.


And I wonder, staring at the crystal clear constellations, who could ever find hope in the stars of Christmas night?


Stir up my soul, O Lord.

Second Sunday of Advent

Scrooge, in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, truly finds the spirit of the season while standing over his own grave. Despite the reminder of the past and the reality of the present, he only feels the "comfort and joy" of the Yuletide when he is face to face with mortality. For me, it is mortality that is making this season so darn difficult.


This Advent will mark the first year since my father-in-law passed. Anyone I've ever talked to or any book I've read on the subject tells you that it's the second holiday that is the most difficult. This rings true for me. The relief and rejoicing that the suffering was over along with the shock of his passing made last Christmas easier than this one. And while Scrooge, after getting a healthy dose of mortality, woke the next morning to dance around the room and be very merry indeed, I'm struggling to hold on to a taste of that familiar feeling of Christmas.


I have been attempting for over a week to write about what I suppose is something I am not alone in struggling with during this time of year. But either the emotions are too close or I have been too intent on finding some comfort to share—comfort I struggle to find myself.


Last night, as I sat on the couch in a bad mood because one more draft had gone south, I thought about the line from "I Wonder as I Wander." Specifically, I thought about how Jesus "had come for to die." There was a time when I didn't care for that line. It sounded too much as if all Christ's earthly ministry was just extraneous material.


But then my wife reminded me that being born meant dying. There is no other way out of this side of reality (aside from the Parousia—the Return, which seems so very distant). And God knew that getting involved with mortal flesh meant dying in some form or fashion.


I suppose there was also the other side of that coin—experiencing the death of someone near and dear. It is, I believe, very different to encounter death on the Heaven-side of things than on the Earthly. I have to wonder if God-Enfleshed struggled to find joy or simply ached when those he'd come to love were no longer within reach of an embrace or able to sit across the table at dinner.


Somewhere within this, I must think there is comfort for those who are grieving. Perhaps it is in the knowledge that, in the Incarnation, we have been given the gift of a God that knows how difficult it is to face joyful times with a heart that is missing pieces. Maybe it is just that surely Jesus felt as we do and is forgiving when we must leave the room when the angels begin singing.


Or it could be simply a hope that, like Scrooge, our mourning will, eventually, be turned to dancing.


Comforter, comfort those who are missing someone.