Can You See It?

My attempt of keeping a meditative approach to Advent has been a bit distracted. Mary and Derek's tragedy has appropriately become my focus the last several days. No regrets. My heart and mind cannot be two places at once.

This morning I decided to try to recapture my expectation. I went to youtube and watched several Advent videos and listened to some music. I feel I am waiting for the dawn again. I'm not expecting anything magical. I'm just wanting to feel the presence of peace.

The next three days hold family gatherings of celebration. Part of my plan of Christmas meditation is to see deeply each person in my family. Who have they become? How do they reflect what Christ has been in my life? I wait with joyful anticipation of these times together. Just being with each other. Christ will be in the middle of everything, it is just so.

Discovering Advent

Last night laying in bed I started a new book by Robert Benson titled "That We May Perfectly Love Thee". In reading about preparing my heart for Eucharist I began to connect it to Advent. This Saturday night as a few of us gather together in the home of a friend to celebrate the 3rd week of Advent, I will come with an empty heart. Does that sound bad? It's not.

Only if I come to the table empty can I be filled. If through Advent I am still waiting for the mystery to come I must be empty. I want my heart to be filled by Christ. It may not be what I am expecting. It may not be what I think it should be. It may not fill the particular void I want filled. But, I give my empty heart to Christ to fill it any way he wishes.

You have to work at being empty. It's too easy to be "full". Full of knowledge, full of certainty, full of work, full of time, full of success, full of failure. All kinds of things rush in to fill our hearts. As I write this I picture my heart with a plug at the bottom like old-time bathtubs. I think I should pull this plug quite often and empty out what is there so Christ can fill it again.

Even as I write this I feel the anticipation rising for Saturday night. And I will consider what I receive filling every part of my heart. Then, next week, I can pull the plug again and come to the Advent table with the same anticipation and expectation.

I think for the first time in my life I get Advent. Being raised Protestant I actually knew nothing about it (probably not even that there was Advent) until mid-life. And then it was that there was this thing called Advent that Catholics did.
Several years ago I became more aware of it but I still didn't get it. Why would you not sing Christmas carols? Why would you act like Jesus hadn't come when he had?

But this season there is something stirring inside me. I don't know if it is a mental adjustment or a true spiritual awareness. I can feel the anticipation. In my depths I am longing for his coming. I don't mean the "2nd" coming. I mean a coming into my life, my world, my friends, my heart. It is hard to articulate. I have this expectation that he will be brand new to me. That for me he will be born again into my reality.

Wouldn't it be amazing if this happened every year at this time? How exciting that my knowledge and experience of him be new every year. What joy might come of this waiting? As I write this, right here, right now I find myself on the verge of tears. It is as though one I love has been away. It is as though I have received a letter from him that he will be returning in just 4 more weeks.

I can't wait!

The Advent reading for next Sunday is already at work in me:
"as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"

My valleys are being filled, my mountains are being made low, the crooked is being made straight and the roughness is being smoothed.

I'm sorry but this is WAY COOL!

Blessings to you during this Advent season.