Web of generosity

 Monday of the Second Week of Advent

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with my whole heart;
I will tell of your marvelous works.
Psalm 9:1

The day has been full. With the scheduled and the unscheduled. And then I wonder, why do I place occurrences into this binary? The words are themselves a trap, limiting the way of life and the way of faith to what can be arranged, planned, programmed, booked, listed. God’s abundance defies lists. It encompasses all and more and the in-between.

It is the fabric of the day for which I am grateful. All the connections, the inter-weavings, the way so many people and places and events are intertwined. In the same day I receive a call from someone needing to know how to access our food pantry and another from someone wanting to donate food. This is more than a simple balanced exchange. It speaks of the movement of the universe, of people connected by an entire web of generosity, of our human need and ability to reach out, across, toward, beyond in order to be community.

We yearn for one another with our whole hearts. God has given us these hearts and this yearning. And the same God fills each day with marvel and has still more to give.

Image by Adina Voicu from Pixabay

Tranquility

 Saturday of the First Week of Advent 

Turn again to your rest, O my soul
for the Lord has treated you well.
Psalm 116:6

The sun sets and the quiet of the evening settles over me. In the stillness, I feel something within me that I finally identify as contentment. It has been a long time.

Contentment has been hard to come by in the past ten months. Yet it is one of God’s gifts. God who created the depths of the oceans out of a word, and flung stars and planets into the patterns of the universe, also created rest. Serenity, satisfaction, ease. All belong to the rhythm of human life.

With the end of this day comes the end of the first week of Advent. Tomorrow we will light two candles on our wreath, increasing the light which illumines our way forward. The way of waiting continues toward the promised brightness ahead. And because I can, and because I hear an invitation to bear this gift, I will pack up this evening’s tranquility and carry it with me.

Image by Evgeni Tcherkasski from Pixabay

A Better Way

 Friday of the First Week of Advent

I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
my heart teaches me night after night.
Psalm 16:7

Some days seem to provide gift after gift. I hunger for these this season. Even in good times, I can allow the frustrations of any day overshadow God’s obvious presence. This Advent it seems to take more intentional energy to focus on moments of delight. Yet each time I do, I am reminded that acknowledging one small goodness brings other good news to light.

Today’s uplifting encounter arrives via text message. My friend Francie and I check in with each other. How are we. Is everyone in our homes safe. She recommends a book she thinks I will like, and then the excellent news of a project she has completed. And then she shares a gift she has discovered in this COVID-season. “God can use anything to try to teach us a better way,” she tells me. I savor this invitation and it becomes my mantra for the day.

This evening, my spouse and I will light the Advent wreath on our table, and that one flame will remind us of God’s promise. And before I sleep, I will recount the blessings of this day. And with Francie’s gift, I will also look for the insight, counsel, and wisdom with which the Holy One paves our way.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Stalwart haven

Thursday of the First Week of Advent

I love you, O Lord my strength
O Lord my stronghold,
my crag, and my haven.
Psalm 18:1

Some days my faith feels fuzzy or ephemeral; I know it is there, but I cannot grab hold of it. It does not seem solid enough to hold me, much less carry me through the challenges awaiting me and everyone else. And that is what makes this time so difficult. All of us are living with the plague. No one is immune from the stress that constantly consumes a certain amount of our physical, psychological, and emotional well-being.

We are in this together. And I realize today that “this” includes our faith. My faith is not a solitary thing; it lives in the context of my community, is fed by the faithfulness of others. My faith exists in response to the faithfulness of the One who is ever-faithful. Who never stops loving me, caring for me, forgiving me, calling me, holding me. My rock, my strength, my crag, my stronghold. My haven.

Today I am grateful that God is not ephemeral or hazy or nebulous. I grateful that God is a rock. Stalwart. A tower of strength. I am grateful that I can depend on this, that I can know that when I am shaky, God is not.

Image by Beverly Lussier from Pixabay

Wellspring of solace

 Wednesday of the First Week of Advent

How long shall I have perplexity in my mind,
and grief in my heart, day after day?
how long shall my enemy triumph over me?
Psalm 13:2

The grief of this time often catches me unawares. Sometimes it creeps up on me, slowly invading the pocket of balance I think I have discovered within this world of pain. Sometimes it hits me in the gut, and my insides physically contract. Sometimes it is like a long wail that accompanies me throughout the day, always in the background as I try to answer to the mundane.

Often it takes me COVID-length moments to identify the loss. Loss of certainty, loss of proficiency, loss of understanding, loss of a path to follow that makes any sense at all. Loss of the ability to simply keep track of days, times, dates, tasks. Did I do that? Did I send that? Did I answer that? Did I miss that?

This is enemy territory, and I am not alone. Not alone in the suffering. And not alone in the solace. Everywhere I turn, in the expected as well as unanticipated places, I discover salve for my bruised soul. The gift of balm bubbles up, perpetually replenished, recalling me to sacred ground, sustaining my next step, and the next.

Image by Florian Kurz from Pixabay

Measureless

Tuesday of the First Week of Advent

Give ears to my words, O Lord;
consider my meditation.
Psalm 5:1

I step into the stillness as if it were a pool of afternoon light. It has been there, waiting for me, anticipating my captured attention. At times, I have disciplined myself into the quiet moment, used well-worn ritual to navigate my way across the threshold onto sacred ground. As if all ground were not sacred. As if all moments did not offer holy encounter.

Over the past ten months, I have stumbled across openings for meditation scattered across my path, have heard the invitation for contemplation in the gentle call of windchimes. I have encountered the fluidity of prayer that at first seemed like scattered gasps until I dismantled barriers of correctness I had constructed between me and my creator. 

I yield to the stillness as God takes my measure, hears words I utter and those I have not yet formed, and gathers me into the measureless grace tendered across ordinary time.

Image by dre2uomaha0 from Pixabay

Unraveling

Monday of the First Week of Advent

I lie down and go to sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
Psalm 3:5

Like every other pattern in my life, my sleep is disrupted. I find myself awake at odd hours, and I have learned to give in to it. If I am able to drift off again, I am grateful. If not, I engage my wakefulness with contentment. It is what it is.

The rhythms of my work, my play, my prayer are undergoing an unraveling. The familiar has become un, the tried and true have been left by the side of the road some miles behind me.

And here I am, as a rainy afternoon slips into an Advent evening, knowing I am ready. Ready to ease into this new season, or rather, ready to allow this season to envelope me. It is God who sustains me. God who is my unraveling, and God who tenderly holds each strand of my life weaving a new pattern that has yet to be revealed.