Advent is my favorite spiritual season. The long nights and short days mean morning and evening prayer is done by candlelight - Advent wreath candlelight. I began praying before an Advent wreath forty years ago, and look forward to it every year. I am never disappointed. Each time I light the candle and hear the ancient Celtic words "As I light this flame I lay myself before Thee," I settle into a reality that is beyond time - sacred, mysterious, kairotic time. A reality that is saturated with grace and takes the experiences of synchronicity and serendipity and weaves them into what I call synchrodipity - the unexplainable, implausible experience of finding exactly what you didn't know you were looking for, when you least expected it. Like if you suddenly come upon the dazzling and exquisite pearl of great price, when you were actually just looking for a parking space. Unexpected. Unexplainable. Unbelievable, and powerful enough to reorient those who encounter it - and are open to it. Grace can be like that.
I have been living on grace these past few months, but especially since the middle of November. God bless the French (and the Eastern Orthodox), who liken the season of Advent to the forty day season of Lent, and thus begin it in mid-November (as opposed to those who worship at the altar of consumerism, and begin observing the Christmas season before Halloween). I have a devotional written by a French monk that starts the Advent journey on the fifteenth of November. How pleased I was to start my Advent reading on that day (even though my Advent wreath was not lit until the eve of the First Sunday of Advent - some habits are hard to break). The discipline of sitting morning and evening in Advent meditation has sustained me and opened me to grace in ways I never felt possible...
...grace like honey dripping from the honeycomb that satisfies and soothes - grace that gently melts away all the defenses that keep the emerging shoot of truth and reality buried and near dormant. Grace that heals and gives life. And that feels good.
And it feels good to feel good. This has been a hard year - a pain-filled year. A year of change and loss, trauma and rebirth. As I move through my congregation, I experience, in a limited way, the pain, change, trauma and loss so many people are experiencing right now. I see individuals shoulder realities that could crush a person without a second thought.
I watch the evening news and see the wars and rumors of wars throughout the world, not to mention the intense pain and trauma in our own country, as people take to the street and express rage over injustice and call our nation to behave as though "Black lives matter." The raw pain - this open wound so bound up in the history of our nation - where is the healing balm that can cause this open wound to truly heal?
As I ask these questions, my mind and heart turn back again to grace - that gift that comes from the very heart of God. That healing balm that has the ability to first abrade the wound so it can heal - cleaning away all the artifice and death and defenses (such as denial, displacement and rationalization) so that the emerging shoot of truth and reality can receive light and air - and live. And thrive. It is grace that heals and grace that sustains. But here is the kicker: we cannot create grace or merit it - we can only open our hearts to it and channel that gift into our world.
So the question is this: How can we become more open and receptive to grace, so it can transform us and spill out from us into our world?
Tonight I will sit in the dark and light the first and second Advent candles - "As I light this flame, I lay myself before Thee." I will do a little reading, and then I will sit. I will look back over my day, and try to identify moments of grace. And as I remember one, another will come to mind - until I am amazed by God's generosity. I will say prayers of intercession. And then, in the stillness of the Holy Darkness, I will open my hands and say "yes" to God and "yes" to grace - and trust Spirit to do the rest. The only things I can control are whether or not I show up, and the intention I bring to the experience. That is my part of our relatioship - to be present, receptive, and real. God takes things from there.
I have learned to do this in this way because this is who I am - this is me - and this is me in relationship with God. It has taken me decades to accept who I am, and to let grace heal me from the need to be who others thought I should be. What a gift it was to finally know, deep in my soul, that God longed for me to be myself - and accept myself - and say yes to God's gift of grace (and all it brings).
So that is me - now how about you? How do you experience grace in your life? What does being present, receptive and real look like for you as you experience your relationship with God? And how does this help you to be part of the transformational work of God's realm?
With love and Advent blessings,
Kim
