When God Comes Down (Advent Week One)

This Advent season I'm excited to be joining John D. Blase and Win Collier in writing weekly reflections based on a passage from each week's lectionary texts.  Every Monday we'll each be posting our own take on the passage at hand and I encourage you to visit their sites as each of us explores the passage from a different angle.  This week's reading, in full, is Isaiah 64:1-9.

 

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,

so that the mountains would quake at your presence –

as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil -  (Isaiah 64:1-2a)

In the final days of summer, the twins and I played in the grassy field beside our house, chasing, tackling, falling and laughing until, finally, in need of a break, I stretched out on the ground underneath the giant maple tree.  The boys, still ready for rough-housing, continued to climb and jump on me. 

In an effort to distract them, I told them to lay on their backs. 

We three lay in a row looking up at the leaves and glimmers of blue sky beyond. 

“Stretch your arms up,” I said, “Can you reach the leaves?”

Six arms expanded upward, but even my long limbs fell short of the task.  Lying on our backs we were dwarfed by the world, by the distance between heaven and earth.

“Me can reach 'berry high,” my one boy observed, “but me not reach all the way to the sky.”

//

The weather was uniformly beautiful during the week I spent as a patient in the psychiatric hospital.  Mid-August in Central PA is typically hot, humid and hazy, but that week the air was fresh, almost crisp, and the sky was the brightest, clearest blue you can imagine. 

Every day, twice a day, patients who didn’t pose a risk to themselves or others could board the elevator and travel down two floors to a basement room.  There a double glass doorway led out to a small, grassy courtyard that bore an uncanny resemblance to a prison yard, complete with a small basketball court and fencing topped with spirals of barbed wire. 

Going outside was a privilege, a chance to breathe fresh air, to feel the sun on your face and arms and, equally importantly, to escape the chaos of the unit.

Toward the end of my hospitalization, when the unit itself became most stressful, I treasured those moments in the sun.  Most patients sat on benches or paced the small enclosure like restless lions at the zoo, but I felt the earth drawing me like a magnet and finally took to laying flat-out on the green grass, feeling the cool, solid earth beneath me, holding me steady while the sun worked its fingers of light across my back. 

//

The presence of God, biblically speaking, is a force powerful enough to cause the mountains and the earth itself to tremble.  When God is on the move the whole earth shakes, the foundations of the world teetering like bowling pins about to topple.

This is not typically how we like to think of God’s movement in our lives, our contemporary god to whom we pray fervently for comfort and safety, for smooth sailing across calm seas.   

This summer I felt the earth of my soul move in ways I knew were necessary, but the experience itself was terrifying.  Suddenly I recognized a hint of desperation in the Pslamist’s cries, “Where can I flee from your presence, O God?”

//

There are times in life when our world is so shaken that the only comfort, the only sensible thing to do is to get down low, to kneel, to lay, stretched out on the only solid thing we can find – the earth that was made for us, that holds us through our daily rounds of exultation and defeat. 

Lowered from the lofty heights of our own initiative, we’re rendered useless.  Lying on our backs we find the invitation to surrender control, to relax, held as we were in birth, prone as we will be in death.

We can reach “berry high” but we cannot touch the sky and, in the assurance of the earth’s embrace our limited potential is not a threat, but a comfort.  As Isaiah says, it’s God who must come down among us, God whose fierce strength and determination rends the great divide sending out shock-waves that echo through the very heart of heaven and earth. 

Maybe this is exactly what we need – not what we want, but what we need – a good shaking up, the feeling of uncomfortable heat on our backsides, a jolt of change profound enough to break us loose from the sins and ties that bind.    

This is where Advent begins, with the trembling, quaking, tearing force of One drawn to us by love.  So let us, if we are wise, throw ourselves to the ground, acknowledging the distance, returning to our place in the proper order of things, undone and expectant in anticipation of the God who came down and continues to dwell among us in ways both unsettling and liberating.

This post is also linked with the Unforced Rhythms community and Laura Boggess' Playdates with God.

Photo Source. 

Pause

 

This morning the world was cloaked,

white on white, as snow fell and the mountains

shied behind a sheet of fog.  The cornfield 

stretched between, like a wide sheet of paper,

empty. 

Lighting the fire, I feel the way

these two days between Thanksgiving

and Advent stretch silent and open.

I want to fall into these days,

to lay down in the great white expanse

of them amidst the absence of color, of noise,

of need. 

This is the moment between satisfaction

and desire when we turn our hearts

from training to see what is,

to longing for that which is to come.  


There's still time to sign-up to receive weekly poems and good links to deepen your journey through advent this year.  Visit this link to subscribe or visit Quiet Lights: Advent Wonder for Your Inbox to find out more. 
 

Quiet Lights: Advent Wonder in Your Inbox

 

Dinner time at our house is often insane, well, make that always insane. 

But every once in awhile, when I've had it up-to-here with the volume and intensity, I set a few small candles in the center of the table and turn off the overhead lights.  The darkness brings a momentary quiet, which is no small feat with four young children gathered around.  

We all hear the striking of the match and watch as light bursts into being.  Lighting candles at dinner instills, for a few moments at least, a sense of awe and wonder in the middle of what's otherwise a hectic, frantic, free-for-all.
 
Walking through a store a few weeks ago, I found myself surrounded by the stuff of Christmas.  As I thought of the season ahead, I realized my deepest desire is to be present to this precious season - to slow down and be re-awakened to awe and wonder.
 
Maybe this is your desire too?
 
This Advent season I'd like to offer you a series of Quiet Lights in your inbox.  Think of these emails as me lighting a candle for you.  

Each email will contain a simple poem or quote as well as a few links to good reads from around the web aimed at deepening your capacity for presence, stillness and wonder during advent.  

This isn't one more thing to do, no one needs that this time of year, it's simply an opportunity to be - to be present, to be aware, to be awakened. 

These free emails will begin December 1st and continue through the Christmas season.  Interested?  Click on the link below to enter your email address and subscribe or visit the Field of Wild Flowers facebook page and send me a private message and I'll add you myself.  

I'd be grateful if you'd share this post (via facebook or email) with both your friends at large and two or three close friends who you believe would be blessed by receiving Quiet Lights in their inbox.  The more, the merrier!

Click here to subscribe to Quiet Lights.

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day
is the rest we take between two deep breaths,
or the turning inwards in prayer
for five short minutes.
—Etty Hillesum

Linking today with Playdates With God and Unforced Rhythms. 

A Thanksgiving Confession (Old Lady Feet, Boots and Self-Pity)

I’m here to make a confession.  Are you ready?  Here goes . . .

I’ve become a little obsessed with the tall leather boots everyone seems to be wearing these days.  Boots paired with skinny jeans, boots paired with dresses, brown boots, black boots, gray.  

It seems to me to be the uniform of our time – tall boots and skinny jeans and, here precisely is the problem – I don’t own either.  

Boots have been in for awhile now and, to be honest, I thought it wouldn’t last.  And skinny jeans, really?  Still?  

But I digress.  

I want a pair of rich leather brown boots – tall, but not too tall, flat heeled, perfection in a shoe – and I want them now.  I wanted them last year and the year before and also probably the year before that.  I ordered a pair once, used, but ended up reselling them because they didn’t fit well enough considering the price I paid.  

I can’t afford to keep a pair of boots that don’t fit.  

I can’t afford a pair of boots, period.  Not the ones like I want at least.  

And this has become for me a source of great self-pity.  That’s right, poor me, I don’t have nice leather boots.  And, as self-pity is likely to do, the absence of boots in my life has become an obsession of sorts – I no longer see people, I see the boots they’re wearing, I see the boots I lack. 

//  

Here’s something else you should know - ever since carrying two giant babies in my womb for nearly nine months straight, my feet are not the same.  Those of you who’ve not yet given birth may want to cover your ears now, but yes, it’s true, pregnancy can change your feet.  

I now have what I refer to as Old Lady Feet or O.L.Fs for short.  O.L.Fs can’t run around barefoot, can’t wear dollar-store flip-flops or ballet flats.  I am a woman now who needs sturdy, solid shoes, serious shoes.  

For the last three summers I’ve worn my trusty Chaco sandals – the ones I bought off of gear trade in the months before the twins arrived.  In them, my feet are happy, comfortable, youthful (almost).  

But in the winter I suffered.  

A mother of four is on her feet constantly, if only to avoid the groping, grabbing arms of the little people who swarm at her feet.  All day long, up and down stairs, carrying people, carrying laundry, buying groceries, I wore shoes that lacked support.  I ached, I hobbled and limped, compensating for my poor unsupported arches by walking on the outer edges of my feet.  

I tried Clarks.  I tried Keens.  I even tried what can only be referred to as “Old Lady Shoes.” I bought and sold shoes on e-bay like a Wall Street day trader, but my feet constantly hurt.  

In the privacy of my own home I took to wearing Birkenstock sandals with thick wool socks because it was the only way I could find relief – I was desperate, people!  

Last spring, though, as I considered pulling out the stops and buying a pair of closed-toed Birkenstocks that I couldn’t afford, I came across a pair of leather, closed-toed Chacos for sale on e-bay.  

Be still my beating heart.  

I bought them, I loved them and love them still.  This year when the weather turned and it was time to pack up the sandals, I had a pair of comfortable shoes just waiting for me and my thick woolen socks.  

What I’m trying to say, is that I should be thankful, grateful for what I have which is a great deal better than what I’ve had in the past.  

Yet, the issue of the boots remains and rather than grateful I’m, quite honestly, often filled with pity for my poor O.L.Fs, for my lack of fashionability, for myself not having what my half-blinded eyes are telling me everyone else around me has.  

// 

Self-pity narrows the gaze, like blinders on a horse it limits our sight to the things we believe we need but do not have.  More often than not, it turns a want into an obsession, blinding us to the things we do have, to the possibilities that abound all around us.  

Self-pity takes me to old familiar places and wallowing there I find lies rising up around me like ghosts from my childhood and the words they whisper are hauntingly familiar.  

“You don’t have what you want?  You must not be good enough.  You’ll never fit in.  Everyone knows you have the wrong shoes.  What’s wrong with you??”  

Suddenly all of life is reduced to that which I do not have.  

I’m no longer able to see or appreciate the beautiful home I live in, my sweet children, the warmth of the woodstove, the love of my husband who could care less what I wear and, quite honestly, likes me best undressed.  

Self-pity tells me, in short, that life and wants and needs are a formula:  

If you want X, get money, buy X and you will Be Happy.  

This week it occurred to me that I accept that formula even though I don’t have money and won’t be buying “X” any time soon, because such a formula places me in a position of power and control.  Self-pity says, “Yes, you need what you think you need and it’s up to you to get it, but you’re not able to, you poor, poor thing.  There must be something wrong with you.”  

Self-pity revolves around self. 

//  

I tell myself sometimes that if I could only get that pair of boots all of life would come together neatly just like I want it to.  I could finally wear that cute corduroy skirt I found at Community Aide, I could venture into the realm of skinny jeans (although my instinct warns me that would be a move I’d regret – giving birth changes more than just your feet).  I would fit in, I would be happy, I would be wearing the uniform of my generation.  

It’s possible that all of those things are true.  Possible, but not likely.  

In the meantime, I have my Chacos, I have a cute pair of rain boots.  

I have feet, I have legs, I have a wooden floor to stand on and the privilege of walking in grass and snow or sitting inside with the bottoms of my feet melting against the wood stove whenever I want.  

I have so much.  

So much.  

And I’m not willing to let self-pity steal that from me anymore. 

// 

I’m not just talking about boots, of course.  I’m talking about life and focus and where we choose to place our energy, the way we allow our human desires to lead us into places that are narrow or wide.  The desire for boots isn’t the only area in which I’ve allowed self-pity to blossom, but it’s the easiest one to write about for now, the easiest to joke about.  

This is not a story about boots.  

It’s a story about desire, about longing, and about where we chose to let our eyes rest, where we place our focus and the things or people or positions we set our heart on attaining.  

Maybe I’ll get a pair of boots for Christmas.  Maybe they’ll go out of fashion.  

In the meantime, though, I don’t want to let self-pity rob me of all the things I do have.  I want to pray for a wider vision, for a more open heart.  I want to confess and repent.  I want to see more than what I lack and I want to trust in the one who is the giver of all good things – the giver of Chacos and Birkenstocks, of flip-flops, ballet-flats and yes, tall leather boots.  

Maybe you do too?  

Maybe the next time you find self-pity taking root like a weed, you’ll think of this story, you’ll remember that the choice is yours to make – between life and death, between self-pity for all that is not and gratitude for all that is.