Pilgrim Notes

Reflections along the way.

Tag: Advent (page 4 of 4)

The Meeting

December 19, 2004 / / 0 Comments

The young imagination can grasp the impossible. So believing in Santa is easy. When I was a child, the world was full of wonder. Everything was magical. Colors, sounds, shapes, and even smells fascinated me. In fact, I think I liked some toys because of the way they smelled. I remember one store smelled like incense (this was the 60s). That smell always made the store seem a bit mysterious. Some people’s home smelled like children were not aloud to play there. I used to play at one friend’s house who was Italian. As his mom cooked, their house smelled like families were important.

The childlike imagination is rich in associations and wonder and faith. Yet as we grow, we often loose that wonder of simple things. Soon we fail to notice the wonder around us as we plan tomorrow’s schedule or review today’s events. Scientifiic laws explain away the fancies of childhood (like why birds fly and we don’t). We see the grass as green due to light and pigmentation. The sun dissappears from view because of the rotation of the earth.

Faith in God can restore the childlike appreciation of the world. Faith doesn’t seek to do away with scientific laws, but rather, it suggests that beneath those laws is a will. The will of a Supreme, loving Creator. So we may explain the details of green, but faith says that ultimately the grass is green because a divine will wanted it green. There is an active will of a loving Creator behind every man-made explanation. God wills the Sun to shine and it does. God willed for you to exist and you do.

When we see the world through this lens, we realize the absolute wonder that we even exist. God desired you to be here this day. And somehow, in the mystery of His great love, He gave us the freedom to gaze in wonder at His creation or to ignore Him altogether.

As you watch the excitement of children this season, may the excitement and wonder of faith come to life within your own heart.

The Meeting

“Oh , look Mom!
Look!
I think it’s him.
Can we stop? Please, please. Can we stop?”

Standing in line,
My wet hands hands are jumbled in anticipation.

This is the “real” one.
At least I’m pretty sure.
Just look at his stomach.
That’s no pillow.
And that beard, it’s real too.
Not some cotton on elastic.

Oh, great.
I’m next.
My heart is pounding.
I’ve never, …

Met the “real” one.

Quick, review my list:
a scrumpled notebook paper with pencil markings.
I hope he can read it.
Let’ see. Cross out number 3 and 7.
Can’t sound too greedy.
Put a star by 1 and 5. These are the most important.

Oh.
It’s my turn!
He’s so big.
Giant hands gently swoop me into his lap.
Look at those boots. Yep, those are real.
Boy, he looks old. I bet he’s over a 1,000 years old.

“Uh, uh thanks.
Yes, I want a, a”

deep breath.

“A train set that lights up and whistles.
Oh, yes. I promise I would be careful.
Oh wait!
Here’s my list.
You can, uh
Bring me, uh
Anything you want.
Thank you Santa.”

Wow! I finally met him.
Boy he sure smelled good.

by alan douglas floyd

12/2000

Wish Lists

December 16, 2004 / / 0 Comments

One of my favorite memories of Christmas festivities is the making of wish lists. Several department stores sent out a “wish list” toy catalog each year, but none surpassed the Sears catalog. I spent hours pouring over the pictures and descriptions. I bent the corner of pages with potential “wish list” items for future review. Then I would visualize playing with those particular toys. The toys in my dreams were more fun than anything I ever could receive for Christmas.

There is a profound lesson here. In the wish list, the child uses the imagination to cultivate a sense of longing. This longing may start with a specific toy or any specific thing or even a specific person or a specific place. But our imagination presents a perfect or ideal image of the thing we desire—and the actual reality can never meet our expectations. And we experience disappointment.

One year, I saw a little record player recorder that supposedly could cut records. In other words, I could make my own recordings. This delightful toy bordered on the miraculous, and I dreamed of creating my own albums much to the amazement of friends and family all around. This toy topped this list. It was too good to be true. And it probably was, but I’ll never know because I never got this gift.

One thing a child must learn early is that there is no direct correlation between the wish list and the gifts received on Christmas morning. Inevitably, as delight and wonder envelope children everywhere, disappointment still lurks in the background. Nothing can ever really live up to our expectations or imaginations. And though some adults this year, like every year, will scold their children for selfishness, they too suffer from disappointments in other adults, in relationships, in job situations, in family matters and more. Disappointment is a very real and important part of longing.

I believe our idealized longing, is ultimately reaching out for a city not made by hands: a place and time that truly is just out of reach. Some might say that this type of longing is really a longing for the womb: a place where we were connected, completely safe and satisfied. In fact, some suggest that our delight with the sound of rushing waters from oceans to rivers to creeks is because the earliest sounds we knew in the womb were in liquid.

I believe the longing is not necessarily a looking back but a yearning forward. It is the hope, the longing, the yearning for the possibility that one day the happily ever after really will come true. Our best fairy tales end in a place just beyond the reach of real life. Nobody really experiences happily ever after in the here and now. They can’t. No one and nothing can meet our expectations.

We cannot even meet our own expectations. We vow to follow a new diet or a new exercise plan. We vow to be kind, to be more loving, to live selflessly. But we fall and fail. We cannot live up to our own standards, and if think we do, I assure someone else can look into our life and point out how we fail to meet their standards. Everyone falls short. Thus disappointment is inevitable.

The Hebrew prophets experienced disappointments as well. They watched a people, a nation move from reliance on God to political maneuvering and intrigue: and in the process. becoming a captive people. But many of them continue to cultivate a longing for a time when this kingdom of God would be realized in fullness. They describe this kingdom in ways that are still hard for us to imagine. The world is in perfect harmony: natural enemies are at peace. Political foes embrace; weapons of destructions are transformed into tools for nurturing and healing—even the lion lays down with the lamb.

Their lasting and profound vision of world harmony continues to reverberate throughout our world. Though far from perfect, the United Nations was created with this vision in mind and a quote from Isaiah still adorns the front of the offices in New York. But our flawed attempts fall short of Isaiah’s full vision. He describes a world only God can restore.

And this is the hope of Jews and Christians alike. We strain forward to a world of absolute perfect harmony. While past histories shape us, we are actually energized by the future. We long for God’s kingdom fully realized. Every week, Christians every where will pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done…” They are praying for nothing short of absolute and perfect harmony in the heavens and on the earth.

Instead of relegating these dreams to a Never Never Land of childhood fantasy, this Christmas we might began to dream of an Ever Ever Land. We might get out those wish lists and dream of a world perfected in love and grace. Where commerce is not based on who can take advantage of who, but all our exchanges are based on blessing and love.

While our earthly dreams are subject to fail and disappoint, the prophets revealed that we could never out dream the kingdom. Inevitably it will exceed all hopes and expectations. It is better than anything we could have ever hoped. This dream of God’s perfectly realized love drives us forward and gives us energy to live out of that kingdom now. Thus Jesus says that the world would know his disciples by their love one for another.

As we live with a vision and a longing of the kingdom, we trust in God’s faithfulness to reveal this kingdom and relate on the basis of an abundance of His love. We don’t have to scrape and steal and oppress others to get ahead. For our confidence is not the shifting sands of the present moment but in a coming kingdom that cannot fail. Thus we are free to love and lay down our lives for those around us. In fact, we are free to be seen as fools for the sake Christ. Fools because we have abandoned the way of a world that suggests that if I don’t look out for myself, others will take advantage of me. Fools because we choose to return love for hate, peace for war, kindness for anger and healing for hurting.

This Christmas may we begin to live out our wish lists and live what we pray: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…”

Christmas is Coming

December 11, 2004 / / 4 Comments

About this time, children of all ages have begun to feel an anguish burning in the pit of their stomach. Each night more Christmas trees light up family rooms. Each day mantles and hearths blossom with Pine garland, Poinsettias and empty stockings. In the midst of these transformations, children begin discovering the anguished longing of winter butterflies awaiting Santa. I remember them well and in some strange way I still feel them.

When I was a boy, it was about this time that I would begin checking the paper every day, which posted a small box counting down the days until Christmas. Every day I counted and recounted the days. Every night I turned and twisted in bed impatiently hoping for Christmas.

If we pay attention, our childish festivities might open our eyes to the mystery and wonder of our world. As our homes and hearts prepare for the coming of Christmas, we unconsciously acknowledge that Christmas comes to us.

While we know it’s coming, it still comes as a shock. It comes suddenly, like the birth of a child in the middle of the night. It comes like a twister turning our world around and upside down. It comes like a dream too good to be true. No matter how it comes, it comes.

Now it would be an odd Christmas, if upon awaking we went to the neighbor’s house and searched their stockings for surprises from Santa. It would be odder still if we flew to London and entered the house at 48 Doughty Street, searching under their tree for our Christmas gifts.

We don’t go to Christmas, it comes to us. Our particular home and our particular hearth becomes the threshold to all the mystery and magic of Christmas. We don’t have to search for it across the street or the globe for that matter. The magic comes to us.

Beneath the magic of Santa and songs and presents and play, Christmas holds a far greater mystery: the mystery of the God become man; the mystery of the child who holds the worlds in his hands. the mystery of the crying babe who comes to comfort the pains of this aching world.

Christmas hosts an absurdly wonder-filled mystery: the mystery that in the baby Jesus, God appears as a particular person at a particular place in particular time. In this wondrous act, he forever reminds us of the value of each particular place and each particular time.

It may be that we wait for the coming of Christmas because we are really waiting for the coming the Son: who will come and make all things new. It may be that as we decorate our mantles and hang stockings by our hearths we are highlighting the wonder infused in the place where we live.

Instead of longing to find that magic place beyond our world: whether across the street, across the globe or across the cosmos, we might come to discover the treasure of the place where we live. Our home and our hearth still glow with glory. Our job and our relationships, our bodies and our minds are not simply accidents or happenstances but gifts from the Creator.

Every breath is a gift from the Creator of all things. And in every breath He comes to us with mercy and grace. And with every breath we have the power to lift unceasing thanks for this wonder-filled life.

As we await for the coming Christmas, may we behold him who came, who comes today, and who will come again.

John the Baptist

December 9, 2004 / / 1 Comment

His life was devoted to one purpose—prepare the way for the coming Messiah. John the Baptist had lived an ascetic life of absolute devotion to God. His burning passion was to see the Anointed One. In one sense, his life brought into focus the intense waiting of all ages for the Coming One: The new David that Isaiah proclaimed would usher in the kingdom of God and restore the world to an Edenic state of innocence.

When Jesus final appears, John the Baptist humbly yields the stage to Him acknowledging Jesus as the “Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world.” John takes his leave with a warning announcing that Jesus would “burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

In the lonely dungeon, John the Baptist hears reports that the one he proclaimed as Messiah, goes to the parties, does not fast, and surrounds himself with questionable people. He sends words to Jesus, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?”

Jesus may have loved John the Baptist more than anyone on the earth. He saw John as one of the greatest prophets to ever live. And yet, even John could not see the fullness of the kingdom. Jesus alludes to Isaiah and other testimonies from the Old Testament to describes His call, “The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Mtt 11:5; Is 35:5-6).

The kingdom of God has come but in a way, that not even John the Baptist had anticipated. And Jesus says, “(B)lessed is he who is not offended because of Me” (Mtt 11:6). The Messiah comes to the weary, to the waiting, to those lost and struggling in the darkness. The Messiah comes with the kingdom of God bringing joy to the sad, comfort to the mourners, hope to the hopeless, and humiliation to the proud.

The Messiah will come again. Though He tarries, we wait. We anticipate His coming by walking in the reality of His kingdom now. But we also grow weary, and sometimes even doubtful. One of the greatest trials we face in this life is the challenge of time, of waiting. We must wait upon the Lord. Our redemption is near and yet not quite near enough.

Like the children of the Exodus, we are crossing a desert. We are heading home to the presence of the Lord. Yet, the desert saps our energy, our strength, and even our faith. As we wait, we need the grace of God to “strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees” (IS 35:3). Our fearful hearts need to hear, “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; He will come and save you” (Is 35:4).

Like John the Baptist, there are times when we may question and wonder, “Are you the coming one or should we look for another?” But He is faithful.
The same power that can cause a desert to blossom (Is 35:1) is at work in our hearts. The grace of God can bring new life and new hope to our weary souls. As we long for home, as we look for the coming of the Son, we also rest in His grace. His can lead by a way we do not know into a place we have never imagined.

Advent Calendar

November 30, 2004 / / 0 Comments

This week we are meditating on the sudden, hopeful return of Christ. I’ve chosen a short poem that captures this sense of suddenness. This poem is written by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Let us remember to pray for him and all our brothers and sisters in Anglican Communion.

Advent Calendar

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like the frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

Rowan Williams

Peace

November 29, 2004 / / 0 Comments

Over 2000 years ago, Isaiah sang a song of peace to a people with war in their hearts. He looked into the holy city of Jerusalem and saw a people corrupted with violent words and violent ways. Yet he envisioned a time when all nations would draw from the wellsprings of peace in Jerusalem. Listen…his song still echoes across our land.

“It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the LORD
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go the law,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.”
Isaiah 2:2-4

We begin the Advent journey with Isaiah’s song on our lips. We yearn for peace and even cry out for peace but we live in a world bent on war.

Jerusalem is still a city consumed in war. In fact, it has known more violent conflict than virtually any other city in history. And yet, Isaiah’s song still echoes: “neither shall they learn war anymore.”

Looking past the pain of the present, Isaiah envisions the end. He sees Jerusalem as a city of peace—bringing peace to all nations of the earth. He sees a world of perfect harmony.

Not to be confused with an endless state of tranquility where nothing happens, harmony is a realm of endless variety and stunning diversity, and yet, like a masterpiece from Mozart, it brings complexity and depth of structure into a stunning resolution. Perfect harmony.

The Lord appears as a judge, a mediator, and an arbitrator. His wise judgments settle the grievances of all offended parties. In fact, the nations are so transformed by his intervention that they willingly transform their tools of destruction into tools of renewal.

Advent begins in hope by contemplating a hopeful end to all things. If we have no hope for peace, how can we ever work toward peace? How can we ever live toward peace? Without hope, we will consciously or unconsciously perpetuate the cycle of violence that engulfs our world.

The nations will never know peace as long as the people have war in their hearts. Many of those who scream for peace the loudest do it with a heart of rage. Each of us carry weapons of war—hurtful thoughts, hurtful words, hurtful actions. We hurl our invectives at those who oppose us, offend us, betray us, and oppress us.

and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.

Yet, if we truly embrace the Advent vision of the consummation of all things in the perfect justice and equity of God’s grace, then we might draw energy from that vision of peace even now. We might actually begin to live as peaceful people.

The Advent hope promises that the one great Arbitrator will ultimately settle all grievances. With this hope in mind, we can take our weapons of war and turn them into harvesting tools of healing thoughts, healing words and healing actions. We anticipate peace by helping the oppressed, loving the hurting and embracing our enemies.

During the mystery of Advent, may each of us personally enter into the season of renewal with a heart and life that echoes the peaceful dreams of Isaiah.

Earth Cycles – Advent

November 23, 2004 / / 1 Comment

As the seasons change, we change. The relationship of the sun to the earth impacts our weather and in turn impacts our lives. When temperatures drop, we change our clothes, our activities, our homes and even our attitudes. One way we acknowledge these changes is through our culture rituals.

When humans lived more agrarian lifestyles, the impact of these changes were more dramatic. Rituals and activities emerged, acknowledging changing seasons. Various rituals were enacted to help assure the best outcome during the coming season. In the ancient Mesopotamian culture, the onset of winter was a sign of creation coming undone, unraveling. The people engaged in various rituals to help stave off the chaos and keep them safe until another year. So at their root, many of these ancient rituals were ultimately about power and the challenge of impacting natural or divine power for the best outcome.

Jews and Christians have also marked the changing seasons with various holy days. Yet in some ways, the nature and character of Judeo-Christian festivals are different. At their root, each of these holy days are commemorative. While ritualized behavior may be part of the event, it is less about power and more about memory. The Jewish festivals memorialize the actions of their God on behalf of his people.

Thus the festival is not for God but for the people. It is to remind the people that there is a Creator who is benevolent, full of mercy and lovingkindness. It is a time to remember that God has not forsaken his people or this earth and that ultimately he will restore all things.

Following in the steps of her forefathers, the early Christians enacted festivals of memory. Their festivals all centered on the life and action of Jesus Christ. From birth to death to resurrection to future return, the Christians celebrated and celebrate Jesus through actions designed to reinforce our common memory.

And yet there is an odd juxtaposition of Christian celebrations and natural events. In December, the weather in the Northern Hemisphere grows colder and natural things appear to die. This is the time when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. Thus eternal and unquenchable life is celebrated in the midst of death. When death seems to dominate our landscape, we are reminded of life.

In the Spring, when the earth awakens from a winter nap, everything appears to come alive. It is then that Christians celebrate the death of Jesus. When everything appears beautiful and like paradise, we remember death—Jesus’ death and our own. We are mortal creatures who are dying. This memory helps put every day in proper perspective.

Of course, at this time we also celebrate the resurrection of Christ and coming of His Spirit at Pentecost. In spite of our own mortality, we are reminded of a hope that is not bound by the limitations of this earth.

The hope within the Jewish and Christian memory is that the God who has acted will ultimately act to reveal His kingdom on this earth. While humanity appears to act in incurably evil ways, we have hope that evil will eventually be eliminated and the goodness of God will forever prevail.

While some may use this hope to complacently await an escape from their problems on earth, the Judeo-Christian tradition has found that this hope gives us energy to act for good in the present moment. We resist all evil. We resist oppression of humans as well as destruction of this creation. And we believe that our actions are not futile.

Throughout our combined history, our people have held this hope that while our efforts may appear miniscule and doomed to fail, good will ultimately prevail because God’s lovingkindess will ultimately triumph.

As the days of November fade, we prepare to celebrate the Christian season of Advent-Christmas-Epiphany.

In the midst wars throughout the world, in the midst of scandals rocking the United Nations, in the midst of divisions across our political landscape, we pause and look upward with hope. In the midst of human striving, we remember. We wait. We watch for the coming of the Lord.

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