First Week of Advent from the Underside: How Will You Prepare?

If you live in the US, you celebrate Christmas, even if you aren’t religious, or a Jewish or are Buddhist or are Whatever. Given our national obsession with making money at of the Birth of Jesus, even if you cover at work so your Christian friends can be with their families or eat Chinese food and go to the movies, your life here in the US is different in some way on the 25^th of December.

We are currently in the season of preparation for Christmas. If you follow the recommendations of the merchants, you are making shopping and gift lists and checking them twice and probably not caring a whit who’s been naughty or nice.

In the Christian Church this season of preparation and waiting for Christmas is called the Advent Season. During the four weeks preceding Christmas, Christians wait in hopeful expectation, prepare spiritually for the birth of Jesus. It is common for Christians to mark the days with spiritual practices intended to help them open their hearts and minds in new ways to receive the gifts of new life, hope, and salvation born into the world in the Holy Child of Bethlehem.

Whether or not you self-identify as religious or claim Christianity as your own,  you can still spend some time in this season of preparation for Christmas to prepare spiritually for the celebration on the 25^th.

 The birth of Jesus celebrates hope, love and joy born anew into the world.                                                           

                                                           

Preparing for Love: Identify and act on a concrete way you can increase love in your life this week. Or, perhaps you can reconnect with  friend you haven’t talked with in a while, give an extra dollar in the Salvation Army kettle, or try to be understanding in a relationship where you feel not all that understood….

Preparing for hope: Think back over your life to a time when you were faced with overwhelming odds that you overcame over time. What did you learn about own strength and resilience that you hadn’t know before. Now, spend some time  thinking about a difficulty you’re currently facing, recommit to that struggle with renewed hope in the reaffirmation of the depths and grace of your own resilience.  

Preparing for salvation: Think about the Holy, the Divine, God as you have come to know the Sacred in your life. Call to your mind’s eye an image that speaks to you of this reality. And, breathe. Relax into the Presence of grace and compassion, safety and peace. Breathe. Relax. Feel at home and be grateful. Be grateful for your day, for the big and little thing, for the people and pets, for the blessing of the good and the wisdom gained from the bad. Think about the Holy, the Divine, God as you have come to know the Sacred in your life. Be grateful and say, Amen.

The End is Always Near

                                                                                                

First Sunday of Advent 2015, from the Underside

Kintsugi Meditations for a Broken World 

Luke 21: 25-28:  “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

This is not an easy passage to preach, especially, when those in the pew are still recovering from a weekend of turkey coma, Black Friday shopping, initial Christmas decorating  and surviving annual visits with extended family. Hope is the liturgical theme for the first Sunday of Advent, but picture of hope here in Luke’s gospel is in the midst of distressing times filled with bleak struggle and fear. Not kind of thing we want bouncing around in our minds when we’re trying to pick out the fullest and most symmetrical White Pine on Boy Scout Troop 108’s lot before we head home to football on the couch….

But they are powerful words of hope for these days. Even on the couch in our own living rooms, we cannot avoid the intrusion of violence, and death, refugees and protests, a nation divided over race and power, privilege and the absence of hope. Human life is always filled with destruction and violence, Luke and, our difficult times lived early in the digital-age of perpetual news cycle sources all around us, simply call a reality, most of us do our best to avoid, into sharp focus. Luke’s assurance, is exactly what  we are needing to hear: when things seem the most hopeless, our redemption, our hope, is drawing near.

What can we do? The passage makes it clear, we are not to turn away, of faith with fear and foreboding. We are to raise up, to take a stand, to open our hears and lives to the hope that is our faith, to seek to draw near to our Redeemer even as he is drawing near to us.

What will you do this Advent to draw closer to our Redeemer, to be the light of Hope in the darkness of our world?  

Kintsugi Meditation for the First Sunday of Advent:

Invite Jesus, our Redeemer, to be present with you. Call to your mind’s eye an image that speaks to you of Jesus’ love and protection, grace and hope.

Focus on your breath, sit silently, allow Jesus’ love and protection, grace and hope to fill you. 

Relax. Relax. Relax. Pray the Holy Spirit guide you and open your heart to the Still Small Voice during this sacred time.   

Pray Jesus keep you safe, well, happy and peaceful.

Ask Jesus to keep you safe, to keep your heart safely within his own heart, to keep your mind safely within his wisdom. Pray that Jesus keep you safe.

Pausing….. Focus on your breath.

Pray Jesus keep you well. That he would keep you from times of trial, from the despairs of suffering and grief, from the grasping for false idols in anxiety and fear. May Jesus keep me well.  

Pausing….. Focus on your breath.

Pray Jesus open you to happiness, that he open your heart and mind to the truth of your own divine wonder and awe, knit into you in the womb of your mother. Ask that you know the joy of living your birthright, the authenticity of the blessed beauty of who you were created to be.

Pausing….. Focus on your breath.

Pray that Jesus grant you the peace that surpasses all human understanding, that your heart and mind, that your entire being is so joined with his love and forgiveness that you are not dependent on the things or situations of this word for peace, hope and joy, but on Him.

Pausing….. Focus on your breath.

A brief prayer of gratitude for this time…. Our Father…. Amen. 

Most Saturday mornings, I travel about 45 minutes west to the town of Woodstock, Illinois,  film location for the Bill Murray classic film, Groundhog’s Day, and home to the BlueLotus Buddhist Temple (BLT).  I’m about 25 years into a contemplative Christian mediation practice, mostly using the Ignatianpractices of Contemplation of Scripture, the Examine and Contemplation inAction.  I’ve had a Jesuit Spiritual Director for the past 25 years and am unimaginably grateful for their patience, wisdom and the gracious presence of the Holy Spirit in the living of my prayer.

About three years ago, I began to feel and discern that I was getting in my own way at prayer. I longed and desired to grown closer to our risen and incarnate Lord, but seemed unable to open my own mind to allow the Holy Spirit to lead me.  I was, also, after so many years, longing deeply for a spiritual community seeking the still small voice of the Holy in shared silence. This longing seemed congruent with my deep spiritual roots in Reformed Theology and its emphasis on Christ’s Covenant Community.   

With the encouragement of noble Buddhist friends, I made my way to the BLT and began to sit regular meditation with the sangha (the community of those gathered in Buddhist meditation).

A foundational Buddhist chant affirms Buddha’s teaching that all human experience springs from our minds “Mind is first.” It continues that our actions, for good or for ill are the result of our thoughts. There is no refuge in “the devil made me do it!” (sorry to  Geraldine and Flip Wilson), nor, is there the luxury of the convoluted hubris in Christian refuge of, “I give all the glory to God.” In Buddhism, for good or for ill, we are responsible for our actions and before that the thoughts that got us there.

I am not a Buddhist. In my Christian ontology, God knit us in our mother’s wombs and we are made with wonder and awe (Psalm 139). The loving grace of God’s creation precedes all that is, especially, my feeble mind. God’s forgiveness precedes my thoughts and actions, for good and ill.

Yet, it is exactly my thoughts, the order and the disorder of my thinking which is the pall that blinds my heart and mind  from experiencing and perceiving the exact same grace and forgiveness for which they long.    

Over the last three years, I have slowly, and with great unbidden resistance, only just begun to learn to so order my mind in silence so as to hear and know the leadings of the Holy Spirit into a more intimate relationship with our risen Lord.

Namaste and Amen.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Being a Chaplain in a Psychiatric Hospital and not a parish pastor has led me to develop a bit of a niche adapting to the Spiritual But Not Religious seekers. With Thanksgiving just past and Christmas on the horizon, I was asked to develop a seasonal practice for a mother to share with her daughter to focus in gratitude and compassion.

Below, I’ve outlined a two part practice that based on an adaptation of Loving-Kindness Mediation combined with a focus on service and justice for them to share in the weeks leading up to Christmas.  

Part I. Nightly Loving-Kindness Meditation—I know this looks long on paper and can seem long at first but with regular practice it’s about 10 minutes. You can play Native American flute music or some other background music—youtube is full of music for meditation, find one you two like. You can also use chants, Christmas music…. Light a candle, have a little pine bough and flower in a vase, invite the dog…. Whatever makes it a Sacred and special time for you both.

              

Lead her in this guided breath meditation:

                                Have her focus on her breath…. In-out-in-out. Relax…. Relax… Relax…. Have her picture in her mind’s eye a person, pet, place or activity where she feels safe and compassionately held. Focus on your breath in this place of safety and compassion…. And,….. relax……

                Now wish for yourself, or pray for yourself: May I be safe, may I be well, may I be happy, may I be peaceful.

                Focusing on your breath….. and…. Relax…..

May I be safe; safe in my own mind, safe in my own heart, safe in my own body, safe in my own life. May I be safe……

                                                (pause)

Now wish for yourself, or pray for yourself: May I be well; may I be in healthy relationship with myself; free from suffering and anxiety, free from grief and fear, free from loneliness and pain. May I be well in my relationship with myself. May I be well.

                                                (pause)

                Now wish for yourself, or pray for yourself: May I be happy; may I know the happiness that is my birthright, the happiness that comes from living deeply from the most authentic part of my being. May I be happy.

                                                (pause)

                Now wish for yourself, or pray for yourself: May I know the peace that passes all human understanding; the peace that lies in the deepest and most silent recesses of my soul, that deep secret place where the Divine dwells.  May I know peace.

                

This pattern is then repeated calling to mind her family, loved ones, good friends (pets can be included too).

                Then the pattern is repeated for all those struggling and suffering in the world. You can name specific groups, like children living at Home of the Sparrow or PADS, children living in violence in the Westside of Chicago or among refugee families.

Part II. Called to Serve With Compassion and Gratitude.

                Find a focus for each week before Christmas (this time in the Church is called Advent, a season of spiritual preparation for the birth of Jesus)— children living at Home of the Sparrow or PADS, children living in violence in the Westside of Chicago or among refugee families. You will tie this into the loving-kindness meditation above. Just to get your started check out: http://www.rlcw.org/ Look up their “Ministries” tab. http://www.diaperbankni.org/events.aspx or, Woodstock Bible Church Food Bank and Soup Kitchen, http://www.woodstockbiblechurch.com/

               

  Hope this is what you had in mind. Hope you and all those you love are happy and well.

Take good care,

Advent from the Underside: Symbols of Compassion

A rosary ? Why, yes. Despite my deep Protestant roots, literally centuries deep, decades of chaplain training have made certain I always have a few in the glove box in the car. 

 What exactly does a Menorah look like? Let me google it on my phone and we can look at a picture together.... Half an hour or so and several sheets of construction paper later- an almost perfect representation if the Wikipedia pic. 

The hope of divine compassion real in human life. Light overcoming darkness. The comfort of familiar ritual- centuries proved. Human suffering knows no bounds, cares not for doctrine or belief. It seeks only the blessing of relief, the strength beyond strength of hope amid overwhelming grief, suffering and unrelenting pain. 

At a shelter for the homeless, unmedicated mentally ill: Advent from the underside. Come Emmanuel, come soon.  

It's About the Women: Advent from the Underside

Advent from the Underside is about the woman. It is about the birthing room’s gushing waters and blood, the point of God’s entry into the life of flesh and blood made holy. The groaning pain of childbirth, sanctified, all of creation pushing, crying, towards new life and hope. It is about the women,  the sister-mothers, aid, comfort, joy, the witnesses of the spirit, birthing Life among us. Emmanuel.  

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Romans 8:22 (NIV)

 

Poem for Advent 2011

Barbara Marion

 

Ancestral midwives kneel in shadows

bringing aid and comfort
witness giving
to the pains and crying out and pushing,

Sister-mothers,
...prepare the way,
For birthing
in a gushing
mess with cries of gratitude and joy,

As water holy turned
to blood in breaking open paths and sacks
that spill out life
and milk and bread
from deepest springs of hope ferocious.

Beyond the burning ropes
and rapes
and silence, neglect and jailings all of them passed over
stories buried
never heard of more nor seen nor named for eons
but now we care and picture them and her with them and us.

And tell how even Sister-Mother-Midwife Allah
gave a tree bent down to shake
to give her fruit
and water in a rivulet
to bathe her tears and terrors.

And now we know that tales of her alone with no one near
are told from fear of what might be
with women’s arms around her.

To this very day they warn “You dare not, Women,
think of that. She’s not like you for were she that

God would never come through you.”

But sister, mother, holy one, around you waiting now as then
we sisters, mothers, holy ones are here with you to aid and comfort
wait with you and witness to
the work and spirit in you ready here and now is God.

And when we breath with you and help you with the birth
we bring it all
to life among us
all a’groaning to be saved and free
and all in all, Good Women,
in you, with you, for you all
in God’s good healing time.

Emmanuel

Featured image: "Mary and the Midwives." " by artist Janet McKenzie. commissioned by Barbara Marian.

Inducto: Advent From the Underside

 

 

Advent comes from the Latin word, adventus, meaning coming. It is the season for the Church year when people of faith wait in expectation and hope to celebrate God to entering fully into our human existence. A Coming into the depths of human experience and existence  of God who chose to be born to a poor, pregnant-out-of-wedlock,  teenage girl on the margins of society rather than into the life of a properly married couple living a well-to-do life that included attending a respectable religious institution.  At the heart of this world changing, every-life changing event was a young family displaced by world events, struggling far away from the support of family and familiarity of home. A young family cast so low in the society of those days that their baby was born in a stable among the animals and cold. God chose to be born into a family from the underside of society and culture and religious institutions, to an uncertain young couple where, perhaps, even actual paternity of the baby born on the night we celebrate as Christmas lay as a shadow between the proud, overwhelmed, joyous new parents even as the wondrous events we still celebrate today were unfolding around them.

 

“And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25: 40)

“Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own;  but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly  call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12-14)

Several Advents ago, I was praying with Paul’s letter to his beloved friends in the church at Philippi for some months preceding. Somewhere in the small and subtle movements of life and faith, it came to seem important  that I prepare for the birth of God into human life and living in some way that took me beyond the grace and beauty, the joy of family and friends, the blessed Advent celebrations of my local congregation.  Grown into adult life, Jesus, fully-man and fully-God, told us we can come to know him by caring for the “least of these,” for our sisters and brothers on the underside of society.  It seemed well that Advent to heed Paul’s example of growth in faith and intimacy with Christ pressing forward beyond my own familiar comforts and customs “towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

From this, I came to prepare  that Advent for the birth of God among us through season of praying and coming to know the commonality of our human lives and our shared need for deliverance with those on the underside of our society--Advent from the Underside.  If Jesus would be born in these days and this place, he would be born to some among these people. How could I come to know him in the intimacy of love and trust, faith and joy that can only be known in the experience of the fullness of our need of him? What would he teach me about loving him and others as he loves us all? Advent from the Underside.