Interminable

 

I already posted this month, and my reflection on this giant waiting room we’re in together still stands, but because it is the last day of the year, of THIS year, this interminable year, I want to leave you with one more reflection.

 That the hardest of lessons we each experienced this year have real meaning for us now and forever. 

 It began for me on that bicycle I got back in April or May. It took awhile, but dawned on me that this bike, which is a one speed, simple, straightforward bike, was much like what I had as a youth. Moreover, that I was riding it as I did as a youth: I took the girls to the one flat cul de sac in the neighborhood and rode round and round and round it, over and over, to the point they got sick of it, the sheer repetition. 

 I, somehow, did not. 

 And this is where my realization began: that something from my youth had prepared me for the mundane, exceedingly boring, soul-killing repetition, the groundhog day effect of 2020. That I was made for this, I joked with friends online. My parents never let us beyond our block (at least, not until my father got himself a bike to ride with us), and we (my cousins, siblings and I) contented ourselves with the limitations of that space, managing fun and fulfillment from it. I did hate it, mind you—I hated all the restrictions. Unlike most of you reading this, I could not go out with my friends, and when I finally did, could not stay out any reasonable amount of time. I did not have the freedom to go places and do things like various of my friends did, and even as a teen not without serious supervision. It was a practice and discipline that made me who I am, for better or worse—I still sometimes have to give myself permission to do things. Something about this extended restriction most assuredly has given me the space right now to be content as is but at the same time realize what freedoms I have even within and definitely beyond this space I’m in. I can see this—and that’s the lesson, the main take away for me, at the end of this insane year. 

 As the new year begins my wish for you is to see your limitations as they are, and perhaps just beyond them, into the new space being created for you even as you might curse the problems of now. Let’s look forward together in hope for that vision.

Incarnation

 

The Incarnation. 

A state of mind, a constant celebration. I think of those who want the trees and lights immediately as not being too far off the mark after all, as the presence of God *is* in fact here, and the Advent meditation on Incarnation is more about our wonder that God should choose to come among us, that he would meet us where we are in this complete and total way. 

Fully present and here among us, if we would just be instruments for God’s peace and love. 

The real focus comes in the whisper of *trust me* from our Creator. Every bit of the language of Isaiah, and the gospel of Mark and Matthew, shows us the light present in the darkness, shows us the impossibility of ne’re-do-wells and sinners as much as saints paving the way for this birth. The need to prepare a way. To make straight God’s path. We’re called into it, into the Incarnation, to become a part of the mystery. To dreams the dreams of Joseph and see as Mary sees, and to say yes to the invitation to be present. 

 In this pandemic it feels as though we’ve all joined some giant waiting room together. Some in the waiting room are more willing than others to see things as they are—as God sees. Some can see or be the angels necessary to straighten the path. I’m practicing daily being here now with you, and to allow my yes to help change the world, each moment of each day.