Christmas Eve - Dec 24, 2011

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY --- Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
Christmas, Year B - Saturday, December 24, 2011

Isaiah 9:2-7
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

The creche 2011 in the Visitors Gallery in our Saint Augustine Church

Picture credit: George

I love this night.  I love the mystery and wonder.

This is not a night for scholarly insights about the theology of the Incarnation.  It’s not a night for arguing about doctrine.  It’s not a night for cynicism or carping about the possibility or impossibility of miraculous birth.

It’s a night of wonder and of things beyond understanding.

It’s a night that calls us to put our doubts and resentments aside for a while and let the wonder and the message of peace take over.   This is the holiest and most mysterious of nights.  This night we forget everything but the miracle of the Baby and the wonder of the Holy Family and the Shepherds.  It’s a night to listen for angels and to put aside for a little while all the things that bring us down.

The minister of the Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh read a poem to us every year on Christmas.  I read it every Christmas.  Perhaps you know it?  John Betjeman wrote it… 

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

….

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

And is it true?  For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

(you can find the whole poem here).

This has been a hard year for so many people – too many wars, too much economic hardship, so many disasters – earthquakes, floods – people still out of work – our government striking poses and not seeming to do much else.

We need a break.  This is a good night to focus on the miracle and the hope that Christ brings – Peace on earth – goodwill for God is pleased with us.  It’s good to fall into the softness of the Mother’s breast and be nourished; to be like children for a moment – children full of trust and love and spontaneous laughter.

But let me tell you one little story to put in your minds and hearts… a young mother who is a friend of mine wrote to say her little boy was Jesus in the manger scene at their lessons and carols.  She said “He was adorable but he wouldn’t stay in the manger!”

Brothers and sisters, neither will this One!

Happy Christmas!

Advent 3 B - Dec 11, 2011

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY --- Br. Robert Sevensky, OHC
Advent 3, Year B - Sunday, December 11, 2011

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28


Poets, writers, artists, and preachers get ideas and inspiration from unusual or surprising sources.  For me, the idea or inspiration for this sermon came as I was at the photocopy machine in our mail room on Friday.  I had been thinking about today's readings for some time, wondering what my take on them might be... or perhaps better, what their take on me should be.  And I looked up and saw posted on the bulletin board an Advent calendar published by Morehouse and edited and designed by two friend of our community, Jay Sidebotham and Susan Elliot.

Like most things on bulletin boards, I had pretty much ignored it, despite its poster size.  But as I was waiting for my copying to finish I thought: why not see what the message is for today?  And here's what it said:

Get ready for this coming Sunday.  Read the gospel ahead of time.  It's John 1:6-8, 19-28.  Imagine that you were asked the question that John the Baptist was asked.  How would you answer?  What would you have to say?  WHO ARE YOU?

Not a bad way to enter in to today's Gospel passage: Who are you?  Who indeed are you?

St John baptizes the people
painted 1633-35 - Nicholas Poussin - Getty Center, Los Angeles

If we were asked that question, there are any number of normal and expected ways that we might go about answering it.  We might focus on genealogy or even genetics, on nationality, ethnicity or social class, on sex or sexual orientation, on education, health, physical attractiveness, marital status, certainly job or profession, perhaps income and wealth or lack of it, and even religion.  These are all part of the picture, of course, all components of our identity.

But I wonder: Do they get to the heart of things?  Does any of these, or any combination of these factors, capture with any degree of accuracy the mystery of you or me or adequately express who we are?  I think not.  Too many things are left out, and they are precisely the things that matter most about you and me, that define us most deeply and most richly.

It is helpful to examine how John the Baptist went about answering the question.  He begins by stating clearly who he is not: “I am not the Messiah.”  This he knows for a fact.  And then the questions start: Are you Elijah?  No.  The prophet?  No.  It all sounds a bit like a skit from Monty Python.  But in fact this is the way people, you and me, go about finding out who we are.  It happens by considering and eliminating or saying “No” to various possibilities throughout our lives... and this often at the questioning or challenge of others, friends and foes alike.

Finally, John comes to a place where he sees more clearly and is able to talk about his identity: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.”  We might say that in this sentence, in this statement, John has discovered and given voice to his identity, to his vocation, to his deeper and truer self.  John finally had an answer, or at least the first stage of an answer, to that perennial and troubling question: Who are you?  Who am I?  It is an answer that will deepen over time and be refined in the fire of life.  But John seems to have found his true self.

Something very similar happens in the life of our Lord.  In his case it is not others who ask, it is Jesus himself.  “Who do people say that I am?” he asks his friends.  “Elijah,” they answer, “... or one of the prophets.”  “And you, who do you say that I am?”  And here Peter makes his confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  And here Jesus comes to know fully, perhaps for the first time and with startling clarity, who he is and what he is called to.  It was the community of others who knew him well that made it possible for Jesus to understand more fully who he was and what he was called to.  And perhaps for the first time he is able to accept that more fundamental and primary statement of his identity that came to him from the Father at his baptism: “You are my beloved Son, my beloved child.”

What is true of John the Baptizer and of Jesus is true also of us. What is most central to us and to our identity is approached by and appropriated through listening... to ourselves first but also to others: their questions, their counsel, their reactions.  But most of all this happens by listening to God.

And what does God say both in Scripture and in tradition about you and me, about who we are?

• In Genesis 1:26, God says: ” Let us make humankind in our own image, according to out likeness.”
• In Psalm 8:4-5, God says: “...what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?  Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.”
• Indeed in Psalm 82:6 the Holy One says: “You are gods, and all of you children of the Most High...”  What an amazing claim, and yet this is the truth about you and me.  This is the deepest truth and the most profound answer to that question posed in today's Gospel: Who are you?

Our late Br. Douglas Brown loved to tell a story about the late Byzantine world.  In that society, images of imperial authority were treated with great respect, and when the emperor himself could not be present at an imperial function, his image was escorted in with great pomp and ceremony, with heralds shouting out to the crowd: “Make way for the image of the emperor. Make way for the image of the emperor.”  Once a rabbi watching this ceremony from the sidelines, observing the elaborate ceremony, commented: “Before every human being goes an army of angels shouting: “Make way for the image of the image of God.  Make way for the image of the image of God.”  The story is apocryphal of course, but not the quote.  It is from the Talmud, that great compendium of Jewish wisdom.

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi said: "A procession of angels pass before each person, and the heralds go before them, saying, 'Make way for the image of God!' (Deut. Rabbah, 4:4)

This is true of you and me, of course.  But it is true also of the person ahead of us at the checkout line and of the homeless person at the street corner; it is true of the corporate executive and the abused child; of the mentally handicapped man and the nurse and the solid citizen and the single parent and the addict and... well, true of just about everybody, saint and sinner, near at hand and far away, long ago and now and as far as we can see into the future.  Images of God — that's who we are.

On this foundation, on this truth, all the rest is built.  And in this, we can all rejoice.  And from this fact much is demanded and expected of us: lives lived in deep mutual respect, where violence has no place, where hatred is given no foothold, where justice is pursued and mercy and love.  Because that's how one treats the image of God.  We can do no other, we God-worshipers, we the community of the redeemed, we Christians.

 St John the Baptist
Valentin de Boulogne (lived 1591–1632) - private collection

Then they said to him, “Who are you?  Let us have an answer for those who sent us.”  (John 1:22)

Advent 2 B - Dec 4, 2011 - Scott

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY --- Br. Scott Borden, OHC
Advent 2, Year B - Sunday, December 4, 2011

Isaiah 40:1-11
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

Here we are on the second Sunday of Advent – a season that prepares us for Christmas. The problem is that there are really two very different events coming – so different as to be almost incompatible – and to add to the confusion, we call them both Christmas. For clarity sake, I'll call one of them “Secular Christmas” and the other “Sacred Christmas.” That will give you a pretty clear idea of where I'm going...

For Secular Christmas, Advent is more properly known as “shopping days until...” Secular Christmas is really just a consumption binge with a slightly altruistic marketing plan. Secular Christmas has absolutely everything to do with carnality and absolutely nothing to do with incarnation.

The work of Advent does nothing to enhance Secular Christmas and, more importantly, Secular Christmas contradicts Advent in oh so many ways. It would be tilting at windmills to try to rid Advent of the incursions of Secular Christmas. But to the extent we can keep these two things called Christmas separate in our minds, the more we can do the work of Advent and be present to the sacred incarnation that is coming.

Secular Christmas is an appealing, delicious, feel-good confection. Sacred Christmas is the beginning of a life-changing encounter – complex, challenging, frightening... Secular Christmas makes us happy. Sacred Christmas makes us whole.

Advent is not a happy, comfortable time of waiting in excited anticipation... trying to guess what is under the tree... of stockings all hung by the fireplace with care... The Liturgy of St James has a better instruction: “Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and with fear and trembling stand...” Advent is a time of preparing to be made new, to be made whole.

Today, and in all of Advent, our attention is directed toward John the Baptist. When it comes to discomforting, feel-bad thinking, you can't do much better than the Baptist... except perhaps Isaiah... And wouldn't you know it, Isaiah is the other great voice we are called to listen to in Advent.

Lets start in Isaiah – “a voice crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.” These words are so thoroughly wrapped around the coming of Jesus that the context fades away. But the message from Isaiah is complex.

“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem... she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins... People are like grass – which withers and dies.” We are prepared to hear Isaiah is talking about the birth of Jesus – but Isaiah is not willing to restrict himself to that.

Our Jewish brothers and sisters understand Isaiah very differently. Isaiah really is talking about Jerusalem, about the people of Israel, not about some far-future coming of Messiah. His message is one of devastation. The reason to speak tenderly to Jerusalem is that she is to be destroyed. The pending destruction of the city symbolizes the destruction that is to fall on God's chosen people, the people of Israel.

After the destruction of Jerusalem, Isaiah is a powerful voice to a people who have been devastated, to a culture that has been shattered, to a nation that has been mortally wounded. Speak tenderly... This is a tenderness borne of extreme sorrow.

“Every valley shall be raised up and every hill brought down...”

When I was a young, the great Adirondack Northway was under construction – and valleys were raised up and mountain tops were brought down and rough places were smoothed over to make a highway that truly seemed worthy of the Lord. Somehow in the hazy innocence of youth it seemed to me that this is what Isaiah was talking about: some optimistic, modern, vast construction project.

But Isaiah is not talking about construction. He is talking about a destruction... on a massive scale... a cataclysm... Everything stable in the world, even the mountains and valleys, is about to be torn apart. Chaos and destruction are in the offing.

After the chaos, then we can take courage... then we can raise our voice... then we can proclaim that God comes in might... after the entire world has been turned upside down. It is courage born of extreme sorrow, extreme humiliation.

Pretense has been stripped away. Arrogance has been stripped away. The feeling of entitlement that comes with being God's particularly chosen people has been stripped away. Identity has been stripped away. And somehow, in the face of all that loss, we manage to breath again, to live again, to love again. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem...

John picks up where Isaiah leaves off – a voice in the wilderness crying get ready for the coming of the Lord.

As it happens, at the time of John, Jerusalem is again on the eve of destruction. By the time John's words have been recorded in the Gospels, Jerusalem has been sacked... the nation of Israel is in tatters... the temple, the very house of God, has, once again, been destroyed. John the Baptist referencing Isaiah the Profit is ominous foreshadowing, to say the least.

This is the context of Advent – of waiting for Emmanuel. For lovers of the status quo, it is a terrible time. And when I look in my own heart I find that there is a great lover of the status quo in me. I suspect I am not the only one here with that attachment.

Later today in this very church our Vespers will be centered on Bach's Cantata Number 36. In the opening chorus a voice calls us to lift our voices, our thoughts to heaven to meet the Lord. And then another voice says “stop where you are... the Lord is coming to Earth to meet you where you are.”

In our cultural stories we have a repeated story about parents coming home when the kids are not ready – when the kids have been acting really badly. It can be innocent as in Dr Seuss's “Cat in the Hat”, or it can be more adolescent as in “Ferris Bueller's Day Off” or “Risky Business”. But its the same story – with no adult supervision, the kids do exactly what they know not to do and then the car with Mom and Dad is coming up the driveway... they are going to be caught, certainly punished, perhaps grounded for life... Yet somehow, miraculously, the mess gets cleaned up just before the parents walk through the door.

Advent. We have had the run of the place and we have acted in ways that we know are exactly wrong. Children are allowed to suffer and even starve. Injustice and corruption are abundant. We beat our plowshares into swords. We take the widows mite to build grand palaces for the rich and privileged. And, as the Cantata says – God is coming to meet us on earth... the car is pulling up the driveway...

Our treasure shows where our hearts are – and that is on Wall Street and in executive suites, in the weapons of war, in the temples built to the false god of consumerism. Surely we don't believe God can look at this and say anything that sounds like “well done good and faithful servants.”

Let all mortal flesh keep silence and with fear and trembling stand.

Advent. We are called to keep awake. To make ourselves ready for the time when God takes on mortal flesh and dwells among us. Are our hearts, our homes, our neighborhoods, our nation in a proper state to receive God?

We will have to face the trap of our own attachments, our own delights, our idols and golden calves. The preparation of Advent, at least in part, is to see that we are a people not just in the wilderness, but that we are enlarging the wilderness... We are a people who not only sit in darkness, but in many ways we are responsible for turning out the lights... We are not called to despair, but to make a highway in this dark wilderness fit for God.

Shopping Days and Secular Christmas tell us that things are really good and sweet and wonderful and that we can build a better world just by doing even more of the same. That is a lie that does indeed contain some truth – there is great beauty all around us.

But we are every bit as broken as the Israel that Isaiah addresses. We are in the wilderness. We desperately need God's light to shine in our world, in our hearts. We anesthetize ourselves with stuff so that we don't know how much we need someone to speak tenderly to us.

Facing the reality that we are in darkness is part of the work of Advent. And realizing that God takes on human flesh and dwells with us... speaks tenderly to us... forgives us.. lovingly brings light into our world so that we don't have to remain in darkness is also the work of Advent.

Amen.

Advent 2 B - Dec 4, 2011 - Bernard

Trinity Episcopal Church, Williamsport, PA --- Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC
Advent 2, Year B - Sunday, December 4, 2011

Isaiah 40:1-11
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8


The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  And here we are, you and I; lucky enough to be here; lucky enough to hear that good news.

What is the good news?  God was, is and will always be with us.
Jesus came and lived amongst us.
Jesus lives in you and in me.
Jesus will manifest himself to all, for us to live together forever.

In Advent, we yearn, we long, we anticipate and we prepare for Jesus arriving among us. 
We yearn for the Beloved who was with humanity about 20 centuries ago.
We long for the Beloved who is being formed in our hearts today -- if we consent to it. 
And we anticipate the manifestation of the Beloved to all of creation, in the time beyond time, in the time beyond evil. 

Are we willing to participate in that good news?  Are we willing to prepare ourselves and the world for that Kingdom?  “Your Kingdom come.  You will be done.” 

Really?  How?  How are we preparing for the celebration of Christ; not only on December 25 but every day of our life?  How are we preparing to celebrate the Beloved for all eternity?

*****

John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Beloved, gives us a clue: repent, and be forgiven.  To repent comes in two movements of the heart.

First, look at yourself with a keen, honest, unbiased eye.  Don’t judge yourself.  Just look at yourself and see what is.  Do you see anything that turns you away from God?  Do you find anything that keeps you procrastinating from God’s embrace?  Do you recognize that pile of excuses reaching to the rafters?  Look at yourself and ponder.  What keeps me away from your Love, Lord?

Then, when you have faced what is in the way, turn around, consent to God’s loving gaze into your heart and ask for forgiveness.  Throw yourself into the embrace of God’s forgiveness.  And trust that you will receive the help you need to keep walking in the right direction, whether you know that direction or not.

Just in case you missed it, there was no intermediary step between your introspection and your turning to God.  There is no need to turn into an athlete of virtue, willfully trying to fix everything that is wrong with you and the world, before you deem that you deserve forgiveness. 

Remember -- Good News! -- Jesus already came to us and redeemed you and me from sin; He didn’t wait for you to get rid of sin first.

Make no mistake, you will need to amend your ways and empty yourself to be filled by God, but you won’t be able to do that until you earnestly ask God to play on your team.  Turn to God; receive the forgiveness freely offered; trust God to help you achieve God’s dream for you which you cannot do alone.

And know, that as long as you turn to God one more time than you turned away, you’re in the right direction.  This repenting business is likely to be more than a once off occurrence.  No cheap grace here.

*****

How else do we prepare to celebrate the Beloved today, every day and for all eternity?  Well, we stop, we breathe and we remember whose we are.

We live in God’s creation and that involves time and space as we experience them.  But does God experience time?  And if so, what is it like to God? 

We live in a sequential time.  We imagine that time moving in one direction along a straight line.  And we pretend controlling that time by measuring it.  Some call that human experience of time Chronos.

When we live with God, we can have glimpses of God’s time, sometime referred to as Kairos.  It is a time that flows in curvaceous directions and at various speeds.  It is a time that is felt in quality more than quantity.  It is a time of “already” and “not yet” occurring simultaneously.

*****

Advent is a time of the liturgical year that lends itself to considering God’s time.  In Advent, we wait for the arrival of Christ at what we consider three different points of our timeline:

• First, we await the commemoration of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in first-century Palestine as the historical marker of our liberation from sin and death,
• Second, we await the return of Christ at the end of time.  And we should look again at what that phrase might mean; “the end of time”,
• And Third, we await the birthing of the Christ within.  We are each individually amidst the pangs of Christ being born, nurtured and fully formed in our own heart.

And yet, I believe that in God’s experience of time these three events are woven together in a rich tapestry of time we don’t even begin to understand.  In a way, these three events we await in Advent are arriving simultaneously in God’s experience of time.  They all interact with one another and affect their outcome.  Jesus opened up the Kingdom of God for all of us when he lived with our brethren.  The Kingdom of God is close at hand.

What it takes to be there is to complete what Native Americans have called the longest journey a human can travel.  And that is the journey an insight makes from the mind to the heart.

So this Advent, stop, breathe and remember whose you are.  You too are the Beloved of God and the Kingdom is within you if you let your heart open the doors your mind can’t grasp.

*****

I said we should look for a moment at the phrase “the end of time.”  I admit I don’t know what it means.  But I want to share with you that I suspect it has more to do with a renewed sense of time, a time more akin to God’s time and a time freed from the clutch of evil.  I see the end of time as the end of all evil brought about by God through his Beloved and all his beloved.

*****

So, in Advent, Christians prepare themselves to be with the Beloved more intentionally.  They prepare themselves for Christmastide and beyond.  They prepare themselves in joyful and truthful turning to God.  They prepare themselves in slowing down to remember whose they are and what kingdom they are citizens of.  They prepare themselves to remain more often and more fully aware of the abiding presence of the loving God in themselves, in each other, and in all creation.

If this sounds good, let’s consider being Christians again this Advent.  We will prepare ourselves to live in the Kingdom of God at Christmas and forever more.  We will put ourselves in God’s hands as instruments for a renewed creation in the midst of what is and what is to come.  The timeline can seem fuzzy and that’s OK.  You’re in God’s hands, you’re in God’s time.

Have a blessed Advent. 

Come Lord Jesus, Come!

*****

Advent 2 B - Dec 4, 2011 - Julian

St John's, Kingston, NY --- Br. Julian Mizelle, OHC
Advent 2, Year B - Sunday, December 4, 2011

Isaiah 40:1-11
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

An Advent Wilderness

It is a real joy for me to be with you today; to join you in worship and to share in this holy season of Advent. Honestly, St. John’s feels like my second spiritual home. I know so many of you from the Monastery, from the Education for Ministry program, and your work and ministry with Angel Food. And now you’ve welcomed me to your pulpit, you’ve welcomed me to share my journey in Contemplative Prayer, you’ve welcomed me like family. It is a spiritual bond that I truly treasure.

It is as if we are working backwards through Advent this year. Last Sunday our Lectionary pointed us to apocalyptic events and Christ second coming. Today we have the opening prologue to Mark’s gospel and there are no birth stories to linger at.We meet not one but two prophets speaking to us from the wilderness. This backward movement through the days of Advent may strike us as odd but it will ultimately point us toward the coming of the Christ child. It does point us toward the manger where we will get our first glimpses of light, life and love. It does point us toward new hope, peace, and joy.

But before we arrive at the foot of the manger we must first go through the travail of the wilderness. The wilderness, which can seduce us with its beauty and its majesty, has many faces. In one part of the country it is dense with forest and lush vegetation which delight all of our senses. In another part of the country it is stark and barren and seems to purge us of any affectation. All the while it holds a grandeur that takes our breath away. If you have ever visited some of our great National Parks out west, especially those in southern Utah, you know of the grandeur of which I speak. The wilderness is a place of wonder and exploration. It is also a place of respite and rejuvenation. Unless, of course, we become lost in it. Then it is transformed into a place of dread and terror. A place where all hope can be lost. The wilderness is a place that supports life only if we possess the survival skills necessary to navigate its mysteries. Without those survival skills we are at the mercy of a disinterested, even hostile, environment.

On this second Sunday of Advent the calm of our lives is startled awake by voices from the wilderness. With Isaiah we hear one crying out for the construction of a passable route through the desert; then from an entirely different time, even a different desert, we hear the voice of John the Baptist, our wild and wooly prophet, giving us an unsettling call to repentance. In fact, any honest look at all three of our scripture readings this morning bring us face to face with the issue of repentance.

Trust me, no guest preacher wants to go into a parish his first time and preach on repentance. Any homiletical professor will tell you there is no surer way to loose you audience. Mere mention of the word cause most people to roll their eyes back, shut down their hearing, or brace themselves for an olde time religion that is as worn out as its name. Apparently our attitudes and feelings about repentance are about as popular as they were in the time of John the Baptist and Isaiah: they only preached about it when they were out in the middle of nowhere.

What does this have to do with Advent? Everything! While our calendars may suggest that Advent is the season of preparation for the celebration of the Nativity, the Advent readings broaden our view and insist that we are really preparing for the coming of the reign of God in our lives. This backward march that begins with the second coming of Christ and ends on Christmas Day at the manger points us to the mystery of Advent. A mystery that links the historical coming of the promised Messiah with the coming of Christ into our own hearts and the coming of Christ again at the end of all time. A mystery that will ask us to pause and look into our hearts, our real and honest selves.

We are being called to prepare for a time when kindness and truth will meet, when justice and peace will kiss, when truth will spring out of the earth, and justice will look down from heaven. Now these are phrases that normally make us think of when the world “out there” will finally be set right by God. But I am talking about the world “in here”. I am talking about when kindness and truth will meet “in here”. When justice and peace will kiss “in here”. No I’m not talking about when the wars of distant lands will cease, I’m talking about the wars that rage within our own thoughts will cease. The conflicts, the wounds, the troubles, the hurts, the disappointments, the fears, the self loathing, the self hate—because this is the wilderness that most of us find ourselves lost in today. This is the wilderness where the good news of Christ cries out to touch and change our lives.

Advent is a time serious road construction—and we all know the joy that brings. Isaiah is not describing minor repairs, such as filling in potholes or repairing curbs. He is calling for major reconfiguration of the terrain: filling in valleys and leveling mountains; smoothing rugged land and rough country. He is calling for serious transformation of the landscape of our lives. It is a call to go in a new direction. Or as Fr. Thomas Keating so lovingly tells us it is a call to change the direction from where you are looking for happiness. That is how he defines repentance. It is when we get to that place where we say “this isn’t working anymore” and we turn around and go a new way.

One day I was on my way to Woodstock and came upon road construction and was detoured onto unfamiliar roads. Now I know this must be a guy thing but for some reason I thought I could figure out a better route than where the detour was sending me. After about 45 minutes of going in circles and ending up where I began, still blocked by road construction, I decided I would follow the detour signs. You know what the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome. How many times in our lives have we been trapped by this? It is not really the definition of insanity but it defines the human condition we find ourselves captive in.

This past week I found myself captive of an unexpected wilderness. It was by no means how I had envisioned I would spend my first week of this blessed time of Advent. A season I regular refer to as my favorite time of year. My wilderness sent me off to jury duty. And by wilderness I really don’t mean the interruption that jury duty brings. Changing plans, rearranging schedules, not having time to use it as I want to. I’m not even referring to the drudgery we all feel by the need to perform our civic duty, that task of doing something we “should” when we honestly would rather not.

The wilderness I’m speaking of is when you are called to step out of your own life and into the lives and events that belong to another world. A world where tragic things happened and a series of events have transpired all culminating in bringing a roomful of strangers together in a courtroom. So my first week of Advent was not filled with times of Contemplative Prayer, saying my Rosary, joining my monastic community in our daily celebration of the eucharist, not even joining in the daily office to chant the Psalms. My first week of Advent did not give time for the spiritual reading I had planned or the practice of spiritual disciplines that I look forward to in this blessed season. By Friday I was dry, parched, empty. Mentally exhausted, spiritually drained I said God “why?”. Friday evening I walked out of the court house in uptown Kingston and found myself standing right in front of a monument to Sojourner Truth. That great abolutionist who marched up the very steps of that court house and won the right to a trial which resulted in the return of her son from a slave owner that had hauled her son all the way to Alabama. She got custody of her son back and spent the rest of her life to bring an end to slavery and injustice. The inscription on the monument quotes Sojourner Truth speaking from her own wilderness: “I talk with God and He talks with me”.

“I talk with God and He talks with me”. That is a divine relationship at its very purest. That is the conviction of one who has turned around and walked in a new direction to find her happiness. That is one who went through the wilderness with the only survival skill that will bring you through it: clutching God’s hand. That is one who made a new path and toppled mountains of injustice, even the injustice she found within herself and found the light, life and love within the manger of her own heart.

“I talk with God and He talks with me”.
Have a blessed Advent. Amen.