ADVENT 2018 We are entering the season of waiting. How can we be less anxious in our waiting? How can we be active in our waiting but not exhausted?

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1 ADVENT 2018 We are entering the season of waiting. How can we be less anxious in our waiting? How can we be active in our waiting but not exhausted? There is no chance that I m setting us up for a How To or solutions to these questions they are questions I m legitimately asking this season. Maybe it is due to some recent life experiences combined with some readings I ve been engaged with, but I keep coming back to the reality of complexity. Life isn t always and solely original we see a lot of overlap of experience with others; a lot of wisdom that can be applied to our situations that others have mined thank God. But overall, life is intricate. It can feel pretty unique when we are deep into certain experiences. And we don t face just one thing at a time either. Life is layered. Some layers are blurry and some clear. Not all one thing. Some are amazing and some are loathsome. Life is... well, it s complicated. Hope is a word dropped on us at Christmas. We use it. We see it. And we sing about it. But the Advent hope is not some practice in being oblivious to the complexity of life. Hope is not an ignoring of what is complicated. Hope is not a slogan that cheapens the pain or even joy that we are in right now. Hope, real and applied hope, is woven within the struggles, within the beauty, and redefines it. Advent hope reminds us that there is a not yet component to our days. We hope for a world, for a life, for a person, for a group, and yet we don t always see what we hope for. In fact, maybe our hopes become more informed, and adjusted (this is an act of deconstruction). There is a story we engage with this season. A story of a pre-marriage teen pregnancy. A new family uprooted into a new place without roots. On one hand, they encounter a huge cosmic event recognized by royalty, politicians, country ranchers and even the supernatural, but on the other hand, the event is obscured and uncelebrated by the masses. Vague proclamations with little or no instructions lead this odd family to make everyday decisions as the grapple with the depth of what they know to be true of themselves and their baby (and their world). Advent places us squarely within our complexities, our confusions, our world beyond the black and white grid we (often) feel most at home in. Can we hope from where we are? Can we hope but resist escapism? Can we hope and firmly plant our feet in this day? Can we hold to a promise that we may need to redefine and re-understand throughout our days? This is Advent hope.

2 The first great mystery God asks us to encounter is the mystery of waiting. - Gertrude Mueller Nelson Rather than truly immersing myself in the mystery that is waiting--i have often approached waiting as the great barrier to the next important moment. Let s face it don t we spend a lot of time waiting on some thing, some one, some answer, some date, some response, some part of life that is ever before us the carrot that keeps our gaze on the horizon rather than noticing that life is happening all around us? At some point the question plagued me, What if most of actual life includes the long waiting rather than that important thing we ve hoped for? What if the in between time is what makes up real living? Would that mean that I need to embrace the waiting as real life not simply as a holding pattern until resolution comes? Maybe it s within the mystery of waiting that life is most real. I think to get a grasp of what it means to truly live within what may be the majority of our life the waiting we must redefine mystery from the unknown to something bigger. Richard Rohr speaks of mystery in a way that has potential to reshape our thinking. Mystery is not something you cannot understand but it is something that is endlessly understandable! It is multilayered and pregnant with meaning and never totally admits to closure and resolution. Complexity, mystery and hope. It s not hard to see how two of those are included. But hope may not be as obvious. It kind of seems like hope is the third wheel that doesn t quite belong. However, the story of Christmas seems to say, among the complexity and mystery, we can still hope. That hope may be reworked and reframed, it might be re-interpreted and re-understood over and over again. That doesn t strip the hope of true meaning. It might just mean that the Saviour we thought would come in royalty and glamour will be born in all the quiet, misunderstanding, and disguise of a a teen giving birth to an audience of barnyard animals, dirty ranchers, and astronomers. We know that was a total upsidedown-ing of the hope that was woven in the hearts of an entire culture by hundreds of years of prophecies and petitions. We are invited also to keep using our willingness to embrace complexity and our longing to become more and more conscious to reveal what can be. - Louis Savary on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Take in the readings during advent as a way to remind yourself that COMPLEXITY, MYSTERY, and HOPE can live in the same moment. It s not comfortable. It will necessitate deconstructing our hope. It may even mean facing the reality that our hope has become our god. Hope is here to embrace, but never to grasp endlessly as a replacement for the Divine. As you read the stories, think about how hope accompanies the complexity and mystery of the moment. Find comfort in this. Share with one another where your hope may be in the process of being reassembled and reengaged. Or if hope is more elusive, face even this as your Advent reflection. Why do you find hope impossible? What might reignite hope? Where is the barrier you find to hope most daunting? Share with your household, with our community.

3 TO LOVE THE NOT-YET As Sarah waited 90 years for a son to fulfill God s promise; We wait in hope for what we thought had been spoken to us; As Moses waited 40 years in the desert; We wait for emptiness and humility; As the Prophets waited 1000 years of salvation promises; We wait for signs of presence; As Mary waited 9 months of her 14 years for the child of God; We feel the birth-pains, yet fear for the child; As John the Baptist waited scanning the crowds for knowing eyes; We long for an experience of the Divine. As Christ waited 30 years of creeping time 40 days in the throes of temptation; 3 years in the midst of misunderstanding; 3 days until the resurrection... So now, we wait. It is our turn to toil on leveling mountains and straightening paths; It is our turn to watch time s horizon; It is our turn to hope that he who promised is faithful; It is our turn to wait for His return. - adapted from Signs of Emergence by Kester Brewin We have been talking a lot about an evolutionary spirituality the ongoing evolution of everything and this is where hope and such things overlap. Louis Savary writes on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin writing, An evolutionary spirituality is always about striving toward the future that has yet to become manifest, to extend evolution s arrow toward ever-higher levels of complexity and consciousness. appearance of humanity on Earth, evolution developed a new dimension or expression. Evolution is no longer primarily about problem solving, adaptation, or natural selection; it is about us imagining a desired future, while living in the present and very aware of the current state of things, and choosing to create that desired future. The purpose of an evolutionary spirituality is to teach people how to envision the future that God envisions for creation and to choose to bring it about. It is summed up in the notyet question you may ask yourself each year and each day: What will I make my life about? Evolution is all about the future, what is yet to become, yet can only be imagined. With the We have now a question within Advent. It is one that deals with our hope and with our present. What will I make my life about?

4 Advent Reading One Luke 1:26-38 The Message (MSG) In the sixth month of Elizabeth s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to the Galilean village of Nazareth to a virgin engaged to be married to a man descended from David. His name was Joseph, and the virgin s name, Mary. Upon entering, Gabriel greeted her: Good morning! You re beautiful with God s beauty, Beautiful inside and out! God be with you. She was thoroughly shaken, wondering what was behind a greeting like that. But the angel assured her, Mary, you have nothing to fear. God has a surprise for you: You will become pregnant and give birth to a son and call his name Jesus. He will be great, be called Son of the Highest. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David; He will rule Jacob s house forever no end, ever, to his kingdom. Mary said to the angel, But how? I ve never slept with a man. The angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the Highest hover over you; Therefore, the child you bring to birth will be called Holy, Son of God. And did you know that your cousin Elizabeth conceived a son, old as she is? Everyone called her barren, and here she is six months pregnant! Nothing, you see, is impossible with God. And Mary said, Yes, I see it all now: I m the Lord s maid, ready to serve. Let it be with me just as you say. Then the angel left her. Advent Reading Two Isaiah 40:3-5: A voice of one calling: In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (NIV) Advent Reading Three Matthew 2:10-11 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. (NIV)

5 Advent Reading Four John 2:8-20 There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood. They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly, God s angel stood among them and God s glory blazed around them. They were terrified. The angel said, Don t be afraid. I m here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David s town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you re to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger. At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God s praises: Glory to God in the heavenly heights, Peace to all men and women on earth who please him. As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over. Let s get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us. They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed. Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they d been told! Advent Reading Five John 1:14 The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one. Everything was created through him; nothing not one thing! came into being without him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn t put it out... We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish. The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light. He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn t even notice. He came to his own people, but they didn t want him. But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-god selves. These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten. The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.