Are You Ready?

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consciousness, preparation, ready, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

As I sit this morning waiting for words that will satisfy the need of today I become aware that the heat is on in our house. I’m not speaking metaphorically but literally. I can hear the furnace churning away through the vents in the floor. It’s just 37 degrees (F) outside – startling for those of us who are not aware of the turning going on out there. How did it get to be the last third of September? Do I really need to be trying on warmer clothes to see if they fit? Must I ready my brain and my heart for the shift to all that the change of season means? We’re on the verge of the autumnal equinox (9/22 – next Tuesday!) after which we cannot deny the shorter days. How will life be different this year as we move toward fall and then winter in the northern hemisphere? Where will we be at year’s end? And what of our neighbors to the south? Is there more than the weather to consider for all of us going forward?

I’m aware of a rising consciousness in me that warns not to wait, allowing myself to float along the days. (I think of the squirrels who will soon be gathering their nuts for winter.) What preparations will be necessary to meet the challenges of the endings and beginnings this time? I think it might be wise to begin shifting, to wake up, open our eyes and say “yes!”.

Preparations

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compassion, encouragement, new understanding, Philippians, preparation, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, waiting

We were just talking in our kitchen about by-gone days at the convent where, on the vigil of Easter (that’s today), there was major cleaning going on in every corner of the house. The weather spirits seem to know that we should renew that practice – although some of us have been working at it for weeks now. The sun is out and is tricking us into believing that it’s warm outside. The truth is that at present the temperature is just above 25F degrees. That makes it difficult to even consider flinging open the windows to start the cleaning. But it seems that cleaning will, in fact, be the order of the day.

While we wait for the great feast of Easter, hoping for a present day resurrection, it will be fitting to do so in quiet, in reverence for this opportunity of grace. How have we thus far become accustomed to inaction or to differently active days? Has our quotient of generosity, even in our thinking, been stretched toward our neighbors? Are we yet aware of the magnitude of the global — one might say “cosmic”– shift that we are experiencing?

As we wipe away cobwebs in high corners or climb to reach dust on ceiling fans will we go at the same time deep inside ourselves so as not to waste the opportunities that are hidden there? As we polish furniture or (even better) mirrors, will we look at our image to see if we have changed at all over the last month? As we recall Paul’s words to the Philippians who said that Jesus “did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at, but rather emptied himself…,” we might back up a few verses to see the advice that Paul gave just before that comment about how Jesus considered his fate. Perhaps it’s just the thing for a day of clearing and readying ourselves for a different kind of Easter celebration. Paul said:

In the name of the encouragement you owe me in Christ, in the name of the solace that love can give, of fellowship in spirit, compassion, and pity, I beg you: make my joy complete by your unanimity, possessing the one love, united in spirit and ideals. Never act out of rivalry or conceit: rather let all parties think humbly of others as superior to themselves, each of you looking to others’ interests rather than your own. (PHIL 2:1-4)

As the sun rises to new heights, may we do the same so that we may shine at the end of this day in new understanding of our place and role in this unique and precious moment of time.

Prepare!

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Advent, Christmas, consciousness, Incarnation, Jesus, Messiah, prayers, preparation, prepare ye the way of the Lord, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Three times in the readings for this second Sunday of Advent we hear the call to “Prepare the way of the Lord!” We are accustomed to this directive but I always question how it is that we are preparing. Is the rush to Christmas shopping the way? The thought of gift-giving is certainly part of the thinking about that activity but it has become such a frenzy in our culture that I wonder how many of us stop to think about the genesis of the custom. Here are some questions for us – me included – for today’s reflection about preparing.

1. Do we really see this time of Advent as a true opportunity to go deeply into the mystery of the Incarnation – the entry of God’s promise into this realm of life?
2. Will we understand on Christmas day what the coming of Christ might mean at this moment to our individual lives as well as to our world?
3. What difference will our preparation make?
4. Because Jesus did not “fit the bill” of the Messiah for those waiting for the throne of David to be restored, only the really astute ones, those who intuited who he was (like Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna), really noticed his coming. What about us? Do we recognize the possibility that exists in our day? The possibility that the times warrant a new kind of Christmas, a new coming of Christ into the world?
5. Have we been preparing for the in-breaking of God to shake us up and create us anew? Is our consciousness, our recognition, such that we might recognize the Christ hidden in our neighbors? Our co-workers? Our families? Our church community?
6. In our preparation, have we set aside some special time to pray, to ask for the Christ presence to be born in our hearts so that we might face the challenges that are so evident and in need of our care and attention?
7. Do we expect our prayers to be answered?

Enough! Let us get about preparing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moving Toward…

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Advent, awake, awareness, Christmas, darkness, heart, Isaiah, joy, path, preparation, prophet, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today begins the season of Advent for Christians. The word itself is composed of the verb to come and the preposition meaning to. The prophet Isaiah speaks in the first reading for liturgy of his vision of all nations streaming toward the mountain of the Lord (IS 2:1-5) to be instructed in God’s ways and to learn to walk on God’s paths, beating their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, never again to train for war. In all that follows, we are urged to wake up in order to be ready to join in that day when God’s kingdom will appear. St. Paul tells us that we know what time it is; we know the need to wake up and “throw off the works of darkness,” conducting ourselves “properly as in the day.” (ROM 13:11-14) Matthew isn’t so sure about our awareness. He says that we don’t know the day that the Lord will come. “Therefore”, he says, “stay awake!”(MT 24:37-44)

To us, Advent is the time of waiting – of coming toward Christmas. We know when it’s coming; we’ve been told for awhile now how many shopping days remain before it arrives and millions of people have been very busy over the past few days feverishly preparing by spending billions, yes billions, of dollars to be ready for the big event. I apologize if I seem jaded about it all, but it becomes clearer and clearer to me as I age that the best gifts for Christmas are those of the heart, not the pocketbook. While it is true that the giving of material gifts to our loved ones can be a precious moment of exchange and meaning, it seems necessary as well to find a balance in our preparation. It is, after all, the Christ event, the Incarnation, that is the reason for all our preparation.

Today as I reflect on the readings and the world in which we now live, the questions that arise for me are the following. What do I hope we are “coming to” personally and corporately in our home, our country, our Church and our world? What am I doing to move toward the reign of God that Jesus came to reveal? Am I awake to what is really happening? Am I awake to what I am really contributing – or not? How best can I prepare for Christmas, internally and externally? Am I honestly ready for my daily prayer to be, “Come, Lord Jesus!” so that I will recognize and truly celebrate the gifts of Christmas when it dawns?

May our preparation be serious and joyful in the knowledge of what is possible for us – inside and out.

 

 

 

 

 

“Coming To”

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Advent, be alert, be watchful, come to, Corinthians, grace, Jesus, Latin, Mark, Paul, preparation, prepare, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wake up

Today is the first day of the season of Advent, a time of preparation for the great feast of Christmas when we celebrate the incarnation – the birth in flesh – of Jesus, the Christ. Paul is quite encouraging this morning in his greeting to the Corinthians as he writes (in part), Grace to you and peace! You are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of Jesus Christ…He will keep you firm to the end…God is faithful. (1Cor 1:3-9) Paul had already met Christ in a flash of insight, a personal revelation that turned his life around. If it could happen to him, a former persecutor of Christians, it could probably happen to anyone although he was also convinced that Christ was coming back soon for the whole world. Accordingly, he could be speaking to us today.

Jesus was a bit more challenging in his words. “Be watchful! Be alert!” he says. “You do not know when the time will come. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.” (MK 13:33-37) Jesus was telling a story about a master who went on a trip and left his servants in charge. In all similar parables, servants were strongly advised to be ready to greet the master upon his return. Just as in the first instance, we could be the audience for this message.

In the first reading, Paul is confident of a good outcome because of God’s fidelity. In the gospel the challenge of fidelity is ours. I learned in my youth as a Girl Scout to be prepared and I have always loved this season as a chance to settle into the quiet of winter and reflect on what it might mean each year to welcome Jesus more deeply into my life. This morning as I thought about the word – Advent – that characterizes this time of waiting and preparation as well as the stance of expectation, I played with the Latin – one of my favorite subjects in high school because of my stellar teacher, Sister Thomas Aquinas. The preposition ad gives the verb “to come” a nuance that focuses us on the arrival, i.e; to come to = to arrive. What I experienced this morning was another sense of to come to which was what Jesus was talking about this morning. “Wake up!” he was saying. “Recognize what’s going on here! Prepare your heart because I’m already here. It’s time to notice your potential for transformation. It’s time to come to!“

Ready?

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Advent, alert, Christ, Christmas rush, consumerism, end times, Jesus, Maranatha, preparation, reason for the season, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

This is my second try at saying anything worthwhile today that has not been said by wiser people. I was lamenting all the focus on consumerism that has blossomed into “Black Friday” beginning on Thanksgiving Day or before and continuing at least until the end of today (which is clearly not Friday any more) and then morphing into “Cyber Monday” when we can find the best deals on everything on the internet. It is rather depressing to me, a person who loves to give gifts, but who is keenly aware of the vast economic diversity in our country and elsewhere.

Today is the last day of the Church year and the gospel reading is sobering. Jesus is warning his listeners not to be spending their days in “carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life” such that “the day of the Lord will catch you by surprise.” (LK 21:34) Although he is speaking of the end times we might consider that tomorrow is the beginning of the season of Advent. The psalm refrain announces that by crying out Maranatha! (Come, Lord!) If we are caught up in the anxiety-producing frenzy of the “Christmas rush” we may miss the opportunity to focus ourselves in preparation for the “reason for the season.” You can see, perhaps, why I am stumbling in an effort to say something unique about all this. So I’ll leave it there, with just one question for us all:

How will I create in myself a state of alertness for the next 25 days that will find me calling out to Christ from a place of readiness for his arrival in my heart?