Every Day In A Life

"And how could we endure to live... if we were 

always crying 

for one day or one year to come back 

- if we did not know that every day in a life 

fills the whole life 

with expectation 

and memory 

and that these are that day?"

~ C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet

Inviting the Sun

“Maybe I’m a fool

Repeatedly

Inviting the sun to shine at night,

But I can hardly help myself

See

And, I’m not even sure it’s not right.

So, for the now I’ll pine,

Prayerful, content,

Knowing the dawn must be ‘soon.’

Not knowing, really,

What that even meant,

But thanking Him for this moon.”

~ Michael, “To: The Sun… With Love.”

(Thanks for letting me repost, macamidedieu.)  

Open Every Door

“Not knowing when the dawn will come

I open every door;”

~ Emily Dickinson, Dawn

Proclaiming Hope

It’s Christmas Eve and I’m sitting cozy and full in my family’s living room.  I’m wearing an elegant green t-shirt I got this year.  It has a picture of an angel soaring and singing to the world about hope, Hope that is swirled across the front of the shirt in glittering gold.  This year I don’t just want to wear hope; I want to be like the angel, proclaiming hope. 

And this year it’s been easy for two reasons.  First, I see hope everywhere.  Second, I see desperate need for hope everywhere.  All over I see God faithfully pursuing people.  I see Him giving extravagant gifts in tiny moments.  In so many lives I see people on the edge of giving up, wanting to, tired, struggling in the dimness of life to focus on truth.  Truth that God is.  That God cares.  That though it seems long, God answers. 

So here’s the theme of my Christmas cards and clothing and my pleading prayers for my friends and my world:

Moments after the need for a Savior broke our bloodline, God promised that the Serpent would be crushed by the Seed of the Woman.  More prophecies came here and there along the way.  Maybe Eve thought her firstborn would be the one.  Maybe Abraham thought in his own day he would see salvation.  Hebrews 11 runs through their names like a chant of people road-worn but promise-serving.  God was good to remind them each He had not forsaken them, that He was still near and still powerful even though the great fulfillments lay over the horizon.  These all died in faith, not receiving the promises, but duly honored in the memories of God’s people for faith in the God who is worthy, the God who does reward those who diligently seek Him. 

4000 years go by between Eve’s fatal bite, deceived by the whispering of the enemy of God.  And one of my favorite parts of the Christmas story is the glimpse we get into the lives of people around them: people too soul-poor to quit hoping for the Savior, no matter how long He took to come.  Simeon the prophet waits in the temple for his eyes to see the light of the world in human flesh.  Anna meets Jesus and then the old widow runs to a group of people – what was this group like?? – who had been waiting.  Waiting.  After 4000 years of no Messiah yet, they dared to wait. 

And Jesus came.  The song says “the weary world rejoices”.  Jesus did come.  After all.  It had been so long that some forgot.  That those who remembered were so tempted to doubt God wouldn’t come through.  But He did.  Because He so loved the world. 

Hope is like that.  After a long time of not happening, something finally does.  Be on the watch for it. 

Merry Christmas!  

Imprisoned

"A prison cell in which one waits, hopes, 

... and is completely dependent 

on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened 

from the outside, 

is not a bad picture of Advent." 

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Spins On

"Until such a time as the world ends, 

we will act as though it intends to spin on." 

~ The Avengers

Again

I disagree, that it is insane to do the same thing over again and again, expecting different results.  I think this is very often what hope is.  Hope is not as simple as, "If I do A, the next thing that happens will be B."  It is rather, "If I do A, at some point B will happen - at least, B isn't impossible, and B is what I want to happen, and A does have some likelihood to contribute to it happening - and A is less likely to get in the way of it happening."  And sometimes, hope is doing A every moment until that moment when B arrives.

We humbly acknowledge that our idea of what constitutes "results" might be shortsighted. A parent sings the ABC's to their child every night for a week, and the child still doesn't know what letter comes after "c".  But sing the ABC's hundreds more times, and the child will know.  Is it insane to keep trying after that first week?

This course of action is especially hopeful, I think, when other people are involved.  The child must be waited on to learn.  God must be waited on to act.