The Still Point

A Time of Meditation and Reflection

First Sunday of Advent

... At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance...

 

T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

            Peace on each one who comes in need; 

            Peace on each one who comes in joy. 

            Peace on each one who offers prayers; 

            Peace on each one who offers song. 

            Peace of the Maker, Peace of the Son, 

            Peace of the Spirit, the Triune One.

 

Opening Prayer

Come, O come, Emmanuel; you are the way, the truth, and the life; Come, living Savior, come to your world which waits for you. Hear this prayer for your love’s sake. Amen.

Scripture Reading          Luke 1:5-19

And it was in the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechari′ah, who belonged to the lineage of Abi′jah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both were righteous before God, living according to all the commandments and righteous requirements of the Sovereign God; blamelessly. Now, they had no child because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in age. And it happened that when Zechari′ah was serving as a priest and his order had the service before God, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to offer incense, and he entered the sanctuary of the Holy God. The whole assembly of the people were praying outside at the time of the incense offering. There appeared to Zechari′ah a messenger of the Living God,  standing on the right of the altar of incense. Now Zechari′ah was shaken when he saw the messenger, and fear overwhelmed him. But the messenger said to him, “Fear not, Zechari′ah, for your prayer is heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. You will have joy and gladness, and many at his birth will rejoice, for he will be great in the sight of the Sovereign God.  Wine and strong drink he must not drink.  He will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb. He will turn many of the women and men of Israel to the Holy One, their God.  He will go before the Holy God  with the spirit and power of Eli′jah, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to prepare for the Redeeming God a people made ready.” Then Zechari′ah said to the messenger, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my woman is getting old herself.” The messenger answered him, saying, “I am Gabriel. I stand before God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to proclaim to you this good news.”

 

Poem: “The Hope I know”                                      by Thomas Centolella

doesn’t come with feathers.
It lives in flip-flops and, in cold weather,
a hooded sweatshirt, like a heavyweight
in training, or a monk who has taken
a half-hearted vow of perseverance.
It only has half a heart, the hope I know.
The other half it flings to every stalking hurt.
It wears a poker face, quietly reciting
the laws of probability, and gladly
takes a back seat to faith and love,
it’s that many times removed
from when it had youth on its side
and beauty. Half the world wishes
to stay as it is, half to become
whatever it can dream,
while the hope I know struggles
to keep its eyes open and its mind
from combing an unpeopled beach.
Congregations sway and croon,
constituents vote across their party line,
rescue parties wait for a break
in the weather. And who goes to sleep
with a prayer on the lips or half a smile
knows some kind of hope.
Though not the hope I know,
which slinks from dream to dream
without ID or ally, traveling best at night,
keeping to the back roads and the shadows,
approaching the radiant city
without ever quite arriving.                                                           

Meditation

This is the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a period of contemplation, examination, and preparation for the great Feast of Christmas. As the world around us bustles with the noise of a Christmas that has already arrived in stores and on credit card statements, Advent is an invitation for us to enfold ourselves in the quiet settling-in of the dark winter season. Advent invites us to rest, to be silent, and in the silence, to listen, to watch, to wait for what is already and not yet coming into the world. The noise of commercial Christmas has a kind of attitude of certainty to it, an exclamation point declaring what time it is. Our practice of Advent invites us into an attitude of wondering, a question mark, a curiosity to peer at what's underneath all the noise of our day and age.

 

It is in this attitude of quiet wondering that we find our first word of the Advent season, the word we hold in prayer as we light the first candle on the Advent wreath: Hope. I find it helpful to think of hope, not as a feeling, but as a practice. These days, with so much suffering and turmoil around us, it seems impossible to conjure a feeling of hope. Yet hope is that practice of peering behind the veil of what-is to seek a glimpse of what-could-be. Hope is what turns our heads to ask one more question when the diagnosis, or decision, or pronouncement, has already been made. Hope is in the "but what about"s and "I wonder"s of our daily life. Hope lifts us from the sleep of our certainty that things are a binary black and white and opens us to the technicolor spectrum of possibility. Hope is what enables us to behold what is passing away and still be aware of the activity of a God who is always making all things new. Hope is what helps us to sit in the midst of our crumbling human institutions and watch for the kingdom of God that Jesus says is "near". What grows green and new in this leaf-crumbling time of desiccation and decay? When we commit to the practice of hope, we draw near to the answer.

 

Questions for Reflection

- Consider your usual holiday traditions and habits. How do you accept the quiet invitation in Advent to hope? What helps you remember to slow down? What is asking to be let go of? How do you still the noise of the season so that you can peer behind the veil?

- When you see or hear the word hope, what comes to mind? Is it an easy or hard thing for you to feel like you can access? What would help you access it more easily? Can you think of a time when you truly felt hopeful? What was happening? How did you hold on to that hope?

- Call to mind a hopeful person or hopeful image. What is it about this person or image that you find hopeful? Make this person or image your icon of hope during Advent. Write down their name, print out the picture, or draw/paint it, and set it near your candle or wreath, if you have one, to be a visible sign of a hope you recognize.

Prayers

We bring before God someone whom we have met or remembered today 

We bring to God someone who is hurting tonight and needs our prayer

We bring to God a troubled situation in our world 

We bring to God, silently, someone whom we find hard to forgive or trust

We bring ourselves to God that we might grow in generosity of spirit, clarity of mind, and warmth of affection

We offer our thanks to God for the blessings in our lives

We name before God those who have died.

 

Now to God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or conceive, by the power which is at work among us, be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all ages. Amen.              

Accept our thanks for all you have done, O God. Our hands were empty, and you filled them.

 May Christ’s holy, healing, enabling Spirit be with us every step of the way, and be our guide as our road changes and turns, and the blessing of God our Creator, Redeemer and Giver of life be among us now and remain with us forever. Amen.

 Reflections this month offered by: Kathleen Schmidt