the dance of advent

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the Most High will overshadow you.  So that the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35) Communion, conception, incarnation, it has been the pattern of life with God from the very beginning of the Scriptures.  From the opening verses of Genesis, we see God in communion: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Three persons, one God, living in unspeakable love, unity, and intimacy.  It is communion of the best and deepest kind.  It is from this communion that creation was conceived and then brought into being (incarnation).  God was so full of love that he simply could not contain himself, so he created.  He spoke and things came to be.  His words became flesh, so to speak, ending in the focal point of all creation—man and woman, who were created in his image.  God breathed his divine breath into human beings and invited them into the life and laughter and love of the Trinity.  The whole reason we were created was so that we could experience what the saints and poets and pilgrims have called, “The Great Round Dance of Love.”  Thus, we were created out of communion, by communion, for communion.  Which means that in life with God, everything starts with communion: deep, intimate, encounter with the God who made us for himself.

This pattern comes to life beautifully during the season of Advent, when God sends the angel Gabriel to a teenage girl in Nazareth of Galilee to tell her of how he is finally, after all the years of waiting, going to come into the world to show us how fully and deeply and passionately we are loved.  In fact, Mary is going to be the very channel through with the Son of God will be born.  She is what scholars have called the theotokos, the God Bearer. 

“How will this be,” responds Mary, “since I am a virgin.”  And the angel’s response is priceless: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the Most High will overshadow you.  So the one to be born will be called the Son of God.”  Did you hear that?  All of this will start with communion.  The Holy Spirit is going to come upon Mary, and the Most High is going to overshadow her.  The word overshadow in the Greek means to envelop.  It is the same word that is used to describe the intimacy and the power and the glory of what happened to the disciples later on at the Mount of Transfiguration, when the cloud of God descended upon them and the voice of God spoke to them.  Mary was going to be enveloped by the Most High.  He was going to come to her and sweep her up in his divine embrace of love and power and glory.  That’s communion!  An encounter so intimate and so passionate that it would conceive new life inside of her.  “See, I am doing a new thing!” is how Isaiah describes it.  “Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:19) 

You see, where life with God is concerned, communion always leads to conception.  That’s just the way it’s designed to work.  In fact, it’s what ministry is all about.  God draws us into communion that is so deep and so intimate that it creates new life in us.  Then that new life is born into the world.  It worked that way in the creation story, it worked that way at the Annunciation, and it works that way for me and you.  Thus, the beauty of the Advent season is that God wants to conceive something of himself deep within each of us, so that he might be born anew and afresh into the world through us. 

Which begs the question: What is the new and beautiful thing he is conceiving in you these days?  And how does he want that new and beautiful thing to be born into a lost and broken world in a way that will bring new life and new hope?  So, during this season, make time and space for the Holy Spirit to come upon you and the Most High to envelop you.  Allow that encounter to conceive something new and beautiful within you.  And then ask God to show you how and where and when he wants that new and beautiful thing to be born into the world.  “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me as you have said.”  Come, Lord Jesus!

desolations

“Come and see the works of the Lord, the desolations he has brought on the earth.” (Psalm 46:8) God not only works through consolation, but also through desolation.  At times, he brings us down into the dust so that he can build us up.  He tears us apart so that he can put us back together.  Sometimes desolation accomplishes things in us that consolation cannot.  For instance, as a wise saint once said, “It takes a ton of humiliation to get one ounce of humility.”  But who wants to be humiliated?  Only someone who really wants to be humble.  The desolation of humiliation leads to the acquisition of true humility.

The fact is that it might be easier to “Come and see the works of the Lord” through desolation than it is through consolation.  Maybe we really are refined by fire.  Maybe trial and error, pain and suffering, sorrow and sadness, flaws and frailties, brokenness and neediness, form us into the image of Christ much more than comfort and ease.  The hard things in life are the ones that either make us or break us, or maybe even break us to make us.  To make us real, to make us vulnerable, to make us open, to make us true.

Maybe the thing God really cares about is making us humble and meek.  Maybe he is helping us become poor in spirit.  Maybe he takes us to the bottom in order to help us let go of our constant need to get to the top.  After all, the least are the greatest in the kingdom.  Maybe he’s trying to take us so low that we become unoffendable, holy fools, a non-anxious presence in this world.  Maybe he just wants us to trust him fully, to see that even in the times of desolation he is at work.  Maybe he just wants us to recognize that he both meets us and makes us through the desolations of our lives.

my newest book

 

Just released!

Stirrings: A Book of Poems

prologue: sounding the seasons

Tangled in time, we go by hints and guesses,

Turning the wheel of each returning year.

But in the midst of failures and successes

We sometimes glimpse the love that casts out fear.

Sometimes the heart remembers its own reasons

And beats a Sanctus as we sing our story,

Tracing the threads of grace, sounding the seasons

That lead at last through time to timeless glory.

From the first yearning for a Saviour's birth

To the full joy of knowing sins forgiven,

We start our journey here on God's good earth

To catch an echo of the choirs of heaven.

I send these out, returning what was lent,

Turning to praise each 'moment's monument'.

~Prologue: Sounding the Seasons by Malcom Guite

advent is coming

 "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice.  Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.  If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?  But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. 

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.  My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.  

O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.  He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins." (Psalm 130:1-8)

Advent is almost here.  On Sunday, we are all invited to embark once again on the sacred journey through the church calendar.  As you all know, Advent is the season of watching and waiting.  But if we start with watching and waiting we've missed a significant part of the process.  It goes much deeper than that, and Psalm 131 gives us a perfect example.  It is a psalm of longing, a psalm of yearning, and a psalm of expectation.  At its heart is what I've come to call the Advent Progression.  It goes something like this: mercy, wait, and hope.  Or, to use words that I have been reflecting on for the past year or so: desperation, dependence, and trust.  Or, to take it a little further: powerlessness, submission, and surrender.

We can simply start with waiting, but if we do we've started in the middle of the story.  There is no waiting without a deep recognition of our powerlessness and desperation, which is where the "cry for mercy" comes in.  That's what leads to submission.  We wait for God to speak, move, or act because we are totally dependent on him.  We can't redeem ourselves.  We can either keep trying to do so or we can totally surrender to him in trust and hope.  Thus, Advent must begin with recognizing and embracing our desperation and our powerlessness, so that we can wait for the Lord, in total submission, to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.  We must submit to his will, his ways, and his plan, which involves putting our hope in him and not in ourselves, our gifts, our friends, or our circumstances.  "My Soul waits for the Lord" because it can do nothing else.  That's Advent! 

So let us begin with mercy (powerlessness).  Let mercy lead us to waiting (submission).  And let waiting lead us to putting our hope in the Lord (surrender).  For with the Lord is unfailing love, and with him is full redemption.  Thanks be to God!

ecstasy

lost in wonder

mesmerized by

the beauty of you

staring deeply

unable to take in

the fullness of the

mystery before me

so i keep on gazing

as if i had a choice

you have me locked in

holding my eyes 

and my heart captive

with the depths

of your charms

my soul rises within

and takes flight

soaring effortlessly

on the winds

of your loveliness

spoiled from all else

a glance will no longer do

gazing is required

to experience the ecstasy

of your divine presence

all that’s left behind

is a burning fire

deep in my soul

i am consumed

i am all yours

i surrender

quiddity

my soul is bare

the leaves have fallen

the winter chill and

the autumn winds

have stripped away

the covering and

left me standing naked

only the real remains

the true me with all

my flaws and frailties

there is no hiding

only being

being who i am in

all its beauty

and all its brokenness

and that's okay