As I sit with the Scripture readings on this first day of Advent, I notice there is an invitation here that has to do with minding the state of our hearts.
Since the election I have been mostly staying away from the news. As far as I can tell, we are headed in a direction that will not bode well for the most vulnerable people on this planet nor even for most. I do not believe that handing the government over to billionaires, religious patriarchs and people who seek to dismantle regulations is going to lead to an increase in care or justice for those who need it most. It is, thus, easy to approach January in a state of “fright in anticipation of what is coming into the world.”
For years, I have been telling my church to adopt an Advent discipline of getting up before dawn to watch the sunrise. I encourage all of us to practice sitting in the dark, starting at about 5:30am, facing East. That’s it. No need for righteous prayers or elaborate meditations. Just sit and watch. If you can do it for an hour, an hour and a half, or even two you’ll see something that happens in the world and perhaps even in your heart.
Years ago, I had an experience that inspired this practice. It was shortly after 9/11 and my first son was not yet two. I did not yet believe in God though I was seeking and without that firm grounding in a knowing that love always holds, I was struggling with despair after the violence of that horrible September day. I saw the danger of the world. I saw the violence of our government's response and knew it would beget more.
I also knew about the horrors of poverty - the underside of the economic system. I was not confused about how dire the world situation is. As a new mother who desired to protect and inspire my child I wondered how I could raise my child in a world like that.
Even so, I believed in goodness and in Martin Luther King’s vision that the moral arc of the history bends toward justice. I longed to be part of that bending, one of the many people on this earth who try to create a better world. And so, I woke each morning at 5, trying to pray.
One night a thunderstorm moved through my town, rattling my toddler son. I had to close blinds in the apartment, blocking out the world to get his young body to settle and, eventually, go to sleep. Imagine my surprise then when the next morning, he insisted I open the blinds, looked out into the same darkness that had terrified him only a few hours earlier, and with delight pronounced, “Sun Coming!” There were no hints of it yet - no line of pink on the horizon. The night wasn’t even turning grey, as it does when things are starting to turn. No, it was into the night that my young child insisted, “Sun coming!”
How did he know?
I learned something about Advent that day - that it is possible to adopt a posture of the heart that orients East - in a spirit of confidence, even in the darkest part of the night.
My son is a young adult now. Our journey together in recent years has been incredibly difficult as we have been navigating the emergence of a very serious and chronic illness in his life. The risks of what could happen are real. As is the grief, exhaustion and fear that comes with an illness such as his.
It is not the whole story.
Years of walking with my son through this difficult chapter has been working on my heart, helping me to learn again a truth I now believe: love holds even when something terrible is happening. Focusing there is how I get through. Focusing there helps me to see the kindness offered by nurses, friends, doctors, family, colleagues, strangers. Focusing there has helped me develop courage, patience, resilience and flexibility beyond what I thought I could do. Focusing there has helped me to see how profoundly my son and I are held in a web of love.
I don’t know what is coming in January. I don’t know how the world will change or when. But I do know that Advent offers an invitation to all of us strengthen our hearts and recommit to the work of love.
So I started my Advent practice this morning sitting in the dark, grateful for all the things I have learned with my son.
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