Advent 1.4: Comfort?

What brings you comfort? Is it a person, a season, a time of day, a certain meal? That blanket that you keep at the foot of your bed, the cat or dog who greets you at home? Of course, it's probably not just one of these, but a mixture of many. Sit me down on my couch with the red fleece blanket wrapped around me and my husband in his chair and our dog at his feet, my belly full and a cold and rainy day outside with nowhere to be, maybe Parks and Rec or Harry Potter on TV, or a Louise Penny mystery in my hands--and comfort I will have.

But is that truly comfort?

Comfort, comfort ye, my people
Speak ye peace, thus saith our God.
Comfort those who sit in darkness,
Mourning 'neath their sorrow's load.
Speak ye to Jerusalem
Of the peace that waits for them!
Tell her that her sins I cover,
And her warfare now is over.

I first learned this version (thanks, YouTube!) of Isaiah 40 when I was 15. Our youth choir sang it in worship on the fourth Sunday in Advent that year; my first semester of ninth grade had just ended, and boy was I relieved. It wasn't that I hated high school, but it had been a long and weary four months of transition--plus I had experienced my first short-term relationship and spent the short wintry evenings at lengthy swim meets.

All that is to say, I associate this hopeful tune and lyrics with that time--relief at being done with school, joy at having two weeks off to be with my family and friends and not worry about anything outside of that. In a word, comfort. In another word, peace.

Comfort and peace, for a 15-year-old white middle class girl in America.

I'm not disparaging myself for feeling that way 15 years ago, nor for what I count as comfort now. But I have realized that the comfort God, through Isaiah, is talking about does not equate to the superficial level of comfort that, in many ways, stems from privilege. The comfort these prophets speak of is bone-deep, far surpassing cozy afternoons on the couch. And as God incarnate brings this soul-filling, earth-shaking comfort, God also challenges us--particularly those who think we are pretty comfortable now--to look past what we see as comfortable and recognize that we need to do God's work toward making this deep comfort a reality for all.

In my Advent devotion today, we read from Isaiah 1:16-17: "cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow."

It is not a verse the American Christian world seems to be paying a lot of attention to right now.

On Facebook this morning, someone shared this tweet that hasn't stopped resonating for me:

All I can say is, "Amen."

Christmas (and Advent) is about God joining us on earth to understand our lives, our sorrows, our joys, our frustrations, our hardships. And it is about God bringing healing, full-hearted comfort. But if we're God's people on earth, if God came down and dwelt among us, then God must have also expected us to be bearers of that deep-seated comfort for our neighbors. May it be so.

Yea, her sins our God will pardon,
blotting out each dark misdeed.
All deserving divine anger,
God no more shall see nor heed.
She hath suffered many'a day,
now her griefs have passed away;
God will change her pining sadness
into ever-springing gladness.

Advent 1.3: Feeling your pain

I have two exercise gurus that I depend on these days. One is Emily, my fantastic yoga instructor. The other is Jessica, who you can work with, too! 

During yesterday's workout, a particularly tough one, Jessica exclaimed, "I am with you! Feeling your pain." And in that moment in late 2017, as we panted and hefted our 10-pound weights, it didn't matter that she was actually speaking those words on January 29, 2013 when the video was first published. It didn't matter that she wasn't physically in the room with us. I knew that in that moment nearly five years ago, she had been exactly where we were (well, maybe a little more in shape since this is what she does for a living). She understood and had experienced the effort that we were putting into the exercise; in fact, much of the work I put into it was thanks to watching her own effort and hearing her encouragement on the other side of the camera.

I am with you! Feeling your pain, says the Lord our God, who feels our pain because God became flesh and dwelt among us. God is with us in the workouts of life, lifting the dumb bells, as we sweat and groan and yell at the exercise instructor on the screen who can't hear us (sorry, Jessica). And though God can hear us when we yell, in whatever space or time zone we're in, we don't always feel like that's the case. Sometimes, God makes us wait it out, push ourselves to the brink of throbbing muscles and pounding heart--but God is still there, experiencing it with us.

And then, no matter how interminable the exertion may seem, there suddenly comes the calm--the transition from lifting to stretching, from groaning to gratitude that we have bodies that can do even half of this good work. And we're stronger for tomorrow.

In yoga class, Emily often says that learning to breathe through intense and difficult stretches (pigeon, anyone?) will help us learn to breathe through intense and difficult life situations. I love this, the idea that applying our life breath so purposefully on an individual level, when it's just our mind and our body one-on-one, can strengthen our responses when we're out in the world among our fellow humans.

May our breath move us forward into this sometimes difficult time of waiting. And may God always be with us, through the struggle and the calm.

[Photo by Ricardo Estefânio on Unsplash]

Advent 1.2: Of sights reseen and songs reheard

Yellow or green?

My husband leaves early in the morning, long before the sun has even thought to peep over the horizon. His car has a specific rattle when he revs it up, one that I can typically hear from the other end of the house. But today, I drifted in and out of consciousness and missed his departing noise completely. It always bothers me when I don't hear it--how could I have fallen back asleep so fast, just underneath the surface of awaking? How could I miss it? And then, within seconds of wondering, I am falling again, hearing nothing but my odd pre-sunrise dreams.

What am I asleep to? What am I not hearing?

This fall, I took a nonfiction class where one of the assignments was to write about a place. I waxed eloquent about our extended family beach cottage, painted cheerful butter yellow, cozy and sandy and falling out-of-style amidst high rises and mansions sprouting up around it. Feeling nostalgic, I sent it to the cousin who owns the property. She wrote back, "I very much enjoyed your essay, but I offer you one correction. The cottage is not yellow, nor has it ever been. It is green."

What am I mis-seeing? What am I not seeing at all?

On All Saints Sunday, we always begin worship with hymn number 711, one of my favorites of all time, which welcomes tears into my eyes from the very first chord. I've always loved the last stanza especially: From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast, through gates of pearl stream in the countless host... I always loved the idea of gates constructed of "pearl stream," whatever that was. A heavenly material indeed, maybe made from some divine oyster. Two weeks later, we sang the very same hymn, triumphant in the midst of deafening sorrow at a dear friend's unexpected funeral. From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast, through gates of pearl stream in the countless host... And after 30 years, in this moment, it suddenly clicked. Through gates of pearl/stream in the countless host. Noun/verb.

What am I reading or understanding one way that needs to be examined differently?

These questions aren't meant to imply that my ways of hearing (or not), seeing, and understanding all of these things have been wrong. I kind of love my creativity in these--especially the gates of pearl stream bit. But they do remind me that I can fall asleep easily, that I can root myself so firmly in a version or definition of something that needs to be re-looked at, from another perspective.

In Advent (and always), keep awake, keep alert--be mindful of the pieces of the picture I'm missing.