My Heart Is a Stable 


Jim thinks about Advent and the true meaning of the season. 

Today at Trinity Episcopal we lit the first Advent candle.

I had already announce that this Advent (the four Sundays before Christmas) I would be cooling my heels. No altar service: usually I am up there in the altar party doing something helpful. No major projects at home: nope, not planting bulbs, not cleaning the basement. No Christmas carols: turn off 99.1 radio. Let them Deck their Own Halls. No Christmas cards.

This Advent I would come to church early, read up on the readings, sit quietly, meditate. Dig out that counted cross stitch project that will never be finished. Sit by the fireplace and look out the window at the birds, squirrels, and, hopefully, some snow. Feel the year coming to an end. This year, we will end the year with a new moon, too!

And going to a church that pays attention to liturgical seasons helps out. This Sunday we read Isaiah 64:1-9. My EFM materials tell me that this part of Isaiah was written towards the end of the 5th Century B.C. The Temple is destroyed and not yet rebuilt. Israel is in a state of anticipation of the return of God's rule, with Jerusalem the Holy City. But all around them they see things falling apart. The authors write: "The leaders of the people are blind, idolatry and immorality are rampant. YHWH will come to restore the people—but they must repent."

And the sermon today was about the crass commercialism of the season, and how we must resist the temptation to go with the rising hubbub of spending and party-making. Frivolity and excess in a time when three wars are being waged: a war on terrorism, a war on the poor, and a war on the environment. Just as in the 5th Century, we see things around us falling apart.

If we could stop and reflect, all of us, perhaps we'd see that we need a change of heart. How can God be born in our hearts otherwise?

So this Advent, my heart is a stable. It doesn't smell like Aramis and Elizabeth Taylor in here, it smells like the animals, the straw, and the outside cold air that comes through the big holes in the walls. I've screamed my lungs tired about the useless, immoral war, the political cynicism of our billionaire leaders, the wasted and crudely destroyed natural resources. I'm too tired to scream this season. I'm just a decaying, dying human form, waiting, hoping for something we all need.

We need God in our hearts. That's why I'm making mine like a stable. I'd like to think I'm saving the country, one heart at a time. I just want to make sure I can have my own change of heart.

 

Posted: Sun - November 27, 2005 at 03:35 PM          

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