Coaxing Out the Best in Us

Amid the gloomy, nightly newscasts which numb our senses, we hear Advent’s transforming invitation, “Awake, O Sleeper!” This four week pre-Christmas season softens our hearts with its message of hope and peace in the midst of our war-torn world. The Advent invitation is to take up God’s call to incarnate compassion, peace and justice.

We live in abiding hope that one day peace will reign on earth. Advent offers us the opportunity to actively strive to live as peace-filled persons. We are called to become like Jesus, the embodiment of Peace.

"Blessed is the God of Heaven and Earth who gives us the bread of hope when we are in despair.

For too long we have been lulled to sleep, our senses numb from fears of war,
terrorism, pestilence, scarcity, global warming, danger lurking everywhere,
on every newscast, on every TV screen and radio call-in show.

Sleepers, awake. Look around and see.

God is doing a new thing like a spider’s web wove in the dark, coaxing out the best in us, calling forth people in our midst to manifest the courage to lead, being the change we seek, showing us through small victory after small victory the wisdom of compassion, the strength of listening, the joy of practicing respect, the valiance of peace, the blessing of mercy. 

The day is coming as a child being born in Bethlehem, bringing to birth a new era, a new dawn.

All you who walk in the land, have faith and live in hope.

O taste and see that our God is good. Give thanks and praise to God who leads us on with stars and angels and carol song.

O Blessed is the God of Heaven and Earth."

By Ray McGinnis www.writetotheheart.com An Advent Psalm by Ray McGinnis was originally written for Gifts in Open Hands, edited by Maren Tirabassi and Kathy Wonson Eddy, published by The Pilgrim Press, 2011. Copyright @ 2011. Ray McGinnis retains copyright for this material. It is reprinted with permission of the author and cleared for use in worship.

Sisters Jean Moylan and Nancy Wales

Advent Week Two: Conflict and Peace

The wolf lies with the lamb,
The panther lies down with the kid,
Calf and lion cub feed together
With a little boy to lead them.
Isaiah 11: 6-7  NJB

The insight at the heart of non-violence is that we live in a tragic gap – a gap between the way things are and the way we know they might be. Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness

Can I Imagine vulnerable animals lying with others who see them as food and the most vulnerable, a child, leading them? Can I imagine a world where non-violence, doing no harm, lies at the centre of change? What can this possibly mean?  I live in a world where I long for peace but seem surrounded by conflict, a world where I accept force and death as the inevitable agents of change, What does love have to do with the reality I think I know?  These are the issues that Advent asks me to consider.

If I see conflict as a problem and peace as the solution, two opposing forces that can never exist together, it will be impossible for me to see how Love alone can bring about the change I long for.  But if I see conflict as the energy of diversity, the opportunity for learning new perspectives, then love gives me the courage to contemplate, to see reality in a new way. Love gives me the courage to stay and face difference and disagreement as the possibility of something new.

What if peace is not unity brought about by the elimination of difference or the absence of conflict?  If I see peace as the energy of complete unity which holds unimaginable diversity, then love alone gives me the courage to allow and enable the Stranger to exist and therefore to love my neighbour as myself. Love gives me the courage to act.

Love is where all opposites will meet. It is with Love, not violence or hatred, that I discover and explore this paradox. This is the gift.

Some suggestions to guide this time:

• Quiet music, a candle or simply sitting in silence may slow you down and turn your attention inward.
• Notice any words, phrases or expressions that you feel drawn to, taking time to reflect on those that speak to you and the feelings that arise inside you. Go deeper, rereading until you sense you are finished.
• Notice if you have been moved, inspired or challenged by anything you have read and what questions have been raised for you.
• If an act is a visible form of an invisible conviction within you, ask yourself if you are moved to start, stop or do something as a result of your reflection.
• If you wish you may want to write down what you experienced in a journal or create an image – only for you.

Mary Shamley, Co-ordinator Spiritual Ministries Network

Quote: Palmer, Parker J,  A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004) p.175

Week One Advent Reflection: Light and Darkness

Michael Leunig, an Australian cartoonist for the Melbourne, Australia paper, The Age, writes a prayer in a little book titled, A Common Prayer. He prays, “Dear God, Let us prepare for winter. The sun has turned away from us and the nest of summer hangs broken in a tree. Life slips through our fingers and, as darkness gathers, our hands grow cold.  It is time to go inside. It is time for reflection and resonance. It is time for contemplation. Let us go inside. Amen.”

Leunig’s prayer is an invitation to turn inward. The season of winter, with its long dark nights invites us to turn inward to take time for personal prayer, deep reflection and restful quiet. And Advent is a time of turning inward, a time of waiting in hopeful expectation to see again how God dwells among us and within us. So, in this season of darkness, what happens when we wait? 

Very often, waiting in the dark leaves me uncomfortable. I become aware that I am restless, and sometimes even anxious. I can feel lonely and isolated in the dark.  And if I stay there long enough, I also become aware of a longing.  If I am attentive to my longing, I discover more about who I am, and how God is creatively working in my life.  This little journey in darkness can move me from being restless and anxious to touching into deeper longings and how God is waiting to meet there.  

That is the interior movement happening in darkness. If I give time for something real to happen, time to be both silent and attentive – to the birds flying around my yard, and the thoughts flying around inside me – then God will show up. I can let go of everything I know in order to be carried by all that I do not know – the very flow of the mystery and true reality of life. What I discover if I wait in stillness and darkness is that what I need, I do not have to rush after, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, God will make it known to us. In the darkness I discover light. That is the paradox. That is the gift.  

Some suggestions to guide this time:

• Quiet music might help you slow down and turn your attention inward.
• Notice your thoughts and pay attention to which one(s) catch your attention. Stay with these and talk to God about them.
• End with a simple prayer asking God to stay with you throughout the day and night.
• If you wish you may want to write about your experience in a journal book - only for you.

Joan Atkinson, csj

Busy Person's Online Advent Retreat: Light, Darkness and Paradox

Welcome...

The paradox of Advent means I do not live where I am but I am not where I will be. I live “between the times”.

Welcome to our online Advent series, “Light, Darkness and Paradox”. Beginning Monday, November 29th, we invite you into this world which exists at the centre and where opposites meet and find peace. Over the next four weeks we will explore together the themes of light and darkness, peace and conflict, contemplation and action, strength and weakness, Christ and culture.

Retreats are periods of reflection, calling us into the paradox of contemplation and action. The format of our online retreat is very simple. We invite you to be open to change and transformation.

Here are some steps that you might find helpful: 

• Choose a time that works best for you. Ten to twenty minutes is all you will need.
• Find a quiet space that will help you find stillness within.
• Slow down your mind, your emotions and your body. Slow your breathing, use yoga, or simply sit in silence.
• Open your heart and mind and centre yourself through repeating a mantra or meaningful phrase, making a prayer of offering or dedication, using a practice from your own faith tradition, simply maintaining silence, or using another preparatory practice that works for you. 

When you are ready, read the online posting.  Be attentive to words, phrases and feelings that the reading may evoke for you. Why are you drawn there? Look for connections and new insights and stay with these. This is how you move deeper into how God is working within you.

At the end of each reflection we will suggest other ways to work with what is calling for your attention. Each Monday there will be a new posting for the Advent series. 

We hope these Advent reflections will help you enter into this time of preparation for the great mystery of the Incarnation–God with us.

Thanks to Scarboro Missions for permission to draw from their Meditation Exercises as a resource.

Mary Shamley, Spiritual Ministries Network
Joan Atkinson, csj