Advent Bristling

" Give us the grace, Lord, to be ever on the watch for Christ your Son."
                                                                             

I am overcome with awe this early morning.

Sitting here in my old chair, a diffusion of joy comes from nowhere, from deep within,
as my little child comes into the room shrouded in half-sleep and tussled dreaming,
crawls into the fold of me.

This gift of a child overwhelms. How much more immense the gift of the Christ child.
Advent is bristling.
Wonder is awakening in any given moment.

To anticipate God Incarnate and his coming into the world as a babe
is to be alert to his presence among us now
crawling onto the laps of our attention.

To be with the Church in her teaching of scriptures and receiving the presence of Christ
in the Eucharist is to be met along the path to Emmaus by Christ himself,
Christ glorified and reaching out to us in his presence even now.

I am humbled over and over again.
I am so grateful for this breath of brief life here on earth and eternity after.
There is so much to be thankful at any moment.
I only have to look at what is before me and be overwhelmed
by the gifts of the moment; in-rushing grace.

Happiness brightening from attention to the blazing of particulars,
the small filling with joy, glimpsing at glory, hearing the underlying singing of God.
His radiance in all that you see or search.

The ordinary is luminous when we wake up to its’ splendor.
To be the loving that God works through us.
To help transform the world around us in our small ways with God’s help:
to show a bit of His glory working through us.

Thankful we need not rely on our infinitesimal light
when Christ’s immense light is shining:
when we let it in to transform and rattle us into radical Gospel living.

The Logos of the universe enters into the soft sinews of a babe
to change this world from the inside, to rip open all our narrowness
of philosophy and desire with His love
that alone can unlock our hearts, unloosen our fists.

The Church is trying to change the world by awakening love,
His love that came into humanity as the most vulnerable; to die on a tree
for all the vulnerable that we are.

This love of God opens me to His miracles and my deepening gratitude
when I don’t turn away from it in the small moments.
When I don’t choose the banal and sinful.
When I embrace the clay that I am in His hands.

What joy that requires responsibility, and having come to adore the Christ child,
goes back a different way.  Ways of the Cross that well up with love and gratitude
for life in Christ; that rise into eternity.

Be alert, be watchful as Jesus says and does time and time again,
for His transforming power in the brokenness of our lives.

Joy for the fallen world!
Joy diffusing
ordinary and sacred time.





And now it's time to begin the day.
My daughters are laughing like Squidward as I suggest they begin their chores.
One would think I was herding wild crabs up a steep, sandy ravine.
The still point within becoming a bouncing ball on a sea of cacophony
and laundry and phone calls and cooking and herding.
Kids chasing the dog through the house knocking sense off the shelves;
my thinking, what's left of my ability to do so,
about Advent while intermittently plotting to lock the children out of the house
to live on seeds and nuts in the barn for the season.

I need to lead a rebellion or at least eat cake.
The particulars of a fury elf-like creature being house-broken is inducing me to break out into a gravelly scat singing "Pennies From Heaven" or worse yet, playing my bag pipes as all those in close proximity threaten lawsuits for collateral damage while sharpening their knives. So the seconds slip.
And now, back to joy.