...awake to hear...to answer

It strikes me, at odd moments--mostly when I am confronted with uncertainty and fear over entering some new phase or stage of life-- how much of the Nativity story happened because people were awake.

Maiden Mary, hearing the rustle of messenger wings, the whisper of promise, challenge, provision, prophecy. Fiance Joseph, awakened by a dream visitor, with future-rocking words. Shepherds, sleepless and watchful, exposed to the night elements, catching the sky split open with the stunning news that earth and heaven were one.

Awake. Awake to hear. Awake to answer.

So many 'ifs'. One 'yes'. 

And the Gloria? The Gloria was the ringing of the spheres, the sound of heaven come to earth. The sounding, and resounding, of 'yes'.

~~~

Merry Christmas, friends. The video here is my brand new song for Christmas, If Not for What the Angels Sang, performed by some good friends on Christmas Eve morning (lyrics below). I hope you'll give it a listen, and pass it on.

If not for what the angels sang
Above the wild and windy plains
Echoes in the spangled sky
A boundless song, a Baby's cry
Gloria in excelsis Deo.

If not for what the shepherds heard
The stunning song, the summoning words
To stay within the sheltering fold?
Or seek the Child out in the cold?
Come, my friends, let us up and go!

If not for how the Baby came
Among the little, lost, and lame
Walking the same paths we trod
Showing us the heart of God
Love of Heaven come to earth below.

If not for what the angels sang
If not for what the shepherds heard
If not for how the Baby came--
Jesus Christ, God on earth.

If not for what the angels sang
Above the wild and windy plains
Echoes in the spangled sky
A boundless song, a Baby's cry
Gloria in excelsis Deo.

--LACA, 10/20/17

...you say yes

No payment was promised, no promises made;
no wedding was dated, no blueprint displayed.
Yet Mary, consenting to what none could guess,
replied with conviction, "Tell God I say, Yes."
---John L. Bell, 1992

Let's make a deal! Well...not a deal, really. I need this, well, this favor. It's pretty huge. And there is no way I can put into human terms what the costs and rewards might end up being for you. I can tell you, though...amazing...and heartbreaking...and world-changing...and earthshaking. 

No person could be faulted for pushing away from the table with a deal like that on it. Too vague, too open-ended, too many possible downsides. Besides, your life is falling into place, your ducks are all in a row, you may not be Junior League just yet but it could happen.

But you say yes. Yes to...what, exactly? To uncertainty (that starts the moment you show up at your engagement party pregnant)...to heartache (there is Simeon in the temple, whispering something to you about a sword piercing your heart, too?)...to fear (now you flee under cover of night into Egypt, a bounty on the life of your baby boy).

But you also say yes...to joy...and to hope. And because you say "Yes," the rest of us get the chance to say yes.

We say yes to love.

...all the yes

The hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred sweets,

Before we reach the heavenly fields,

Or walk the golden streets.

---Isaac Watts, 1707

#thisearthisnotmyhome #illflyaway #streetsofgold #homesickforheaven

At various times throughout Christian history, this world has not been a very hospitable place to live out life. This was sometimes true for most everyone walking the sod, and sometimes particularly for those folk of faith. It is easy, in times of hardship and earthly distress, to pin one’s hopes on a better tomorrow, a bright and shiny heaven to take the bitter edge off what seems a pale shadow-life lived out here on earth. Imagine the Twitter-life of those trapped in the flat reality of this existence, when they dreamt of, yearned for the richness of a hi-def heaven.

In Isaac Watts’ hymn from the turn of the 18^th century, the hymnist urges those who ‘love the Lord’ not to wait to start celebrating Kingdom life, but to let their joys be known. Yes, look forward to heaven, when the distractions of this world will be stripped away so that worship’s pure essence can be revealed, and those who will may dwell consciously in the presence of God.

But, yes! enjoy the thousand sacred sweets the hill of Zion has to offer before we ever reach those heavenly fields! And, yes! live abundantly here in this rich land where God also reigns! God didn’t create us for either/or; there is richness and abundance in this life for all time, and for all!

#alltheyes

...about to turn

My soul cries out with a joyful shout that the God of my heart is great,
and my spirit sings of the wondrous things that you bring to the ones who wait. 
You fixed your sight on your servant's plight, and my weakness you did not spurn,
so from east to west, shall my name be blest. 
Could the world be about to turn?
My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, 
and the world is about to turn.
---Rory Cooney, 1990

In anticipation of tomorrow's Gospel lectionary reading, I have been meditating on the Magnificat, what is commonly called Mary's song. Luke's Gospel relates the familiar story of the angel Gabriel's visit to the young girl, with earth-shaking news --- Mary's world is about to be turned upside-down, and whatever she had planned for, oh, the rest of her life, she'll have to seriously rethink. She is called. Chosen. Ready or not. Oh, the angel calls it "highly favored". But let's all admit, we can think of a few other descriptors for this sudden change of condition. Mary, teen down the road, becomes Mary, mother of God. In all the icons and paintings, she gains a halo. In one carol, and in many of our imaginations, she becomes "Maiden Mother, Meek and Mild".

Not so fast, though. There's something about that song she sings. This is no meek, mild acquiescence, this song, no fawning obedience. This song is about getting it, about buying in. Mary's song is a partnership anthem about saying 'Yes!' to the coming age of justice, 'Yes!' to the God Who brings it. If there is to be a changing, this teenager will take her place in the vanguard.

Mary's life was turning upside-down, but that was just the beginning. The world was turning, too. Because Mary said 'Yes!'

...the moon is there

Heavy clouds that block the moonlight now begin to drift away.
Diamond brilliance through the darkness shines the hope of coming day.
Christ, the morning star of splendor, gleams within a world grown dim.
Heaven's ember fans to fullness; hearts grow warm to welcome him.
--- Mary Louise Bringle, 2005

It's been cloudy here. The kind of cloudy that brings the ceiling of the sky low, makes it brooding. I knew there was a moon out there somewhere, knew it was well nigh on full, from second-hand reports of overflowing labor-and-delivery departments. But look up? No moon, no stars, nothing but grimy-looking, worn-out clouds, pressing down the sky. It's the kind of weather that always drives me deep into my chair, under my prayer shawl. Nothing good about days like this.

Then, tonight, I went out. The wind captured my attention first. After I caught my breath from the immediacy of it, from the biting chill, I noticed the quality of light on the oak leaves covering my walkway. Each smooth brown leaf reflected a silvery glint from...what? And then I looked up. The leaves were reflecting the crystal glow of a moon now revealed in a pure blue-black sky. The wind had blown away the clouds, and the sky ceiling now seemed limitless. In that moment everything, it seemed, from the damp ground supporting the fallen leaves to the space beyond the moon and stars, thrummed with "Yes."

That moment reminded me, in my soul, that clouds can cover the moon and stars, even completely enough that I forget what the clear sky looks like. But the moon? the stars? Oh, they're still there. And sometime soon, the clouds will be blown away, and the light will shine. The light that was there all along.

Light is there. We will see.