The Wonderment

Leaning Into Our Dreams

First Sunday of Advent

In this season so many of us have dreams of sweets and games and toys. We have dreams of dinners with family and friends. We have dreams tipped off by cherished songs and lead by hopes we may be surprised to find we have nourished in secret a long time. In the northern hemisphere, with the longer nights than days, we're in the dreaming season. Whether we live with frosts lit under starlit skies or sunlight glittering off the sands and water, we are in the sparkle season, where so much seems possible.

It is good to dream like this, for such dreams show us where our hearts long to be. Yes, it may be yearning for the latest gadget and what it can do, and it also yearning for more: love, laughter, awe, wonder, renewal. 

Defeat is when we no longer dream, when we are too tired for either dreams or nightmares, when we are restless and afraid so that the only visions we have grasp our hearts and squeeze tightly. 

Preaching a word of encouragement to a people in exile, Isaiah is calling out to the dreamers and to those suffering defeat and dwelling in the morass of despair. Isaiah 2:1-5 shares a phrase we've heard before, from Micah 4:3, about beating swords into plows and spears into pruning hooks - a dream of peace, of labor for one's family and one's self and not in slavery or to fend off creditors, a dream of good agricultural times. 

When we're struggling, that's such a good dream to have. Visiting with anyone fleeing violence, or anyone who has tried to flee and not found a way out, a dream of peace is so often deeply cherished, but not to be whispered aloud because it seems so impossible. When we're struggling, it is so easy to go with the evidence of our immediate surroundings and decide that cruelty will win the day, that callousness towards the suffering is how we are meant to live. When we're struggling, it is easy to make the theological interpretation based on how we feel and the evidence of how we witness we are treating one another face to face and by policy and governance, that the ones who are not struggling have some great holy favor and the rest of us are being punished. 

Isaiah offers those of us who are struggling a reminder of a different dream, one that breaks into reality with our efforts, when we together turn back toward the holy mountain -- toward the awe and wonder and love that lifts us up and out of what drags us down. Isaiah reminds us of the twinkling starlight overhead and the dreams that pick us up. Isaiah invites us to dream together - that this journey is not alone and cannot be alone. 

We have that same reminder in the Chanukah story: yes, the Maccabees had to fight for what they loved, but the real miracle was in the clean-up afterwards, the oil of rededicating ourselves that lasted eight nights and days. We need a little sparkle, a little reminder to keep dreaming through the hard work of caring for what matters, of keeping on for freedom and in freedom, of keeping on with our faithful promises and aspirations, the ones that call us away from what is expedient to what may seem impossible until one day peace is the way we live, until one day no one hungers, until one day every child may have a good education, until one day we learn each other's songs and can sing them together with love for our neighbor, no longer estranged from one another.

I love a little sparkle, most especially the twinkling eyes of excitement and joy and love when people get together to find a better way forward. I love the sparkle that lights someone's heart when communities gather and offer each other a little more hope for tomorrow and a little more joy in today. I love the sparkle that spreads like a wave of stars shining after the cloud breaks away and the storm passes when we dream together and go together to where our hearts long to be: free, loving, caring, whirling in wonderment. 

In this season let us dream together of the goodness that can be, of dreams that may seem impossible in our hardest moments, of peace and kindness and enoughness, of working together for a harvest of hope and a harvest of mercy, of offering one another and this world the glittering light of joy when we go together to make a better world real.

Giving and Giving Thanks

Reflection for Thanksgiving 2013

One of the great instructions to the formerly enslaved peoples who had recently left Egypt was that the first fruits of their first harvest were to be dedicated in thanksgiving for their deliverance from slavery (Deut.26:1-11).

If you haven't personally known slavery, it probably seems like this instruction would not be necessary, right? Whoo-hoo! We're free! Finally free! Of course the first thing we'll do with the beginning of our harvest is give it up from thanksgiving for freedom, right? Except there are two major problems with that belief: (1) after waiting months for the harvest and working hard through all of that, after all the trials and tribulations, and the exhaustion that comes from harvesting, how grateful will we really feel? and (2) the lack of what a people need that slaves have ever suffered make it hard to let go what's finally their own.

Consider for a moment how extraordinary it is that a religious text, passed down through the ages, instructs us to remember our time of slavery and to give thanks for our deliverance with further sacrifice.

Reading that reminds me of the little and big chains so many of us contend with - cultural and institutional oppression, the fact that education remains unattainable for so many, the prison state, the reality that at some point 50% of American children will not have enough to eat -- and the fact that slavery is not so very far away after all. Indeed, human trafficking is still a global problem, and probably a problem somewhere near you. Then there's the little chains that rattle and hold us tight: our fears, our yearning for recognition and reward, our jealousy and greed, even those flashing beliefs that some people deserve and some do not. No, slavery is yet with us, in many guises.

And so is coming into the promised land. We still have a long way to go until every person is free and every person knows dignity and every person can share their gifts for goodness' sake. We still have a long way to go until the lands and waters are restored everywhere to health. We still have a long way to go before every stranger is made welcome and made friend, before peace prevails, before joy is known by every heart. But we can be grateful for being here right now, and with our acts of gratitude, can do a little more to make the promised land real.

Sacrificing the first fruits of our labors wherever we are now, offering those to others in need, is something all of us can do. We might have good cheer, or helping hand, or comfort, if we give these generously, grateful for being here right now, we are giving thanks.. We might have a story or a song or a place at our table, and if we give these generously, grateful for being here right now, we are giving thanks. We might have food or a place to live or safe harbor, and if we give these generously, grateful for being here right now, we are giving thanks.

Grateful for being here right now, may we remember slavery is still real and the effects of slavery is still real. May we keep fighting for freedom for all and working each day to bring the promised land into fruition. And in the meantime, each day we have a harvest to offer, from our lives, one to another and to this earth, a harvest of love and a harvest of hope and a harvest of abiding faith. These are the first fruits of our lives: let us give them freely, gladly, every day.

Comfort and Refuge

Where do we turn for comfort and refuge? 

Many of us turn to parents or partners, to friends or to neighbors when we are yearning for comfort, and we can comfort one another. We know, too, the agony of when someone we love and want to be our refuge and comfort is part of our sorrow and pain or just does not have anything left to offer us. Many of us turn to little comforts and pile them on, hoping they might fill the big yearning we have to be held and assured that yes, we are enough and loveable and even have something good to give this big old world. You know the little comforts - the videos or the chocolate or bears or a soft blanket - and if you know the little comforts then, too, you may well know how they can pile on and not actually feel so comforting anymore. 

If the comforts we turn to fail us and our lives are in danger, we may indeed be fleeing for refuge. So where would we turn? Who would harbor us, welcome us in, even though doing so then puts their own lives in danger? How do you greet those fleeing for refuge - would they even come to you for help and aid? 

Psalm 46 is one of those songs of seeking comfort and refuge, of trying to hold on when we feel that our lives are in danger or when we are feeling overwhelmed. That may be today or tomorrow or years in the future or years in the past, though I sincerely hope for all of us that is never. But I've known being overwhelmed and I've known fleeing for refuge and I've known yearning for comfort and coming up empty. And into that emptiness I've poured some Psalm 46 - God is our refuge and our strength - and with that and a good deal of other prayers, I've been more able to breathe and to reach out to someone else who is glad to reach out to me. Sometimes we cannot find our way to comfort or to refuge because we are so swamped with how we feel, because we are just trying to keep breathing, because we are too afraid to move. Prayer can be a little island onto which we can climb and catch our breath and get a plan together for how we're going to survive whatever mess we're in. Even should I forget the rest of Psalm 46, that first line is a very fine prayer, and repeating it over and over until I reach a little island of calm works for me so well, I recommend it to you. 

There are times all of us will face, and some of us much more often than others, particularly if we live in areas rife with danger, if we struggle with racism and classism or other forms of hate and holding people apart and down. There are times all of us will yearn for comfort and there are times many of us are going to need refuge. Will we seek our comforts where comfort may truly be found, where our hearts are held and we may be cherished for the imperfectly wonderful beings we are? Will we offer one another this kind of comfort, even when we are tired, because we, too, have had that need, and because cherishing one another reminds of us of the blessings we enjoy and may be? Will we welcome one another when we need refuge, making a way when no way seems possible, a way for hope and love and joy to revive and endure?

If today you are overwhelmed, may you find a little shelter of calm, and from there another loving heart to help you on. If today you have courage or strength, may you be a bearer of hope and help, a maker of way and refuge. If today we are asked for and need refuge or kindness may we meet the presence of Abiding Love in another and find ourselves gathered in and made safe and welcome.

That's our daily work. We may stray from it. We may be driven from it. But we are yet called by Love to be a blessing and make a way for hope courageously in this world.