Advent Gratitude + Awaiting Beauty

December, 2021

Winter has settled in, and not long after the days start to darken, we enter into the season of Advent. While nature slips into the stillness of winter’s rest, in the Catholic liturgical year our rhythm shifts into a quieter, more interior time. I love to look out across the landscape in winter and contemplate the life that sleeps just under the frozen ground; in my mind’s eye I can almost see it, like a soft glow. Like the world is resting, breathing deeply, stirring in its dreaming slumber. In the natural world, winter is a vital part of the rhythm, essential for the many growing cycles of plants and migratory patterns of animals that make spring and summer so fruitful. Our souls, too, need seasons of an interior growing beneath the surface. Not barren, not fruitless, but expectant. A still emptiness that, paradoxically, is overflowing with capacity; it is this emptiness that promises fulfillment and abundance.

As we enter into this change of season, let us allow ourselves to notice the desires of our hearts - what are we waiting for? Do we believe that our God will come to fulfill every desire of the human heart? Indeed, though He comes with a particular grace at the time of Christmas, we are invited to open our eyes again to the ways in which He comes to meet us here, right now, in the midst of the waiting. In the midst of the doubt, in the times where we feel most alone, in the times where the waiting doesn’t feel hopeful, He comes. When our eyes seem to see nothing of His presence, we must take courage, for our Lord chooses to come in mysterious and humble ways; the mystery of a child born in a poor stable, the mystery of light and life growing in secret beneath a cold ground.

Here is a selection of poems from my Advent prayer time in studio, drawing inspiration from this theme. May they lead you to rest in quiet gratitude this Advent.

Blessings +

Wheat that Falls, ink pen on paper

A Redwood Faith
Blessings are streaming from your heart
into my open eyes and open mouth
for some reason (why?) we do not speak
about the taste of blessing

You ask of me a thing which feels like
trying to wrap my arms around an ancient redwood
and hoping for my fingers to touch
on the other side
It is a beautiful idea, a child's playful dream
but certainly impossible (right?)

it feels too big for me

Still your blessings persist, they come
flowing over me like a river, like a voice
that drenches me, like a light beam
that pours and spreads in a fall of water
from which I emerge,
wet and glistening

there is a gentle fierceness

strong and stable and deep,
like an old redwood tree
I cannot help but wrap my arms
around it to touch the day when
I reach out to embrace it, finding, miraculously, that my fingers can touch

Creaking
There is gratitude for my tired body
the creaking in my neck, and in my bones
for the weary eyes, the slight pain that
kisses my brow

There is gratitude for the soreness in my arms
from the lifting and the carrying
of those stones that ringed the fire
muscles crunch in my shoulder -
I stretch my jaw to release the tension

In one spark of a moment I hold two gifts -
one, the gift of a body, soft
marrow, blood, breath
A body of movement and work and laughing

The other is the gift that this body,
brimming with human frailty
is placed under the Divine Gaze -
how can divinity come to kiss
humanity?

In my working, I am broken
in my thirsting, my wounds are bound up
and I am laid in a stable in order to rest
and to listen

Father
To you I pour out this fickle heart
you, lover of my soul
you, who fly over the hills
to embrace these cries ringing out
into cold starriness -
you, who meet them with a desire so pure
that I pray to be consumed by it

Here I am, my hands fall open with nothing to hold
and my heart is likewise cracking wide,
spilling, spilling, spilling
a great torrent, a massive wave
yet so small and gentle that
the shyest of creatures could come and drink
their fill

This river is not my own, though -
it looks of me, and sounds of me
but I did not put it there

Sometimes the waters feel raging and I
am afraid that I might slip under
and be lost
sometimes I wish that
they weren't there at all

Oh, rescue me from this fear!
Teach me again that I am only threatened by
the waves of my own cowardice,
and even then
only by my permission

Oh fire, consume the frail walls of this heart
that these torrents, this gentle balm
may water the earth with the breath
of the One who comes to meet me

Again, Open
Stretching, breaking, crunching, widening
the door is opening, its frame expanding
I have been called into this wideness and
I have found that I am still
made of stone

My feet must crumble if
I am to walk, this heart
must lighten
if I am to welcome the happy burden
of loving
freely

Oh Sculptor, take the Chisel of your Word and
set me free from this shell of stone
for I hear your call and I see now
that I am not yet able to run