Advent thoughts – Thursday of Advent 3

We have creation themes in the Psalter and the Apocalypse today.

The living creatures give honor, glory, and thanks to the One upon the throne and then the elders fall down

casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea.

They glorify God for creation.

Isn't it nice that one needn't be a "creationist" or give credence to its wolf in sheep's clothing, "intelligent design," to rejoice in God as creator? We can acknowledge the vast expanses of stellar and geologic time, the intricate and dynamic dance between randomness and pattern in chaos theory, accept natural selection as the best description yet for the development and diversity of life, and still praise God as creator.

Some of us see God's "design" as including, if not demanding, the independence of creation to operate as it was meant to, entirely by natural laws. Yet within that lie all the mysteries of quantum physics and interrelatedness so complex we sense the cosmos as a living thing. By faith we experience this as all existing within God.

‘You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.’ (Apocalypse 4:11)

My personal vision, which I hasten to note is neither scientific nor the teaching of the Church, is that every subatomic particle every nanosecond is directly dependent upon the action of the Spirit. Should God's attention waver for a moment, all would collapse. This is poetry, not physics, nor theology in any literal sense. Since I have already postulated an independence for creation it is either gross contradiction or paradox, assuming that God is intimately engaged and unwaveringly committed to that independence. I leave it to better minds than mine to tease out how any of this might be; all I know is that it speaks from and to my heart.


In light of my pneumatological emphasis and our creational themes, I would like to invoke a different sort of "Advent" hymn, one that speaks of, yearns for, calls for the coming not of Jesus but the Spirit.

It is John Webster Grant's translation of the Veni Creator Spiritus of Rabanus Maurus (776-856).

O Holy Spirit, by whose breath
life rises vibrant out of death;
come to create, renew, inspire;
come, kindle in our hearts your fire.

You are the seeker's sure resource,
of burning love the living source,
protector in the midst of strife,
the giver and the Lord of life.

In you God's energy is shown;
to us your varied gifts make known.
Teach us to speak, teach us to hear;
yours is the tongue and yours the ear.

Flood our dull senses with your light;
in mutual love our hearts unite.
Your power the whole creation fills;
confirm our weak, uncertain wills.

From inner strife grant us release;
turn nations to the ways of peace.
To fuller life your people bring
that as one body we may sing:

Praise to the Father, Christ, his Word,
and to the Spirit: God the Lord,
to whom all honor, glory be
both now and for eternity.

Hymn # 501, 502 in The Hymnal 1982

The hymn seems apt for the season of the year and for this season in our collective life.

May our hearts attend the Spirit, yearn for the Spirit, open to the Spirit, wait upon the Spirit, yield to the Spirit, be filled with the Spirit, blaze with the Spirit.

As Zechariah reminded Zerubbabel:

He said to me, ‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.’ (Zechariah 4:6)

--the BB

Prayers of the People

We give you thanks and praise, O God of creation, for the grandeur of all that you have made: for the soaring birds of the air, the crawling creatures on the earth, the gliding fishes in the seas, for all creatures great and small with whom we share the web of life,

For all our relations we call on you.
With all our relations we praise you.

For the invigorating sunlight of the day, the deepening mystery of the night, the wonder of the stars, the call of the unknown in the universe, and for those who have walked before us and those who come after us,

For all our relations we call on you.
With all our relations we praise you.

For courage and wisdom to do what you call us to do; for humility and compassion, that we may serve with love,

For all our relations we call on you.
With all our relations we praise you.

That the People of God in all the world may worship in spirit and truth,

For all our relations we call on you.
With all our relations we praise you.

That the Church may discover again that unity which is your gift,

For all our relations we call on you.
With all our relations we praise you.

That the whole creation, groaning in travail, may be set free to enjoy the glorious liberty of the children of God,

For all our relations we call on you.
With all our relations we praise you.

Here other intercessions may be offered.
(The People add their own petitions.)

That all who have entered the shadow of death and now walk the star path may find the fulfillment of life and peace,

For all our relations we call on you.
With all our relations we praise you.

With all the saints in light, let us offer eternal praise to God.

For all our relations we call on you.
With all our relations we praise you.

We used the above prayers for our Turtle Island Mass. I don't remember if I borrowed this or composed it. So if anyone finds a source, let me know so I may give credit.
--the BB

Compline at the still time

This is designed for worship as the winter solstice nears. It is creation-oriented. Although the need and desire to turn from death to life are articulated, it is not oriented about atonement. It is not Native American because I am not; but it clearly draws on indigenous perspectives. If I did this right, a sense of the sacred permeates it, but it is not cast in god-language. The language is not explicitly Christian yet the one who composed it wrote it with a strong sense of the God we know in Christ: Source, Savior, Sanctifier. I know whom I address in prayer and the Holy One is known by many names.

COLLECTING

At the turning of the year
At the wheeling of the stars
At the ending of the day
We pause in silence

[silence]

In the quiet time
In the fallow time
In the resting time
We rest in silence

[silence]

For the dark hour
For the still hour
For the changing hour
We seek silence

[silence]

Candles and lamps may now be lit

CONNECTING

In the dying time
We seek to let die in us
Our illusions and false judgments
Our bitterness and resentment
Our anger and our indifference
Our failures but not the learnings from them
Our pain but not the compassion gained from it
Our bondage to the past but not our memory of it

In the still time
We harvest what the year has brought us
We yearn to gather our scattered selves
To re-knit the fabric of our lives
To meet ourselves anew

In the dark time
We learn once more to cherish the light
To share the warmth
To keep alive the hearth fire
To nourish the divine spark
To know our own heart

In the silent time
We yield the illusion of control
We cease from our action
We let go
We learn to wait
To listen

[silence]

SELF OFFERING

From the rising of the sun to its going down
May our voices praise the Maker of all things

In the birthing and the dying
In the growing and the withering
May our lives be in harmony
May our words be filled with grace
May our thoughts be filled with understanding
May our hearts be filled with compassion

In the sameness and the changing
May our eyes behold truth amid deceit
May our ears perceive the song amid noise
May our feet pursue the path of beauty
May our hands be strong to do what is right

In the turning
May we turn from despair to hope
May we turn from sorrow to joy
May we turn from harm to healing
May we turn from death to life
May we turn to connectedness
May we turn to kindness
May we turn to one another
May we turn to ourselves
May we turn to the Light
That shines forever amid the dark

INTERCEDING

Let us name, silently or aloud, that for which we give thanks this day


Let us name, silently or aloud, those we hold before God this day


Let us hold ourselves in the silence, in the turning, in the darkness and the light


THANKSGIVING FOR THE SEVEN DIRECTIONS

For the birthing and beginning
We give thanks

For the growing and the fruiting
We give thanks

For the gathering and the yielding
We give thanks

For the ending and the stillness
We give thanks

For the vastness of the heavens
We give thanks

For the grounding of the earth
We give thanks

For the deep and inward place
We give thanks

[silence]

GOING FORTH

Into the darkness
We go now in hope

Into the stillness
We go now in peace

Into the turning
We go now in joy

Into the world
We go now in love

[Those who freaked over holy smudging can now run amok over this. Solidarity, Padre! Lila waste yelo. Mitakuye oyasin.]

Art by DeKooning

--the BB

Each pouring out to the other

MikeF has shared some moving writings by folks whose spiritual journey has led them to Rome. A segment of what Aimee Milburn has written leapt out at me.

I went to mass tonight, and at the end, after receiving Holy Communion, was meditating on everything I had written here [in her four-part account of her conversion] earlier. Suddenly, in my mind’s eye, I saw the fullness of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each pouring out to the other in an endless cycle of love. In the heart of the Trinity was creation, emerging in the heart of God as an expression of all the glory and love of God.

At the intersection of the smallest point of the heart of the Trinity was emerging the individual human heart. It was as if every human heart was emerging from the center point of the Trinity. Emerging in the individual human heart, when it was opened up and given over to God, was the Trinity itself, like a beautiful flower coming forth.

This is so close to my own vision of God (not a particular vision granted me but how I see God) that I find myself (quietly) shouting, Yes, yes, yes, oh sweet wonderful Savior, yes!

That the writing is so eloquent and filled with ecstatic devotion is a delicious plus.

It is difficult to write of the divine perichoresis in prose. In Aimee's writing here the reality of it overflows as though without effort. Thank you, Aimee and MikeF.

Check out more of Aimee's writing at Historical Christian.

Camellia photo from a stroll in Albany, California, March 2005
--the BB

The Lord of the dance

Nataraja: Copyrighted to Himalayan Academy Publications, Kapaa, Kauai, Hawaii. Licensed for Wikipedia under Creative Commons (with attribution)

I know I was quite taken by “The Lord of the dance” when it was popular in the 70s. We sang it in seminary, youth groups seemed to enjoy it, and it captured the folk-song ethos of the time. It was a happy marriage of “Simple gifts” with a vibrant image of the Christ that contrasted strongly with what we perceived to be a very stodgy, frowning, and unappealing Jesus of our parents.

That, combined with the image of the Nataraja (Ruler of the Dance), Shiva in his dance of creation and destruction, must have had a powerful influence on my mind. To this we probably need to add Aslan singing Narnia into existence (about which I once wrote a sonnet--final line: "and a world breaks forth like a note upon his lyre"). All of which is to say that cosmic imagery and poetic expressions of the doctrine of creation are really big for me.

In the mythic imagery and cosmogony of my fictional world, the pagan version of creation is that of a dance manifesting the joyous heart music of the All Transcending. In the creation hymn are found these words:

From the heart music of the One
came the dance of delight
and the Dancer was Senjir
whose footsteps patterned the worlds

If we go back a number of years to a Eucharistic prayer I composed (and we used at St Cuddy’s), the theme of the divine dance shows up again.

We and you are joined in Jesus,
offering ourselves and all creation to you,
Maker of all things, for healing and blessing
through your transforming Spirit.
In his death you embrace death and every evil
that life and goodness may prevail.
In his rising you triumph,
drawing all creation once more
into the dance of endless joy and life that cannot end.

My thinking and theologizing are done in poetry and in visual images. The Heart of God is, for me, the only true reality. We only exist because of it and within it. There is no other place. We are part of a dance and God is our music. Let us not be grudging dancers. Whether clumsy or lightfooted, we are all called to be caught up in the joy. You don’t need to know the steps ahead of time, just get up and move. The Music will take care of you and you will share in boundless delight.

[Please respect the copyright of the block quote passages above.]
--the BB