It's been a full, good week. My men came home to roost, in from their various far-flung educational outposts. A house filled with the smells of baking goodies, and roasting birds and mulled cider and the myriad seasonal dishes which have been imprinted both on my memory and my soul as markers of another year turning, wakened memories of each year that we've been together to celebrate the good things that we are blessed with.
It's been a year of change, change, change.
Change can be unexpected, frightening, anger-inducing, welcome, instructive, alluring, confusing, chaotic, tapered, abrupt, soft as lambs wool or coarse as rotor-driven desert sand.
I've been trying to make the changes in my life a positive experience. It wasn't easy when I was "shown the door" at my job of 9 years. It wasn't easy to learn that my highly specialized position was not in demand and that I would probably have to find another way to make my contribution to the demands of domesticity.
I gave myself time to be human and angry, hurt, down, scared, did I mention angry?
But I also gave myself permission to let it go and open my eyes and see what else it is that I have to offer to life. I think I'm slowly feeling my way along a path that will be a whole lot more fulfilling. I'm trying very hard to trust life, to trust God not to let me stray too far from the path that I was made to walk.
Why this blog?
I feel it important that I share with those whom I love (If you have been invited to follow this blog, it's because I love you) what these seasons of the church mean to me. I want to imbue them with meaning for you. As I approach 50 years in this life, the one thing that has been a constant has been the church. My definition of that word has necessarily broadened as I have lived. It starts with the institution that I was born into, raised and instructed in, and now work to continue to grow in.
Then church becomes outreach. Trying to overcome my imperfections so that when I speak of the gift that faith is, I don't get in the way of the message. I don't become the measure of the ideal. Because, I, the imperfect me, can never measure up to the ideal. That ideal is rather, a constant that I hope to pursue until I can pursue no more.
Then church becomes presence. Presence to and acceptance of those who believe differently from the way I believe. Presence to and acceptance of those who believe not at all. Presence, perhaps, because, although I may not effect change by the force of my arguments, perhaps hearts can be touched, and moved simply by being the best me I can. That's my hope. Not because I need people to agree with me. But, because I want the best for all of us.
Advent is a season of preparation.
Christmas shouldn't be a 1-day deal, over and gone in a flash.
Advent is the time to remind ourself about a central tenet of the Christian faith. God took on flesh. Incarnation.
In the Liturgy of the Hours for today St. Charles Borromeo advises us "Christ...is prepared to come again. When we remove all obstacles to his presence he will come, at any hour and moment, to dwell spiritually in our hearts, bringing with him the riches of his grace."
When we remove all obstacles.
That doesn't say to me that he will not deign to come until we get our acts together. Instead, it says that we are the host and he is the guest. His indwelling is not through compunction, but only through invitation by us.
