Advent Made New Again

  

Be ready

by Steve Garnaas Holmes

             You must be ready,

             for the Human One is coming

             at an hour you do not expect.

                               —Matthew 24.44

Grace flits in, a butterfly in winter.

Forgiveness dismantles gallows.

A child, frightened, stands anyway.

The minds of the dulled

are on other things.

Heaven passes unnoticed.

The naive keep waiting

for the white horse, the sword.

Foggy opera glasses.

Cynics, fearing the mystery,

can always prove otherwise.

The lock snaps shut.

The faithful are not sure

but open,

watching for the luminous.

A spirit, wholly given,

emerges

like a song among many.

Blessed are the ready, watching,

over and over,

for the world made new.

The faithful are not sure/but open, watching for the luminous. 

As we begin another Advent season, another waiting and preparing, another opportunity to know a readiness previously unknown, I find myself desiring a radical willingness which I have merely gazed upon instead of traveled into…or let it transform me.

Readiness takes on new meaning. Perhaps it is my age; perhaps it is my vocation. More likely it is simply time.

I pray this Advent be made new as are the heavens and earth and that I be open to a a witness of this re-creation.

I find the poet’s words aptly describe this location. I am certainly unsure. I am at least more open and vulnerable. I am hopeful for the Luminous.

I am encouraged in this advent posture by the glimpses already experienced. The radiance of the dawns with peaches and salmons which remind me of inexpressible grace. The shimmering even of a winter sun on the ocean assuring of a vastness and wideness of mercy.

I realize my uncertainty is as to the how not the what. For of this I am sure: there is a wondrous inbreaking happening at every moment. let me count the moments.

I claim my advent blessing in the still, silent gazing. May it be deeper. May I awaken to wonder. May the filling of awe be as holy newness.

And so I lay this poem, these thoughts, next to Mary Oliver’s When I Am Among Trees and begin to focus on “hints of gladness”. My beautiful, fearful wilderness is right here, right now, and those hints are so very close, a red berry, a deer’s taste of the pine tree, an abandoned nest to be reinhabited. Like stables, like mangers, like stars, like sheep. This is radiant humility.