light

This Christmas: Gathering in the Holy Light of One Another

Steve · December 16, 2019 · 2 Comments

When I was a young teenager — maybe 14, 15, 16 years old — I created my own Christmas ritual. In my small upstairs bedroom in our working-class neighborhood of North St. Louis, I created an altar, of sorts. A table by the lone window of my room held a candle, a plastic manger scene, a small Christmas tree and a King James Bible opened to the Nativity story from Luke’s gospel. On Christmas Eve, after everyone else had gone to sleep, I would light my candle, peer into the manger, and read Luke’s account of the coming of Jesus into the world. Something within me wanted to be there.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

Advent is Our Annual Wake-Up Call  

Steve · December 1, 2019 · 4 Comments

“Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.” Matthew 24:42

Here we are once again on the first Sunday of Advent, once again just weeks away from the celebration of the great solemnity of Christmas. Here we are once again entering into a period of preparation for the graces to be received as we contemplate what it means to have a God who is willing to come be on our level, to be Emmanuel and be with us. We are no longer in ordinary time, and it’s clear in today’s readings that something extraordinary is on the horizon.

But it’s also a bit strange, it seems on the surface, listening to Jesus in today’s Gospel reading talk and warn about the end of days just as we begin Advent, just as we begin to focus on those ancient events leading up to his miraculous and extraordinary birth in a manger in Bethlehem. What are we doing here — looking back to the cataclysm of Noah’s great destructive flood and forward to the day judgement?

It all seems so out of place in light of our modern celebration and understanding of Advent and Christmas, which has reduced Advent and Christmas in so many ways into a very different kind of “holiday season” that has become, for so many, nothing more than a race to Christmas day. And today the starting pistol has been fired.   And, in fact, there is so much joy to be found in the celebration of Christmas morning as it has come to be defined by western culture and traditions. There is joy in Santa and gift-giving and gathering friends and family for magnificent or simple meals.

But there is more. Today we are asked to ponder a sleigh-load of big ideas at the same time: Jesus was born. Jesus lived and was crucified and rose from the dead. Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead. This is not just the beginning of a holiday season. This is the beginning of a great and ongoing story that has the power to change us forever.

Advent is not just a time of preparing for the celebration of Christmas. Advent is a time for preparing ourselves for a new way of living and loving.

“Come Lord Jesus. Come.”

The Creative Spirit: An Open, Aware Heart

Steve · June 11, 2016 · 9 Comments

“Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film.” – Ansel Adams

What the great nature photographer Ansel Adams knew and showed us in his haunting, elegant black and white photographs is that there is so much to be seen and experienced in the world if we only slow down and pay attention — not only to the image in front of us but to the light and shadows that surround, encompass and overlay what we see. Adams would hike miles, laden with his heavy equipment and supplies, to get to the perfect place at the perfect time of day. Then it became his job, to paraphrase the renowned words of the poet Mary Oliver, to “stand still and learn to be astonished.”

There’s lesson in that for us somewhere, surely.

Today’s Word: Seeing

Steve · February 9, 2014 · 2 Comments

And then there was light. That’s all I know. There was light. SJG Photo.

Tell us that story again, Uncle Bartimaeus. Tell us how you were blind and then how you could see. Tell us so that we might believe…

I couldn’t see a thing, had never been able to see the sun or my father’s face. So I sat outside Jericho every day, next to the gate and across from the big tree where everyone gathered, and I awaited alms, prayed for prophets to pass, hoped for healing. I had nothing better to do. Because I am blind, some assumed I was an idiot, too, but I was not, am not. I’d heard of this Jesus, heard stories of him related by passersby who ignored me, listened as they talked of his miracles, of his gentle and healing hand.

So on that day I began to hear the buzz around noon that he was coming to town and might be heading my way. I staked out my place across from the tree. No one told me, of course, because no one paid attention to me at all back then except maybe to throw a mite my way once in a while. But I knew he was coming, knew before everyone else because I heard the crowd before it even turned the corner by the market stalls. I heard and knew — and began to believe — that he might actually pass my way.

When I could tell he was within earshot, I cried out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” And then a second time, when some were trying to hush me up, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” Then there was just silence, my favorite sound, for in silence I find the real and the holy. For me, sacred always follows silence. I steeled myself, and I could sense all heads turning in my direction, all their cloaks swooshing toward me. I heard sandals shuffling, the dust flying in my face. I held my breath, as I always did, for I was used to life at ground level. Then someone said, “Take courage, he is calling you.”

And I remember thinking: calling me? No one calls me. No one knows my name. And what do you know about courage, anyway? Still, I threw aside my cloak and jumped to my feet, wishing I could see their faces, see how surprised they were to see me moving so quickly and deliberately. As if I was a person who mattered and should be paid attention to. Someone reached out and touched my arm, gently, and led me 15, 16, 17 steps…and we stopped. Silence again.

“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. And that voice…that voice. What was it about that voice? Such authority and kindness. Eternal, somehow, as if it had always been here. I almost laughed but didn’t. What did he think I wanted?

“I want to see.”

And then there was light. That’s all I know. There was light.

(Mark 10:46-52)

Ask yourself in silence: What do I want from God? What do I need to see?

Today’s Word: Yes

Steve · December 19, 2013 · 1 Comment

The Annunciation, by Henry Ossawa Tanner (Wiki Commons)

The Annunciation

(Found in Luke 1:26-39, the Annunciation is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus.)

The announcement, the call to her in the midst of sleep,
is the very beginning of the story,
the pinhole of opportunity,
the invitation to grace
the way opening to way.

It is God saying:
“Yes, this is what we will do. We will begin here,
with this one, this girl.
This poor girl from the middle of nowhere.
This will catch them off guard.
Through her we will look like the rest of them,
work and walk among them, be with them,
point them in our direction before they realize it.

This will be, for many, the path of greatest resistance,
not an easy and gentle way,
but a birth and rebirth offered for them,
a way marked by labor and blood,
things unknown to us,
yet necessary for the work we must do in them.
Yes, this is what we will do.
Yes.”

This offer of grace and salvation now extends to us,
The sons and daughters of creation,
and it asks for an answer.
It requires from us the same yes she gave,
Sitting on a rumpled bed
In the middle of the night,
Inviting in the light,
Saying yes.

Ask yourself in silence: To what have I said yes to God? To what have I said no?