Advent II

A pregnant and unwed Mary… off to her cousin's. Greeted with joy, no judgement, no questions asked. Our celebrant today spoke about the amazing capacity that God has to meet us where we are.

We don't have to clean ourselves up, or clean up our house, before God can come in to meet us. We may think we do. But that is not what God asks of us.

How amazing when we cam mirror that same acceptance in each other, the way Elizabeth welcomed Mary.

May this next week of the "Irrational Season" (as Madeleine L'Engle described it) be one for welcoming and accepting and joy.

Advent 2

"A voice of one crying out

in the wilderness…"

How can anyone make

a pathway for God?

only with God's help.

and irony in every step

Advent 1

A people who live in darkness…

cannot comprehend the light.

give me eyes to see

ears to hear

hands to help…

lead me out of the darkness O Lord.

K.I.S.S.

We're decorating early (for nuns) this year. Used to be Christmas Eve Day was the day for decorating the world.

But here today, we set up the creche in the morning, attached the wreaths to the cross and the front door and we'll start trimming the tree in another half an hour. All that to say that the last-minute flurry of things to be done will be a little less complicated for those of us actually doing the doing. Wahoo! 

"K.I.S.S... or Keep It Simple, Sister" is our motto this year. We'll see how that goes. Over the years traditions develop in any family or community, and somewhere along the way those little extra touches that one person added one year become cemented in the communal memory and then that extra little something becomes a MUST DO.

Not this year. The creche and the tree are the priorities for decorating. Cookies for the Wassail Party on Christmas Eve are already in the works,  we'll have a big dinner on Christmas Day, and that will be it. 

Meanwhile, there are groceries to buy, laundry to be folded, and menus to be planned. Life is good.

December 14th

It's Advent III already. (The one with the pink candle)

How did the time fly by so fast?

It's creativity week starting today. (relaxed schedule, large blocks of time... 

time for cartoonz and art)

I'm the birthday girl today.

(Chinese take-out for supper... and wine!)

I think today must be a good day to be alive...

long retreat

[ri-treet]   noun or verb
evacuation, flight, withdrawal—an asylum, (as for the insane...) a period of retirement for religious exercises and meditation... or

to withdraw, retire, or draw back, esp. for shelter or seclusion.

All of those definitions apply. It's been a long and arduous year. Not a bad year, by any means, but definitely busy. I'm ready for this.

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine was rededicated yesterday and most of us attended. The place with packed with clergy, religious, visiting dignitaries. Even our two elders were there, which required the aide, Access-A-Ride, walker and cane, as well as someone to keep an eye out for mishaps and misplaced belongings. 

We have had strong connections with the Cathedral from the very beginning of our order, even though it is not necessarily our parish church. The celebration was long and lovely, but attending the service meant I was very delayed in my departure to Holy Cross.

By subway, train and taxi... I finally arrived last night after dark, in the pouring rain. Talk about shelter. I was greeted with hugs and offers of food and a small glass of the last of their Thanksgiving wine... (they know the way to a girl's heart.)

I settled in to what seems like a palatial suite... a bedroom, bath and sitting room combined. There is a desk, wireless access, and a bookcase with some interesting titles, a little door out to a garden. I may just fast all week and never leave my suite. (Right.)

I slept late this morning and only woke up when I realized I was having anxiety dreams... dreaming about talking when I should have been silent, shopping when I should have been praying. The brain is a whacky instrument. My retreat plans are flexible but shopping at Woodbury Common never entered my mind. Yet in my dream, there I was, trying on some haute couture jacket that looked ridiculous on me. 

I have not mentioned Advent, although I've been looking forward to that as much as I have this retreat. This year one of my images can be seen on Episcopal Cafe's website for the week of Advent I. Take a peek.

Short week...

The week of Advent IV is a day and a half long this year. That's what happens when Christmas falls on Tuesday. We had our normal Monday rest day yesterday (although only a few got any rest.) Most of us were about the business of last minute Christmas preparations. Some were cooking or baking, some grocery shopping, while others attended to the assorted rest day activities for the elderly sisters.

I made a haul at the Farmer's Market... six poinsettias and two big bunches of assorted mixed Christmas boughs. We used to take the car to Staten Island for our Christmas flowers (when the budget was four times what I spent yesterday.) We no longer have the car, and are scaling down in other areas as well. It felt good to spend so little and create so much. I approach flower arranging the same way I approach cooking: collect the leftovers and see what I can make that doesn't look or taste like a rerun.

So this year we have a big basket of assorted boughs under our altar, mixed with the late-blooming herbs from our garden, holly and some sweet kale flowers. A large red velvet bow adds the color. Today we set up the creche, hang a wreath on the altar cross, and will be close to being finished.

This entire Advent has been a bit of a blur for me. I was focused on other things. The liturgical year has never quite matched my spiritual cycles anyway... except for Holy Week. But I remember some Christmases past when I never even celebrated Advent until I was taking down the tree. It's easier to celebrate subliminally now, and I recognized an odd pattern with the prayers for each particular week:

Advent I Give us grace so we can cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light... We can do this ourselves. We just need a little help.

Advent II Give us grace to heed the warnings (of your prophets) so we may forsake our sins... Okay, we're not getting it yet, we see that. But all we need is a little help and a reminder now and then.

Advent III Stir up your power... and with great might come among us. We are so totally blowing it, you'd better do something dramatic to get our attention.

Advent IV Purify our conscience... by your daily visitation... so your Son will find us prepared... It's all in the ordinary everyday encounters that we are sanded down to anything close to perfection. Attention to detail, acknowledging the small errors in judgement or compassion. Practice, practice, practice. Ignoring our conscience is the easy way out, but it never works for long. It's a short week to practice.

Amazing performance

I've attended a lot of performances of Handel's Messiah in my day... All were memorable (in their own way) but yesterday's performance at Trinity Church Wall Street stands out as the best by far. For one thing, the soloists were not over the top, being divas for their own exaltation. Their tones were pure and intensely focused, but it was the text that stood out, not operatic calisthenics. In particular the soprano who sang the final aria was awesome. Her voice soared without the gale force normally associated with those extremely high notes.

Ever since I was a teenager and was taught it was not only polite, but important to "stand up" at the first strains of the Hallelujah Chorus, I've always looked forward to that one moment when the audience rises. There's something to be said for standing up for pure joy... the physical act reinforces the emotion the music already evokes... one supports the other and as the chorus swells in volume and pitch, my heart swells as well. Who cares whether King George actually stood up? Who cares if some programs now discourage the practice? Some people want to stand; they should leave well enough alone.

I'm always a sucker for the Hallelujah Chorus, no matter how awful the choir might be. Yesterday's choir was most excellent, however, and we were there as guests of one of our celebrants. Our seats were amazing. I always wonder what people must think about a bunch of nuns in the expensive rows. Behind us, the "general seating" was packed. But the truth is, we didn't buy the tickets; people give us these things... especially at Christmas. We get grapefruits from Texas, oranges from Florida, candy and cookies, wreaths for our front door and chapel... it's a magical time of receiving for us.

The brilliant conductor had been a student of one of our founding sisters. She had encouraged his musical talent and was intensely proud of his achievements. She told me how, in the fourth grade, he would bring his compositions to her and say, "Sister, I have written you a symphony!" I sat beside her at the concert and she had brought her own dog-eared score. She followed along through the entire performance. Afterwards we went up to greet him, and he gave her a big hug and kiss.

The conductor introduced us to another well-wisher who was standing in line: a priest he had known at Trinity for many years... the same man I had known as an interim priest from my old parish in Jacksonville. Small world, isn't it?

Advent IV

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation...

This year Advent IV is exactly that: a daily. Monastics celebrate the evening before: First Vespers of the next day (whatever it is) so we will get the full 24 hours of what is normally a week.

Most people won't celebrate Advent IV until tomorrow morning sometime. The clergy and sacristans in the various parishes will be rushing around trying to fit it all in. Our community will be attending mass at the Cathedral for a nice change of pace... then back home to get everything in order for an 8:00 Christmas Eve creche blessing, mass and wassail party. No midnight mass this year. Our median age gets higher each year and we need our sleep to face the dinner preparations for Christmas Day.

Tomorrow night is Christmas Eve... called First Vespers of the Nativity. I feel a little short-changed on Advent myself, this year, but not because I didn't get everything done (which I didn't) but because I was really enjoying it as a Season. That's okay. Maybe next year.

Advent III

It has never occurred to me to pay a lot of attention to the individual collects for the various seasons and holy days... I know where to locate them in the prayer book, and if not there, then the book of lesser feasts and fasts will probably have them. But when I started these Advent posts, the first Sunday of Advent's prayer opened addressing God as Almighty. Then the second Sunday it was Merciful. Hmmm... a pattern? But today, the third Sunday, the prayer has no opening salutation. It cuts straight to the chase: Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us... It's the kind of prayer the Celts would term "calling down the power." No whiney pleas, no begging, just a simple, straightforward demand.

Yet even our demands don't necessarily bring the expected results. The long-awaited Messiah did not come among us with great might. He came as a helpless, homeless baby. Yeah, we say... but wait til the next time. The next time he comes it will all be different. If time is not linear to God, how do we know that? The next time could be the same time. Maybe that power needs to be stirred up within us, not from without.

As an aside... does it ever insult anyone else's aesthetic sensibilities that this Sunday the candle is pink? It does mine. But I suppose that's neither here nor there in the grand scheme of the Universe.

Advent II (better late than never)

The collect for the second Sunday of Advent reads: Give us grace to heed their (the prophets') warnings and forsake our sins...
forsake: to renounce or turn away from entirely, to give up, leave behind, abandon.

Giving up, leaving behind, abandoning... none of these come easy to us. We are constantly reminded not to burn our bridges. Perhaps burning bridges is what the incarnation is all about. God already sacrificed the pleasant unity of the void by speaking those first words: let there be light. One bridge burned already. Incarnation into human form: now that was even riskier. How dreadfully reckless and audacious is the love of God.

Advent I

Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light...

That's how the prayer for Advent I begins. It puts the responsibility for what we can do on us, and the means to do it on God.

I like that. This does not ask for the stomping of Satan, the hastening of the end of time, the slaughter of our "enemies" (those whose theology and views on life may be different from ours, or strange to us.)

It simply asks God to help us stay focused on what we've committed to be about: compassion, tolerance, reverence... a small flame of light that the darkness may not comprehend, but cannot overcome. Too many times we snuff our own candles out of fear, weariness, boredom. Then the works of darkness become our own works, no matter how we dress them up with righteous labels.

Advent I

O let us not, for evil past,
be driven from thy face at last,
but with thy saints for evermore
behold thee, love thee, and adore.
—from Hymnal 1982, #63

Advent… time of preparation, the New Year in the Western liturgical calendar, and kairos time. I'm a literal person when it comes to the church calendar and my liturgy. I don't like Holy Innocents day coming before Epiphany and I don't like to hear John the Baptist yelling in the desert when he's supposed to be leaping in Elizabeth's womb. But that's how it is with kairos time, and I'm learning (painfully) to accept it.

My first year in community had a batch of challenges. Advent was one of the difficult times: I was heavy into comparisons with all my previous Advents… and the convent version kept coming up short. No Lessons and Carols, no shopping, no decorating for Christmas. It was a mini-Lent, and wasn't one Lent a year enough already?

Last year I came into Advent a week late and a dollar short. I'd just spent three months in Wyoming and I was happy to just be home. I still had rest time coming and spent much of it restoring a beautiful, but badly beaten set of creche figures that had been in our community since the 50's. The very fact that the sisters let me even touch these things, let alone repair them and paint them was both flattering and intimidating. What if I wasn't as gifted an artist as I made myself out to be? What if I made them worse than they already were? I tested the waters with the massive stone walls that enclosed the cow and donkey. I painted a little of the backside of the walls, mixing dry pigments with polymer, just as I had been taught so many years ago. Okay, didn't mess up there. I moved on to a Wise Man. So far, so good. It all came back. Besides, the pigments had once belonged to a sister who had painted (in fresco) wall-sized murals in public buildings… she was a legend in our community. I felt like she was watching over me. "You're not messing up with my paints, Sister Claire Joy!" Work on those figures became my Advent prayer.

This year I'm in a different place again. I had a hard transition from city to country in late summer and am just now feeling the peace that comes from turning yet another corner in the spiral dance of life. When I'm in a long stretch of spiritual dearth I can't see the corner coming until after I've turned it. I think I'm actually looking forward to a mini-Lent this year. (Go figure)