The Discovery in Advent

Advent is upon us, a time to pause, to watch, to wait.  All of us are in modes of waiting for something to unfold, something to change or settle or arrive that we’ve expected or hoped for.  Do not lose hope, my friend.  Let’s stir the coals that have been close to going cold.

I want to return for a moment, on this first morning of Advent, to Eden.  It is so easy to envision it as a naïve place where we just had our heads in the sand of reality.  But I don’t think Eden was at all like that.  It was a lush and vibrant place.  It had a mystery to be discovered, but one that was easily missed.  It was a place where mankind and womankind were at their fullest, but in the first elements of what could be explored and discovered and what was there to be found was immense.  They were yearning for more, but the snag for them was a tug for independence and power over something, not the deeper and more vulnerable and better place that had them needing one another and wildly working together in all the plans that could unfold. 

The serpent’s tongue was indeed a spear that nailed them to a dimmer reality of the knowledge they might attain, and it took the nails to another tree to reveal a great truth a couple of thousand years later.  And still we suffer the illusions that first draped us in the garden, the clothes we so badly need to shed, the masks that would be far better to remove. 

We have an opportunity to discover something precious this season.  We can quiet ourselves and listen to the deeper beat in our hearts, the quieter rhythm of longing that runs beneath all the louder things that usually catch our attention and demand our time. 

Take some moments to gift yourself with some quiet this season and look closely for what might be stirring in you.  You are alive, so the coals are there somewhere; it’s inevitable.  His breath in you, each moment is part of the fanning of any tiny ember to flame you into the being you are meant to be.  Most of us miss it, building our own miniscule kingdoms in a poor tradeoff of the glorious adventure He’s planned.  See if you can discover a tiny thread of it this season and pull.  It will be much stronger a cord than it appears. 

Make this Advent a season of looking for what has been veiled for far too long or hidden in the many layers of what you’d thought was vital.  Those trappings may have actually been the walls between you and your real purpose.  It is still there to be discovered, no matter the circumstances and supposed limitations.  Begin by being truly present in the moment before you.