Advent – Spirit Reflections

The Psalms of Advent: Amen

December 16, 2022

“The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms . . . .” George Santayana

Twenty-one days ago, I began this series on The Psalms of Advent with the above quotation by philosopher Santayana because his words reminded me of the depth and width of the Hebrew psalms that contain all the joy and pathos, the wide kaleidoscope, of human emotions and give them safe space to be heard and received. Over these past three weeks of Advent, we have been invited to listen to four different psalms, each one selected for worship on one of the four Sundays of the Advent Season. This series has been a pilgrimage of sorts, seeking guidance, wisdom, hope, illumination, and inspiration from ancient voices singing ancient songs in Psalms 122, 124, 42, and 80. Yesterday, I reflected on Psalm 80, which will be read in many Christian worship services this Sunday, December 18. The entire psalm may be found here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2080&version=NIV.

While the psalms were, in fact, written by Hebrew poets for Hebrew people in historic, personal, and often specific Hebrew circumstances, they still speak to anyone in search of the Holy and who longs for an honest relationship with the Divine. Often what Christians claim to be prophesies of Jesus Christ in these psalms are in reality prayers for earthly kings and human messiahs. Yet, as a Christian, I do see the promises of Christ in these songs of and prayers for peace, humility, righteousness, service, sacrifice, salvation, light, and personal and corporate relationship with Yahweh, the great “I AM.” The shepherd in Psalm 80 resembles the Good Shepherd of the New Testament, the One born of blue-collar parents in a rural town under occupation by Romans, the One who taught that to love is to serve and to serve is to love, the Daystar that never quits shining no matter how dark and bleak the times might be.

So in these final days before Christmas or whatever celebration we await together, we wait and watch and remember and hope and sing and shine and say, “Amen,” which means both “So be it” and “Yes,” yes to all of life because the psalms have taught us that we are not alone in this vast and often lonely cosmos. Perhaps that assurance is the greatest miracle of all.

Thank you so very much, whoever you are and whatever you profess, for sharing this Advent pilgrimage with me, whether you followed daily or dropped in from time to time. Thank you to those who let me know you were present; your encouragement and presence blessed me. I wish each of you and all of us the wonder of the shepherds, the serenity of silent snow, and the glorious joy of the choirs of angels.

Amen and amen~ Rosemary

Photo credit: Pixabay

Wednesday, Advent Week 3: Deep

The Psalms of Advent, December 14, 2022

You are invited to light a candle and join me as we finish sitting with Psalm 42 this morning. You may find this psalm at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2042&version=NRSVUE. My favorite verse in all of the psalms is found in this one, where “deep calls to deep” (verse 7). Within each one of us, at the core of our very being, is a Source that birthed us all, that unites us all, that loves us all. That core goes by many names including heart, soul, spirit, being. It is our private sanctuary, our Holy of Holies, where our greatest griefs, our most powerful fears, our most joyful experiences commune with the Holy. Anything and everything is contained and deemed sacred and worthy here.

In this single psalm, #42, the psalmist experiences the myriad of emotions found throughout the Book of Psalms where deep communes with deep:

Deep desire: “My soul longs for you, O God” (vs.1);
Deep questioning: “When shall I come and behold the face of God?” (vs. 2);
Deep grief: “My tears have been my food night and day” (vs. 3);
Deep tension: “Where is your God?” (vs. 3):
Deep memories: “I remember as I pour out my soul” (vs. 4);
Deep joy: “with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving” (vs. 4);
Deep despair: “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” (vs. 5);
Deep faithful resolve: “Hope in God” (vs.5).

Yes, Psalm 42 underscores the barebone honesty where “deep calls to deep” with the conviction that in doing so, the relational connection between human and Divine never wavers. There simply is no situation too deep for God’s presence, too barren of hope, which is why this psalmist, in the midst of depression and loss, can proclaim:

“By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life” (vs. 8).

As we leave this psalm of Advent, I wonder what is deep within you? What is it that you thirst for? Have you found satisfaction for that thirst? In what or whom do you place hope when all seems buried in shadows? How might these ancient words of an ancient psalmist touch you in the place where your deep calls to deep?

Blessings ~ Rosemary

Photo credit: Rosemary McMahan

Tuesday, Advent Week 3: Where?

The Psalms of Advent, December 13, 2022

You are invited to light a candle and join me as we continue our journey with Advent Psalm 42, found here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2042&version=NRSVUE.

As mentioned in the previous blog, the author of this poignant psalm-song-poem was most likely in Babylonian exile or had just returned to Israel, perhaps Jerusalem, and was mourning the ruin and displacement of his Jewish people. The word that speaks to me this Advent day is where, found in verses 3 and 10: “Where is your God”? In these verses, where is both question and demand.

As a minister for twenty years, as a spiritual companion, and as a Christian (along with any spiritual person) living in a secular society, I am quite familiar with the aching and/or cynical question, “Where is your God?” I’ve heard it asked at the death of an infant. I’ve heard it demanded after fervent, faithful prayers for a healing that didn’t happen. I’ve heard it asked in times of natural disasters and horrifying wars. I’ve heard it asked from good people when bad things happen. In the dark shadows of a three-year depression and also when I watched helplessly while my mother succumbed to Parkinson’s disease and dementia, I asked it myself. At times, I still do. Where are you, God?

I admit that I do not have the theologically definitive answer to the question, “Where is your God when . . . ?” I can only share my own personal ponderings and convictions. First, I suspect that many of us imagine God, by whatever name we use, as our personal genie or lucky magic charm. If we are good, if we are faithful, if we are obedient, if we do the right things and say the right words, then God “owes” us when trouble comes. When God doesn’t “pay up,” we throw away the lamp, dismiss the genie, toss the charm and look elsewhere.

Secondly, we like to place blame on anyone but ourselves, and God is an easy target. The problem, though, is that God isn’t the source of sorrow and disappointment. Often what gets dealt us is a result of our own choices (the gift and challenge of free will) about what we eat, drink, breathe, where we live, who we choose to love, how well we take care of our bodily temples, etc. And, often our lives are changed by others’ choices and actions, as well as those things over which we have no control. Wars are a product of human greed, injustice, and evil, not of God. Many natural disasters affect or kill hundreds of thousands of people because we continue to build where Mother Nature has said we should not. Those who have lived before us have left a legacy of environmental abuse, along with the careless ways we live now, even though God trusted us to be good stewards of creation. But it’s much easier to just blame God than to admit our own failings.

Finally, I believe God most waits and makes God’s Self known in the dark places. The Franciscan contemplative theologian Fr. Richard Rohr has written that Christ didn’t die to “take away our sins” (whatever that actually means) but to take on all human suffering in order to demonstrate the God of love who is ever-present, ever-compassionate, ever caring. Through my own personal experiences, I believe that the Holy One, the one Who Is, the “living God” (verse 2) will always be present in the darkest shadows where “deep calls to deep” (verse 7) in its rawest, most honest voice. For myself as a Christian, this hope is the promise and meaning of Christmas.

Blessings ~ Rosemary

Photo credit: Pixabay

Monday, Advent Week 3: Thirst

Psalms of Advent, December 12, 2022

You are invited to join me as we listen to Psalm 42, the second to last of the Advent psalms for this season of seeking, waiting, anticipating, and searching for the light that shines in the darkness. Psalm 42 is familiar to many people because of the memorable imagery of the first verse: “As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, my God.” The entire psalm may be found here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2042&version=NRSVUE.

Have you ever longed for water? Have you ever been really, physically, thirsty? A long, hot hike on an August day in the middle of a desert in Utah taught me about thirst and the very real, human desire for water. Halfway through the hike, under a blazing sun, I had finished my water. It would take two hours to get back to the car and then to a gas station or café, and I passed no one who might share some water on the way. When I finally found water, it was with great relief, gratitude, and rejoicing.

Have you ever longed for something else, been really, spiritually, thirsty? Such is the case for the psalmist here. While he is most likely lamenting exile and the dispersion of his people, the Jews, this poem speaks to any of us in general terms of danger, loneliness, threats, grief, depression, anxiety, trust, and hope. No matter who we are or what we believe, we have all, at times, been thirsty for an answer, an assurance, a justice, a reckoning, a solution, a Love that is bigger than our situation.

Thirst is not a choice, preference, or whim. Because we are human, water is a necessity for life. For this psalmist, so is God. I go back to Psalm 1 and the image of the tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in due season. Sometimes we do, indeed, go through parched seasons, but the hope that this psalm places in God is that these times are just that, seasons, and that if we stay grounded in the Divine, in the Mystery, in Love, in Light, we will again yield fruit. This promise is one I root in my heart.

Blessings ~ Rosemary

Photo credit: Pixabay

Sunday, Advent Week 3

The Psalms of Advent, December 11, 2022

Please light a candle and spend some Sabbath time reading and reflecting on this glorious psalm of praise, Psalm 146, which we have accompanied these last three days. Feast in the richness of each word. Rest in its assurances. Join in its cacophony of praise. And be blessed.

Psalm 146
1 Praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD, my soul.
2 I will praise the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
3 Do not put your trust in princes,
in human beings, who cannot save.
4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.
5 Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD their God.
6 He is the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them—
he remains faithful forever.
7 He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets prisoners free,
8 the LORD gives sight to the blind,
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,
the LORD loves the righteous.
9 The LORD watches over the foreigner
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
10 The LORD reigns forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the LORD.

Tomorrow, Psalm 42 will welcome us in. Until then, blessings ~ Rosemary

Photo credit: Rosemary McMahan

Saturday, Advent Week 2: A Poem

December 10, 2022

Please light a candle and join me on this Advent journey and exploration of the Psalms of Advent. In my last blog, I wondered about the invitation to make praise both a worship and an everyday practice and experience. This poem is the response to my reflection on that. Like the psalm we have looked at the last two days, Psalm 146, this, too, is a song of praise.

Sun Poem

Shouldn’t there be a ritual for the rising of the sun
each day
with candles lit and dancing,
hands upheld in welcome,
songs lifted in praise?
Watch how the sky prepares itself
swathed in azure and violet
how the trees await, limbs lifted
naked and unashamed.
The hilltop holds itself steady
as the first sliver of light appears
behind it and fog like the veils of a dancer
cloaks the water’s face
in preparation for welcome.
Shouldn’t there be a ritual for the rising of the sun
each day as it crests the horizon
in full glory, round and fat and fiery
billions of years of hot white light
a miracle
that blazes into our eyes
so that we turn away, as if it were
the face of God?
Now it ignites the fog
shimmering in pink, turns the dew
to flickering light, droplets of water
on trees into iridescent strings
of pearls, calls forth
the redbirds in
scarlet robes to sing
aubades.
Shouldn’t there be a ritual, each day,
for the rising of the sun, for the promise
of new beginnings, for the grace granted
for another chance? Shouldn’t we bow
before it, weep in humble gratitude
tremble at the power that grants
us faithful constancy, for the fact
that what could burn us instead
blesses?

Blessings to you ~ Rosemary

Poem and Photo credit: Rosemary McMahan

Friday, Advent Week 2: Praise

Psalms of Advent, Dec. 9, 2022

You are invited to light a candle and join me in reflecting again on Psalm 146: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%20146&version=NRSVUE. Yesterday, we sat with the word “sustains.” Today, we look at the word “praise” which begins and ends this psalm as well as psalms 147-150, the final psalms in this ancient collection of poetry. To whom is the praise directed? To the LORD, a title that becomes a drumbeat, repeated eleven times in this ten-verse psalm. The psalmist makes clear that the LORD is the one to be praised because it is the LORD, not mere mortals, not princes and kings, who has set prisoners free, lifted up those bowed down, loved the righteous, created heaven and earth, kept faith, sustained the orphan and widow, executed justice, and given food to the hungry.

This psalm is a call to praise and a call to trust. As one interpreter writes, “In biblical terms, to praise God is to live, and to live is to praise God. Praise is thus both liturgy and lifestyle; the two are inseparable.” * Think of our various practices of worship and the many different names used to praise the Holy One. How often do we take that praise out of the sanctuary/temple/mosque/nature and into our daily, everyday lives where there are bills to pay, doctors to visit, work to be done, relationships to mend, bosses to be pleased, children to be fed, and on and on and on? How might our lives and the lives of those around us be different, be better, brighter, more hopeful if we also made praise a lifestyle?

On these dreary winter days with the never-ending bad news a constant shroud, praise often seems the farthest action from our minds. No doubt the Israelites faced many of the same troubles we do, including exile. Yet they still sang praise and were encouraged to live praise. There will also be something to complain, fret or worry about, and there will always be something to praise. If our hope is to be Light-bearers and to shine that light into the darkness, then perhaps the practice of praise is the place to start. We are breathing. We are reading and writing and thinking and praying and hoping. I am thankful for all of that this Advent, and I praise God for you. Blessings ~ Rosemary

*The New Interpreters’ Bible, Vol. IV, pg. 1265.

Photo credit: Pixabay

Wednesday, Advent Week 2: A Poem

The Psalms of Advent, December 7, 2022

Since yesterday’s post on Psalm 21 and my thoughts on the word “presence” (https://wordpress.com/view/spirit-reflections.org), I’ve had a desire to write a poem about the presence of the Divine as my meditation on this psalm. I thought of that Presence who revealed Itself in evening walks in gardens, in burning bushes, on the tops of mountains and in mountain caves, in crossing over to new lands, in the middle of a bustling, dirty city at census time, in the temple teaching, in the towns along the lake, in a boat on a stormy night with frightened friends. But I couldn’t get that particular poem to take shape, so I followed where the words chose to take me, to this Poem of Advent:

Flame

“The light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it” (John 1:5).

In the early hour
of a sullen December morning,
leaden sky pressed against
the windows, rain drizzling down
glazed panes,
I light a candle.
Outside, the barren trees
seem wearied
as if they would like
to tuck themselves down
to rest upon the dampened
ground.
I light a candle.
Even the birds
have gone silent,
the clamor of a world
in turmoil too much
weight for their song.
I light a candle.
Has December always been
thus? Wars and rumors of war
traveling on the winter wind?
Justice and mercy crumbling
like mountains sinking
to the frigid sea?
Sly shadows desiring only to smother
the light?
Since the beginning,
has it always been like this–
darkness snaking its way,
measuring its forward motion,
to extinguish whatever shines?

The flame of the candle
burns on
steady and still
casting a single beam
against the spattered
window. I light another
and another
candle, shadows resist
and dissolve. The rain still falls,
the gray face of the sky
still peers through
the windows
yet the light shines on
and the darkness cannot understand,
cannot overcome it.
I open my lips
to whisper a prayer:
May I be the light,
may you be the light,
stemming from the Source
that continues to flame upwards
to sing.

My Advent prayer is that we be the Light-Bearers who carry the presence of the Divine Light into this much troubled and fractured world. Blessings ~ Rosemary

Tuesday, Advent Week 2: Presence

The Psalms of Advent, December 6, 2022

Psalm 21 is abundant with words seeking to be heard and treasured in the heart: rejoice, joy, desire, request, and love, as just a sampling:

The king rejoices in your strength, LORD.
How great is his joy in the victories you give!
You have granted him his heart’s desire
and have not withheld the request of his lips.
You came to greet him with rich blessings
and placed a crown of pure gold on his head.
He asked you for life, and you gave it to him—
length of days, for ever and ever.
Through the victories you gave, his glory is great;
you have bestowed on him splendor and majesty.
Surely you have granted him unending blessings
and made him glad with the joy of your presence.
For the king trusts in the LORD;
through the unfailing love of the Most High
he will not be shaken. . . .
Be exalted in your strength, LORD;
we will sing and praise your might.
(Verses 1-7; 13. New International Version)

The word that beckons most to me, though, as I spend a second day in this Advent psalm’s company, is presence: “Surely you have granted him (the king) unending blessings/ and made him glad with the joy of your presence.”

Presence is such a rich word. In a world where loneliness, isolation, and cut-off abound, presence beckons like a candle flame. It is a sacred gift we give another, the gift of our attention, our time, our love, our company, our selves. Sometimes words are not even necessary. Presence itself says, “You matter to me.”

When I think of the nativity story, I realize the importance and demonstration of presence. We find Joseph present to Mary, when he could have taken an easier way out. We find Mary and Elizabeth, amazed pregnant cousins of different generations, present to one another. We find angels (the highest of the high) present to shepherds (the lowest of the low). The old prophets, Anna and Simeon, share their presence in humble and faithful anticipation of a promise. And the child? He is named Emmanuel, which means presence: “God WITH us.” If Jesus offered anything in his ministry, he offered the gift of his presence, particularly to those who mattered to no one else. The season of Advent reminds us that he still does.

So, I reflected on who has been present in my own life when I have been lonely, confused, or bereft. Who are the people who have simply been with me? Then I thought about who I have been present to when she or he needed someone, and who, right now in this “happiest time of the year,” would appreciate my presence. When we are present, we bear the gift of God-Light, the same light God promises and shines on us.

Thank you for offering your gift of presence to me in this blog. I am so grateful. Blessings ~ Rosemary

Photo credit ~ Rosemary McMahan

Sunday, Advent Week 2

The Psalms of Advent

Over the last few days, we have listened together to Psalm 72, verses 1-7 and 18-19, the Advent psalm appointed for the liturgy of worship for this second Sunday in Advent. Below are links to two translations (the more formal and poetic New Revised Standard Version and the easier to read Common English Bible) and one paraphrase, written in every day language (The Message). Denominations across the world who use the Revised Common Lectionary to select their scripture passages will be reciting or hearing this same ancient psalm, written for and about kings who lived long, long ago, yet a psalm that still speaks with relevance to us.

I have shared the words or phrases I have heard. Today, I take Sabbath to sit with my reflections, while also wondering what you have heard? What word or phrase has invited you, guided you, spoken to you, or surprised or bothered you? What might the universal Spirit be saying to you in this season of seeking? I would be honored to know.

Blessings on your Sabbath ~ Rosemary

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2072&version=NRSVUE

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+72&version=CEB https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2072&version=MSG