ONE MORE WALK Advent, The Perfect Companion

If Advent is in need of a gracious introduction, I think the prophet Isaiah has a really good one. His words have a way of making us want to "run, not walk" to Advent's door....

"Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. ….Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; … For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts…... For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." (Isaiah 55:1-13 (NRSV) selected verses

I can’t know for certain, but I like to imagine as the Jewish exiles first heard these words they experienced profound Grace and sobering Challenge at the same time. Grace in receiving God’s great faithfulness to remain steadfast, adamantly refusing to let these oh so wayward people go…. And Challenge to live into such grace… to live as those who’ve been given the biggest second chance of their lives. I suppose I think of it this way because that’s how God’s word often touches me… profound Grace and sobering Challenge. To receive one without the other feels something like receiving the best possible gift imaginable and then not taking care of it. And yet, Isaiah’s words reflect God's unwillingness to leave the exiles, or any of us as to how we go about embracing such gifts at the same time. With God’s gracious pardon comes instruction….

"Listen carefully"…. Isaiah writes…

Eat what is good….

Delight yourselves in rich food…

Seek the Lord while He may be found….

Call Upon Him while he is near….

God’s thoughts are not your thoughts

Nor are God’s ways my ways….

For you shall go out in joy…

You shall be led back in peace….

The Mountains and Hills before you shall burst into song….

All the trees of the field shall clap their hands…

Mindful of the Grace God has granted to my life, I find that Isaiah's instruction is a welcome Challenge. It's not always easy but such abundant pardon can create a yearning to live for God. There’s not a “have to” but a “want to” to the Challenge God’s Grace presents. So much so that I find I “want” to “listen carefully” not simply to the words, conversations, and sounds around me but to the quiet… what’s not being spoken or said, the stillness of the night sky and all that’s stirring deep inside. I find I want to “eat what is good” and “delight in rich food”… not just delicious, well-cooked food, but the "rich, delicious food" that comes by sharing in meaningful conversations, endearing friendships, giving myself to work that brings me joy, reading good books, serving others, listening to beautiful music, delighting in wonder, and laughing a good bit every day. To give myself to such Challenging instruction is to deepen the Grace God so lavishly gives and gives and gives. It is to “seek the Lord while He may be found…to call upon Him while He is near… to learn a thousand times over that God’s thoughts and ways are not my own…to catch glimpses of the joy and peace God longs to give and to imagine God’s great delight as the wind moves through the trees, causing their leaves to clap their hands….shouting, “YEAH! Leslee is living Grace and Challenge at the same time!”

I know…I know. this is a bit much. But it’s an imagined delight I choose to hold onto and carry with me…especially now….as we approach the threshold of Advent. Advent seems the perfect territory to explore such profound Grace and sobering Challenge as we embrace, once more, the paradoxical invitations of waiting and preparing, darkness and light, despair and hope that Christ's story brings. As we do, we may find more than enough ways to practice holding Grace and Challenge together. And it won't be just Advent asking us to do so. We live in a world that is forever throwing us off balance with the eternal mix and presence of Grace and Challenge. The temptation to pit these two against one another in place of holding them together is fierce. To live only with Grace is to deny and look away from the world's suffering and need. To allow the Challenges of this life to overpower any sign of Grace is to live without hope and with no means whatsoever to combat the Challenges we and the world face. This is why Advent is the perfect companion and guide. Its days, mysteries, and gifts help us learn again how to hold and faithfully live with the countless complexities of life. Its path is marked with purposeful steps that can guide our own. Its textured presence points us to the One who is all Grace walking with us into every possible Challenge. Maybe this is reason enough to hold these two together.

Oh, how the “mountains and hills before us are bursting into song”…..” Oh how the trees of the field are clapping their hands” in thanksgiving and praise for all the ways we may, in faith, say “YES” to both God’s Grace and Challenge. May we look for such affirmations and sense the delight of God’s unending love as we find endearing ways to walk the path of Advent. May we be encouraged, blessed, and toppled over by God’s Grace with every gift of love we receive. May we find that such Grace enables us to share such love with those around us, meeting the often immense Challenges that come. May we continue to trust... and learn to trust again that the One who is coming, has already come. Thanks be to God.

May your Advent hold every life-giving blessing that this One offers and brings.

Advent Blessings, Friends.

Leslee

ONE MORE WALK Gratitude: The Best Defense

If "the best defense is a good offense" is true, then we should all have an abundant supply of GRATITUDE ready. Our glove compartments, backpacks, desk drawers, jean pockets, pantry shelves, store rooms, computer bags, tool boxes, attics, wallets, favorite hiding places, and sheds should have plenty of GRATITUDE easy to get to. For I know of no better way to stare down Evil and Horror than to shine GRATITUDE in their face. It's the last thing Evil suspects and takes Horror completely by surprise. Please don't get me wrong, the suffering caused by these two is immense and heinous. They destroy whatever they touch and leave a wake of devastation wherever they land. But they don't get to have the last word or the final victory as long as there is GRATITUDE.

It's Diana Butler Bass that has me thinking this way. In her book, Grateful: The Subversive Practice of Giving Thanks she writes: "We should never be grateful for suffering, but the truth is we can be grateful through suffering, and that little prepositional switch -- that’s where the empowerment comes." I want to be careful here because there is suffering in this world that I will never know or ever fathom. I live a very privileged life that has been shaped and nurtured by profound blessing. So when I reflect on suffering I know my experience is very limited with what I sense only coming from observation, reading, and the witness of others. In other words, it may seem incredibly insensitive and unfeeling for me to write about something I know so little of.

And yet, I do believe Diana Butler Bass offers something important for us to consider whatever our experience of suffering may be. Her words remind me again, that while we may not always have a choice about the circumstances and events that unfold in our lives, we do have some choice in how we respond to them. And what I hear her saying here is that this is true even for the very worst of circumstances and events. This again may seem like cruel advice given the countless many who live with overwhelming suffering. But what if her words were more of an invitation to hold both together... the reality of suffering and the ability to still give thanks? What if one did not have to negate the other? What if instead, suffering compelled and drove us to reach for GRATITUDE out of defiance? What if this became the way we told Evil and Horror, "You do not have the last say!"? What if GRATITUDE became the best defense?

And should someone's suffering be too great for any of this, what if.... for those of us whose burden is light,...we find a way to share in that someone's suffering? What if we become agents of GRATITUDE... not grateful for the suffering or as those who explain it all away, but as those who affirm courage, hope, beauty, faithfulness, and love in the one suffering? What if we find ways to affirm life in the midst of death? None of this is easy or meant to be a fix of any kind. As Diana Butler Bass encourages...

"Gratitude is strongest, clearest, most robust, and radical when things are really hard. Really hard. All-is-lost hard. Gratefulness isn't easy and isn't all hearts and flowers. It can be tough in tough times. But a dogged commitment to the giftedness of life can deepen our spiritual capacity to make it through circumstances that threaten to overwhelm us." https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/happy-world-gratitude-day

I don't know if any of this is right. I only know I've caught a glimpse of such defiant GRATITUDE in my dad. Last April he became bedridden. He will never walk again or get out of the bed where he now lives his life. It's something that, by my way of thinking, should have expedited his death, robbing him of every possible joy. Instead, he remains inquisitive, about what's going on in the world, and interested and fully engaged in the lives of all those around him. At 91, his memory remains keen, he's in control of his financial affairs, and he enjoys conversation with every person who comes to see him. He is always listening for ways he might help someone around him... how he might with the means he has, alleviate the need of another. He knows he is dying and has made every possible preparation. And yet, what is most apparent is his GRATITUDE. My dad cannot say the words, "thank you" enough. And when he's not saying these words to one of his family, visitors, or caregivers, I'm certain he is offering his thanks to God.

But what is also true is that none of this is easy for him. Every now and then, I catch him lying in his bed, quiet and thinking, wondering I'm guessing, "When will death come.... what will it be like when it does?" I see him losing his appetite, struggling to get comfortable on a twin mattress, fighting off yet one more infection, and wrestling with his feelings about believing he's become a burden to others. These are only the things I sense and see. I have no idea how really hard it all is for him. I only know, that somehow in the midst of all that is so hard he has found a way to be "doggedly committed to the giftedness of life." He has chosen to make GRATITUDE his defense against anything that dares to rob him of the gift he has cared for so well... his life.

All of this is a ludicrous way to respond to suffering, I know. But the thing is, it throws Evil and Horror off their game every time. It's the last thing they suspect and takes them completely by surprise. GRATITUDE is the last thing Evil and Horror expect to see coming. It's why it's such a great defense against all that seeks to rob us of the gift of life. In fact, it may be our best defense. Not just for ourselves but especially for those whose lives are engulfed in suffering. The great offensive play about GRATITUDE is that it knows what it's up against and refuses to back down. If we can live our way into a life like this.... of giving thanks, it will defend us well when Evil and Horror come knocking. They won't stand a chance. And with God's help, we'll find ways to share in the suffering of others, to help those whose burdens are many. We'll proclaim life in the midst of death. We'll live lives of thanksgiving when there's every reason to and when there's absolutely not. May it be so. With God's unending love and help, may it be so.

Blessings, Leslee

ONE MORE WALK The King Is Alive And Well

Just in case you were wondering, Elvis is alive and well. This was confirmed for me by a nice stranger in the frozen food section of Walmart this week. While trying to figure out if we wanted phosphates in our frozen turkey or not, I was enthusiastically encouraged to come look at a video of a much older, white-haired Elvis Presley singing, "How Great Thou Art." It's him," the kind stranger insisted. "This proves that Elvis is alive." Fortunately, another gentleman had also been captured to watch the video with me. This was not, thankfully, his first rodeo with kind strangers, sporting Elvis video. With all of the non-anxious presence of a stone, he quietly responded, "Could be. Could be." All I could manage was, "Well, thank you," and quickly return to my dilemma with turkeys.

Yet as I did, I began to wonder if it really could be Elvis. I mean was DNA testing performed? Do we in fact know who is really buried in Elvis Pressley's grave? He sure sounded like Elvis and even with white hair, there was a striking resemblance "Could be. Could be." Now I should probably stop here and say, "I don't believe Elvis Pressley is still alive." No matter how much I wish it weren't so, I'm afraid you won't convince me that this dear man is still out and about, But the passion and conviction of my Walmart witness were so compelling, that it caused me to stop and wonder.

I've come across other folks whose witness is just as passionate. It's a witness, I confess, that often bothers and confuses me. What they're professing to be true is so far removed from what I believe it's hard to know where to begin a conversation. And yet, their conviction of how they believe things are is so certain that it can cause me to question my own beliefs. I usually come back to my way of understanding things, but not without being caught by the veracity of their witness. I may not agree with what they believe or understand their conclusions, but their passion is real. Their conviction is dynamic. I'm not thinking of those whose words seek only to offend, disrupt, and cause further breach, and harm, but rather of those who are not afraid to profess what they believe by engaging candidly with others. Their intent is not to harm but to share what they believe to be true. Their desire is for me to know their truth as the "best truth." I really think, "they think", it's an act of care. Can it be off-putting and disturbing? Can it leave me looking for words I don't have? Does it make me wish I had stayed home? Yes. But their passion is something. It's something I wish I had.

For instance, I've never stopped someone in Walmart to share my belief that Jesus is alive and well. I can't recall ever approaching a stranger and saying, "Let me show you a video of how Jesus is living in the hearts and hands of people everywhere by being His presence in the world." I've never stood on a street corner shouting, "Love your neighbor as yourself," paid for a billboard quoting Anne Frank's, "No one has ever become poor by giving," or gone to an open commissioners meeting so that I might hold up a sign with the words, "But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." I've done none of these things, even though I have really strong beliefs about all of them. I play my convictions pretty "close to my vest," and keep my passion under wraps. Which is pretty sad, because with a little more passion and conviction, I could stir up some things.

If I had enough passion to openly share what I believe, I could be off-putting. If I had enough conviction to lead you to believe that my truth is the "best truth," I could be disturbing. If I had enough certainty in what I believe to cause you to look for words you don't have and make you wish you'd stayed home, I could start sidling up to strangers in Walmart and let them know that Jesus is alive and well, out and about, loving all of us with passion and all of us without. I could but I probably won't. Instead, I'll continue to give thanks for all those whose passion is different from my own, who unsettle me, calling me to think and grow, and who help me not become complacent in what I believe and feel. I'll share the love of Jesus the best way I know how. And...I'll strive to be open to that which seems impossible...especially if it comes from kind strangers who just want to share an act of care, no matter how far-fetched it may be. And who knows, what I think impossible, "Could be. Could be" possible.

May our deepest passions be grounded in Christ's unending love. May our sincerest convictions be centered in His abiding presence. May it be so.

Blessings Friends, Leslee