Celtic Advent - Day XXI - December 5

 

Celtic Advent - Day XXI - December 5

Jump in, let's go

Lay back, enjoy the show

Everybody gets high, everybody gets low,

These are the days when anything goes.

Everyday is a winding road

I get a little bit closer

Everyday is a faded sign

I get a little bit closer to feeling fine.

"Everyday is a winding road", by Sheryl Crow

We are more than half way through these 40 days of observing a Celtic Advent. Tomorrow begins the second Sunday of Advent. In the secular calendar, we are on Day 5 of our Advent journey which is only 24 days long. 

One would think, with all these ways to mark the days of preparation, this would be an Advent that was pretty near damn perfect, right? That, between the lovely trinity of ways - Celtic, Church and Culture - we would have perfected our devotion to prepare in our hearts a place for the coming of the Infant Sovereign come to save us all from ourselves. 

There is this promise - or, at least, we think there is this promise - that if we stay on the straight and narrow path, if we follow the 10 Rules carved into stone and brought down the mountain to us, if we obey the New Commandment or at least the Golden Rule, all will be well and no harm will come to us and we will all be happy. 

Or, at least, feel fine. 

Somehow, it doesn't work like that. Not for all of us, anyway. Especially not this Christmas which falls right in the midst of the darkest, most dangerous of these perilous days of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Suddenly, we're all in the 5th Grade again, afraid of breaking a rule and being sent to the Vice Principal's office for discipline. 

Mask, gotta have a mask. Keep hand sanitizer in the car. Remember to keep 6 feet distance. 

A friend of mine was heading out to her dentist's office for her six month cleaning appointment when, halfway into what was a 40 minute ride, she realized that she had left her mask at home. 

She said she absolutely panicked. Her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn't drive. She started to sob as she pulled over to the side of the road. What was she to do? If she went back home, she would be late for her appointment. If she continued on, she wouldn't be allowed in the building without a mask. 

She said, "I suddenly became three years old and I wanted my mother or father or some responsible adult to come and fix it." 

Somehow, in the swirl of confusion and panic and regression, she found a small window of clarity, opened it, and decided to call the dentist's office.

When the receptionist answered the phone, my friend said, she heard her very tiny three-year old voice say, "Can you help me? I don't know what to do."

The receptionist was very kind and said, "I'll certainly try, dear. What is your problem."

My friend said she could hear her voice quiver, brinked on a full-throated sob, as she said, "I don't have a mask. If I go home, I'll be late. If I keep going . . . . I don't have a mask," she finally wailed as the damn broke and she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

After a few moments, she said could her comforting sounds on the other end of the phone but she couldn't make out the words. "I'm so sorry," she sniffed, "I didn't hear what you said."

The receptionist said, in very kind and comforting words, "It's okay, dear. We have plenty of masks here. We're a dentist's office. We have boxes of them. I'm sure we can spare one for you. You just come right ahead and get here when you can. We'll be waiting for you. And, we'll have a mask just for you."

My friend said that she stayed there, off the road, for a few more minutes, composing herself. She said, "I wasn't prepared for the kindness in her voice. I wasn't prepared for her generosity. I'd been so careful to follow the rules and here I was, breaking the most cardinal of the three cardinal rules and I didn't get yelled at. I didn't get sent away. I didn't even get scolded. It was all a bit too much for me."

She made her way to the dentist's office and everything went well. Of course. When she got home and settled in with a cup of tea, she phoned me to tell me the story.

"I called you," she said, "because you are one of my oldest friends. You know me. You know that I'm not like this. I've held very responsible positions. I've always followed the rules, lived up to my family's expectations, paid my taxes on time, cut my lawn, taken the trash out and generally, been a good citizen of the cosmos. Why did forgetting a mask upset me so?"

I paused to consider her question. I'm glad I did. Turns out, she had her own answer.

"Do you know what I think? I think this pandemic and the isolation and the rules and the danger are really a weird sort of gift. I think it's providing us with the opportunity and time to consider and reconsider."

"I remember a sermon of yours, years ago," she said, "One Advent, when John the Baptist was saying, 'repent, repent, repent', and you came up and down the aisle and told us that the word for 'repent' in Greek was 'metanoia' which meant 'turn around'. And, you said, 'If you are going down a road and you don't like where it's taking you, turn around, take another road.'"

"Well," she said, "I think that's exactly what I need to do with my time in quarantine. I have been on this road of blind obedience all my life. I don't like where it's taking me. I need to turn around and take another road."

There was some silence which I'm afraid I filled with my own anxiety, "But, I mean, well, you're still going to wear your mask, right?"

"Of course, silly," she laughed. "I don't mean I'm suddenly going to start being a rebel in my seventh decade of life. What I remember you saying about the journey of Advent was that it was not necessarily to lead to a "Merry" Christmas or a "Happy" Christmas. You said, the journey of Advent is to get us to joy, which is a quality of the spiritual life."

"That's what I need in my life. Merry is okay. So is happy. But, joy? I can't remember that last time I felt joy. And, maybe, just maybe, once I find joy, I won't get myself so tied in such a knot when I behave like a human being, faults and flaws and warts and all."

"Maybe if I can find joy, I can find justice for myself. And if I can find it for myself, maybe I can help other find justice. And that will increase my joy and the joy in the world."

"Indeed," I said. It's just like Sheryl Crow sings, "Everybody gets high. Everybody gets low. These (Advent) days are when everything goes. Every day is a winding road."

"Well," I said, "she doesn't say anything about Advent, but all the rest is spot on."

You can find Sheryl Crow's song here. It's become my Advent "ear worm" - not exactly a theme song but something that comes back to me when I remind myself that 'merry' and 'happy are okay but that a Celtic Advent is to prepare for "justice and joy".  

Sometimes, you have to take another path. Go down another road. 

Turn around. Commit acts of metanoia. Repent. 

The road will no doubt be winding but if you stay on the path it just may take you to a place where you can prepare to move beyond happy and right straight on into joy.

Here's a though from John of the Cross for tonight's meditation

Dark Night of the Soul 

John of the Cross 

To get to an unknown land by unknown 

roads, a traveler cannot allow himself to be 

guided by his old experience. He has to 

doubt himself and seek the guidance 

of others. There is no way he can reach the new 

territory and know it truly unless he 

abandons familiar roads.