It was very cold last night - the temperatures dipped into the teens - and my thoughts were with all those who slept on cots in a church gymnasium or re-purposed factory last night, and counted themselves grateful for the vague familiarity of at least having someplace - somewhere out of the freezing cold - to sleep instead of cuddled up against a heating grate around the corner of a city building, away from the easy gaze of The City's Finest Women and Men in Blue who would shoo them away from the shoppers and partiers and holiday revelers who would not wish to have their Christmas festivities dampened by such a sight.
To add insult to injury, last night was The Longest Night - the night of the Winter Solstice - when the amount of darkness is greater than the amount of light. That will soon change as we await the coming of the Incarnation of The Light.
Winter can be such a cruel season. It is a painfully necessary season, of course, especially in the North and East, bringing the remembrance that all things must die - all things have an ending that isn't necessarily happy or timely - before something new can begin.
The cruelty for those who have lost their homes, due to harsh circumstances of life or their own folly, is that, for them, The Season of Winter never seems to end. They cry out for rescue and release, for a Benevolent King who will come to rescue them and liberate them from their misery and suffering.
Today is Day VI (6) of the O Antiphons. I like the modern translation from the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, PA: "O Ruler of Nations and their desire, the cornerstone making both one: Come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay."
I especially like this meditation from Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB: "We are not the beginning and the end of the universe. We are part of a vision of humankind, seen in Jesus, and yet to be achieved in us, a vision of global sharing, universal peace, and individual security."
I've been thinking about the "gift of sharing". That is different from buying gifts for someone. It's knowing someone is in need and you have more than you need and giving it to them - even anonymously.
This year, my church held its "Annual Winter Coat Drive." And, every year, I open my coat closet and take inventory. Sometimes, I can't imagine giving up one of my coats. The sacrifice of style combined with a sense of plenty seems too high a cost for the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving that I have more than one coat from which to choose and might choose, instead, to share it with an anonymous someone who doesn't have any.
My solution was to purchase a new coat and donate that. Which is a practice not to be disparaged or disdained. But, it always leaves me, personally, feeling vaguely unsatisfied.
So, this year, after very careful thought and prayer, chose to donate my very fine LL Bean car coat and my London Fog raincoat with the zippered, removable lining.
I've had both for about 30 years. They were both in excellent condition, especially for having been to the dry cleaners last Spring. Not even a button missing or a stain anywhere.
"Gently used". That was the request. Well, "new or gently used". Those coats were neither. Oh, the stories they could tell about the places they had been, the stories of people's lives they had heard, the scenes from human dramas played out, unscripted and in real-time, wherein lay their real value.
It was time for them to go. It was time for me to let them go and wrap themselves around someone else's shoulders. It was time for them to find new purpose, new life, in someone else's life.
It was time for them to become the answer to the prayer of the 6th O Antiphon, best summed up in the prayer of Sr. Joan: "We are not the beginning and the end of the universe. We are part of a vision of humankind, seen in Jesus, and yet to be achieved in us, a vision of global sharing, universal peace, and individual security."
It was time for me to let go of my clinging to a God who is Sovereign of Scarcity and worship the God who is Sovereign of Abundance.
And so, it came to pass. It seems foolish to admit that I can not say that I have not thought of those two coats and wondered where they found a home. I can tell you that I have prayed for their new owners, that they felt the energy contained in each coat - the love, the care, the warmth, the memories.
I have prayed that whatever extra those coats contain may serve to warm their new owners twice and bring them hope that, in this world that can seem more harsh and cruel than we care to see, much less admit, there is still a God who works through the simple clay of human form to bring about the vision of Jesus.
The word I am carrying in my heart today as I walk The Way of Mary is Sovereign. How is it that I live my life like a child of the Sovereign of the Universe? How am I faithful to the rules of the Ruler of Nations? How do I live in the midst of the One who is the Alpha and the Omega, to be present in The Reality of The Now and live into the vision God has for The Future?
I hope something good happens to you today.
Bom dia.
https://www.eriebenedictines.org/
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