"Mary said to the angel, 'How can this be, since I am a virgin?"

Luke 1;34

 

Dear God,

Mary's whole life sounds

a single pure note,

perfectly in tune

with your plan.

Like Mary, I will listen for the music of your joy

with my whole self.

My only wish is to place myself in your hands

so that you can make me vibrate,

like Mary,

one with you.

Amen   

 

                                                                                                                    Suzanne M. Lewis

 

In a reading from "Living in Joyful Hope", Suzanne makes the comment that Mary dares to ask a question of the angel.  She dares to speak up.  How hard it is sometimes for us to use our voices.  For some it is equally important to discern how to use them as instruments of good. not pain or as a weapon.  We live in a world so full of ways to communicate, words and noise surround us.  Sometimes I wonder if anything is really being said. How can we best decide what is important or true. 

 

Recently I was away for a week on silent retreat.  It was a blessing and long overdue.  I have been going on silent retreats for years.  That might seem strange for some of you that know me, and can't imagine me not talking for days at a time.  The truth is that I love the silence, I love the permission to just be and drop all those parts of our personality that allow us to engage in the world around us. 

 

In yesterday's reading, Suzanne tells us that "when we pray, we curl up on God's lap, we share the throne of David and we abide in eternity."  Being away allowed me to remember that feeling.  I was reminded when we step away and turn to God, we also return to our selves, return to the source of being that begins and ends with the divine.  The messages of judgement, fear, and anxiety are all connected to the world around us.  It is in stepping away that we are reminded that God is always with us and that finding our voice, asking God where we can best be used and how is an important part of our journey.  Of course, with that comes the necessity to listen. 

 

"If once we have received a real taste of the sacred, we become hungry for more. Our small awarenss leads us to recognize how scant, how provisional, how circumscribed we are.  And though limited, we thrist to be complete.  To live with this sense of lack is part of our human condition.  To meet this need becomes our quest.  Our hunger, though painful, is a tremendous gift.  It animates and energizes us for all the work the Spirit invites us to do. Our huger impels us to seek the Eternal."

 

 

In this season of advent, we are called to make room, to be still and come to know God.  We are called to look throught the darkness in our lives and the world and see the glimer of light.  We are also called to be that light.  During this time we are also inudated with messages about buying the right gift, baking the right food, making joy and light in ways the world tells us will fill us up, will satisfy that hunger. 

 

I love the holidays, I love the fun, the gifts, and the smell of homemade cookies.  Christmas music of all kinds makes my heart sing.  All that said, my hunger for more is always only fed by the spirit.  I am fooled often and try to quell that hunger with any number of other things.  But in the end, it is when I step back, when I am able to go into the quiet and rest in the loving lap of my God that I know how truly blessed I am.  It is then that I know blessing and joy. 

 

"If we can honestly and bravely face the truth of our finitude, even while refusing to abandon our conviction that there must be a response to our deepest need, we will soon discover an interior door.  This door opens onto a world of wonder. With hearts open, we will be propelled on a journey to seek everywhere , and in every person we meet, after the face of God.  We will find God in the most unlikely, most humble and ordinary places!  And on that day we will have all we need."  

 

Let us give thanks this day for the hunger that reminds us of our yearning, reminds us of the all powerful, all consuming love of God. 

 

Let us place ourselves in the longing arms of God on this day.  Let us use our voice to ask the important questions.  Let us find ways to the the light in the world that best serves God.