Part
of this reaction comes out of the world today. When three hundred
hours of new content are uploaded every minute; when there are millions of
results and websites for every single Google search; when we swim in a swirl of
information and images, we sometimes gloss over anything that seems too
familiar or strikes us as boring.
We
continually long for what is different and distinctive.
We
are constantly scanning and searching for the "New and Improved"
promise.
So,
why would I share two very similar photos back-to-back? I do this because
Advent is a season of staying awake, alert, aware of the world and Advent
is a time of waiting. Sometimes waiting means living with the same,
well-known, even boring, parts of life.
Sometimes
we hope for something new and instead we get leftovers. Sometimes our
hearts are so tuned toward moving on that we don't ever return/revisit what
we've already seen or been.
As a
matter of fact, we toss and throw around the cliché, "Been there, done
that" as a suitable defense for why should ignore such a practice of going
back to what we have already seen, encountered, experienced. Our default might be that returning to
something that was “Meh” at best cannot, will not ever, be helpful. The
world is big, why return to another photo of swirls on a tree that looks
strikingly similar to what we already saw?
Here
is the deeper point I am trying to make.
Advent
is a familiar road to Bethlehem, well-worn with the footprints of our
grandparents, parents and even our own set of tracks from this time last
year. Advent's destination, a stable, is the same as last year and the
year before that and before that. The creche scene hasn't change. I
mean sure, you can put your Luke Skywalker action figure there, write a funny
blog post about it. But when we arrive at the threshold of Christmas Eve, the
reading will be from Luke, the carols will be the ones you have heard for as
many years as you can remember, and we will all hold a candle in our hands just
like years prior.
Yet.
In
the midst of the familiar and well-known, goosebumps still race, run up and
down my arms as if I am experiencing the sacredness for the first-time.
In
the midst of singing the line I know so well, "The hopes and fears of all
the years are met in thee tonight" still stirs my soul still stir.
I am
not saying either the photo from yesterday or today is destined to become a
classic, or that people will demand reprints of both paying thousands of
dollars for the original.
This
is not gonna happen.
But
on the way to Bethlehem this year, amid the familiar, mundane, and even
boring...perhaps that is the place where Visio Divina (gazing
deeply rather than glancing) can awaken us to the holy fingerprints of God
around us and within us.
Consider
this quote from the Upper Room Website, "Visio Divina or
sacred seeing is a way of seeing the world with the eyes of the heart, which is
the place of receptivity and openness, rather than with the mind, which is
often the place of grasping and planning."
Or
remember the Richard Rohr quote about beholding is also be-helding - being held
by the image.
As I
be-held this image above in a deeper way, I start to see the colorful grain of
the manger where Jesus was laid. Perhaps the grains of the wood are a
metaphor for the years of my life which have color, shape, and texture.
To keep gazing, especially when I think I have exhausted all that can be seen,
I might discover a holy hum coming from the photo I missed the first twenty
times I glanced, even tried to gaze prayerfully, upon the scene.
It
is in a lingering, savory space where I believe there is always a trace of
God's grace to be encountered and be embraced by.
Maybe
both the photo from today and yesterday are inviting you to take a second look,
just as the season of Advent will as we embark to Bethlehem this year.
Blessings
~~
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