Advent 4 ~ Joy

 

Breathe in God’s joy…breathe out the tension and turmoil that too often steals our joy.

Breathe in God’s joy…breathe out the pain that can persist and insist to always have the final say.

Breathe in God’s joy…breathe out all the objections your mind wants to raise about joy.

 

As you settle into the holiness of this moment, hear these powerful and profound words from Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, “Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.”

 

Forgotten joy…unremembered peace.  What joy have you forgotten?  Joy of ice cream on a hot day or hot chocolate on a chilly day.  Joy of laughter and connecting with friends.  Joy of music.  Joy of friendship.  Joy of watching creation or breathing with the trees around you.  What peace is unremembered in you?  Peace of being held in a hug when time stops.  Peace of stillness on a starry night.  Peace of holding a hand, even when there are tears in our eyes.  Poet Wendell Berry talks about the peace of Wild Things.  Hold that image for a moment.

 

Peace…of wild things. 

Peace…of things we cannot control and may not comprehend.

Peace…of things that don’t go exactly according to plans.

Peace…of moments that are less-than-perfect…like God surprising us by being born in a barn.

 

Here is the poem by Berry from which that line comes as a prayer for you today:

 

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Amen.