3rd Tuesday of Advent: Tucked in By the True Shepherd

"I am waiting for my true shepherd to give me rest. Come soon, Lord Jesus. I am very tired."

Guess who's still up waaaay past her bedtime?

You are correct.

How is it possible to be exhausted, to the point that I'm actually nauseated and have a headache, but I still can't sleep? Apparently my body thinks I'm supposed to sleep in the day time. When I should be working like human beings.

So, I decided to go to Universalis for a Word of God/Liturgy of Hours fix. Mind you, I wouldn't necessarily call this keeping vigil, at least not tonight with some infomercial on TV blaring." But I did take a peek at some prayers and the readings for today, and guess what I found for this afternoon?

"I will pasture my sheep, I will show them where to rest – it is the Lord who speaks. I shall look for the lost one, bring back the stray, bandage the wounded and make the weak strong. I shall be a true shepherd to them." Ezekiel 34:15-16. My bold emphasis.

Boy reading that over just now sure did conjure my Beloved. I feel like I've gotten an early Christmas gift! I'm actually getting sleepy as I type.

Wow. Jesus totally just preempted my Advent waiting (and misery) to visit me. Such a vivid, tender passage. He really is here in it. I guess he didn't think I should wait, even until as soon as this afternoon. Aren't you grateful that while we are watching for the Lord's arrival, he is here, exactly when and because we need him so badly?

I know I am.

:::yawn:::

Goodnight, and good day, beloved friends.

Mwah! "Goodnight, Lord Jesus."

I love y'all.

mair-francis

Woodcut by legendary Catholic Worker artist, Ade Bethune

3rd Monday of Advent: Feast of St. John of the Cross

"I am waiting to see the fount of bright light, although 'tis night. Come, Lord Jesus."

Another sleepless night. I'm so so tired, yet I'm still awake, destroying any chance for a productive day. I'm beginning to think I'm not just an insomniac, but I'm downright in sin with this thing. My mind races at night, and depression peaks in those familiar wee small hours. It's not all about the night watch, though I wish it were. More often than not when I'm awake like that I languish in bed, spending countless hours watching television, or rummaging the pantry for food which I inevitably over-eat. Lord, have mercy. And what's worse, I'm avoiding what I'm really hungry for. Why, I do such a stupid thing I can't say.

My priest hinted during my last confession that the problem is bigger than my ability to handle it on my own. He said I should get counseling. So did Lisa. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but I haven't followed up on it. It feels for all the world like another thing to do, and I talked myself out of it. But I'm not making any real progress. Two steps forward, fifteen backward. I'm not here to be the same (or worse!). In so many ways I'm changing. Why deny myself this grace of healing the Lord keeps urging me to, in so many ways, and through so many people? All he wants to do is heal me. The worst is over. I survived it all. I can look back in order to go forward.

Right???

Sigh.

I ask for mercy. I'm given it abundantly. God even blesses me with lovely, happy days like yesterday. And then the night comes and I'm wild; feral like an animal in my soul.

I think that's why I love St. John of the Cross so. He knew nights. His may not have been as wild as mine, but they were just as dark. And it doesn't matter what suffering causes the darkness. Dark is dark. You can't see. You don't know what's happening, nor understand it. Yet, I find like John many starry nights, when bright lights penetrated the black. And that is a mercy.

John's words:

"Never was fount so clear,
undimmed and bright;
From it alone, I know proceeds all light
although 'tis night."

This morning, I want to see more of that light. Oh, Lord, help a sistah out!

So, I'm waiting. For the light of the world. Oh how I'm waiting for him in this harsh night of restless sleeplessness, so void of tenderness. The darkness drives me to destruction. Within it is a seething pool of anger at myself for things I can't change. "Come, Lord Jesus." Those three words have so many layers of meaning. Come quickly, gentle savior, and grant us wild-minded ones peace. And absolution.

mair-francis

3rd Sunday of Advent: Happy in the Lord

"I am waiting to see his face, who is my joy unspeakable, and full of glory. Come, Lord Jesus. Do not delay."

Sickness and disordered sleep have kept me away from Mass these past few weeks of Advent, and I mourn the time I'm wasn't in God's house, partaking of the sacraments, and celebrating the beauty of the season with the faithful. Still no sleep this morning, and a rather stormy interaction with Ken in the wee small hours, which made it easy to decide against Mass when the alarm went off. I'd only dozed an hour or so. But unhappiness shrouded me early this morning, and I couldn't stand another day without the Eucharist, exhausted or not. So, after pressing the snooze button four times, I finally dragged myself up. If I had to crawl to Mass on bloody knees I would. Fortunately for me, even bleary-eyed and semi-conscious, I remained upright. Mostly.

Aziza and I walked to Mass through a fine mist of rain in temps that resembled no mid-December I've ever known. All we needed were jackets, but we had our matching pink coats. I held her small hand in mine, and she carried her new Teddy Bear, Snowball, in a Build-a-Bear Snuggli. It was one of those mornings that makes the scripture that says weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning was oh-so real.

We weren't late, though I'd left us precious little time to get ready, and the ushers seated us near the front. Yay! Fr. Norman wasn't there, and I missed him, but a young, funny priest celebrated with us, and his homily was great. The music touched me as it always does. It's a lovely blend of the old and the new, African American spirituals and praise songs, and traditional Catholic liturgical music. I love my church. It comforts and embraces me. All of me.

After Mass Aziza and I went to the fellowship hall for the first time and had Spalding's donuts--they are the best in the world, lovies. Krunchy and sweet on the outside, but soft and yummy in the middle. We walked back home in that same gentle rain, and I came home and made roasted green beans and sweet potatoes for our community dinner. I made vegan this time, because my friend is fighting cancer, and I intend to help her kick its butt. Dinner at Third Street House was as lovely as ever. Billy Ray made Banana's Foster, and I'd never had the dish. Uh-mazing! In the words Louis Armstrong so aptly sang, "I think to myself, what a wonderful world."

Today's reading was Philippians 4:4-7.

"I want you to be happy, always happy in the Lord; I repeat, what I want is your happiness. Let your tolerance be evident to everyone: the Lord is very near.

There is no need to worry; but if there is anything you need, pray for it, asking God for it with prayer and thanksgiving, and that peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand, will guard your hearts and your thoughts, in Christ Jesus."

If someone had told me to read this scripture from a scroll this afternoon, when I finished I'd have handed it back to them the way Jesus did when he read Isaiah. And like Jesus, I'd have said, "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled."

I have nothing extraordinary to say, but I feel joy rising up from my bones. I simply want to thank God for love, forgiveness, community, countless gifts, and all the happy I could stand today. Just because.

I am so grateful.

mair-francis

2nd Saturday of Advent

"I am waiting for you to breathe on me, and blow the cobwebs out of my head. Come, Lord Jesus. Without you I live in a valley of confusion."

The wee small hours of the morning again. And you're not even surprised. How predictable am I? I'm so tired. A migraine has tormented me since yesterday, and now the cold draft blowing through the room from outside makes my neck, shoulders and hands ache. But it isn't only physical pain bothering me. My wild mind is particularly untamable this morning.

I'm keenly aware of how the gospels diminish you, rather than make you greater in this world and my selfishness and desire to manipulate and control every little detail of my life is resisting this subtraction. It's more than a little scary, too. God keeps asking me to die, die, die. Not a big, urgent, terrifying, "DIE!!! DIE!!! DIE!!!" But a quiet, sweet siren song to surrender everything to his will. And I keep fighting against it, at the same time knowing that I must die, and that I will give in. I have to. I can even say to a large degree I want to. But it hurts to be a seed fallen to the ground, split open--a violent process--before the first shoot of love, of true vocation begins to emerge. Seeds are hard. Rough. Breaking them means burying them--and it's dark underground! And saturating them with water. Don't get me started on those metaphors this time of morning.

Dorothy Day is my constant companion now. I feel her soul hovering and gently prodding me to a holiness I haven't dreamed of. It isn't a big, heroic holiness, unattainable. No, it's a hidden, nobody-will-see kind of holiness. The kind that bites the tongue, ever ready with a sharp retort, and aborts an unkindness before it is born, ugly and screeching "pay attention to me." It's a holiness of constant work doing things nobody knows you're doing. And frankly, nobody cares.

I read Dorothy's diaries every night and see her offer up things like her rashes, and a host of other ordinary annoyances--she wrote about them all!--and this speaks to me of a woman who gives God everything. EVERYTHING. And even as I sense her nearness--thank God for the communion of saints--she urges me not to be like her, but to be myself. This is a self I have little experience trusting. A self I'm not even sure I like, much less want to trust or believe has the capacity to do anything good for God.

Edwina Gateley is also on my mind a lot. I'm reading her book "I Hear a Seed Growing" about the beginnings of her ministry to prostitutes, and feel ridiculously ill-equipped for this task. Again. I also feel thankful as I read. Both she and Dorothy journaled the most vivid accounts of their work, with surprising detail that encompassed so much ordinariness and so much feeling inadequate. I'm richer for their words, me with so many lofty ideas of what ministry is all about. I had it all wrong. Serving is not what what will make you greater. It's a stripping away of your ragged sense of self-importance until you can finally figure out what John the Baptist meant when he said we have to decrease, and Jesus has to increase in us.

Christ is coming. Tomorrow is the third Sunday of Advent. We're very close to Jesus' arrival now. And I can still hearing John crying from his wilderness into mine, "Prepare the way of the Lord." I'm still scrambling to get my spiritual house in order.

I'm fine when I'm fine. But right now I'm not fine. When I feel so unsettled, I find myself scratching my head going, "Doh! I didn't know this wilderness would bewilder me!" And the unrelenting questions like, "Um... how does one start a house of hospitality without a house again? Anybody know???" Because today I have no idea and everything I said the other day about it, including trusting God for it, sounds crazy. Crazier than it did that day.

I'm reading about Edwina's preparation for her ministry to prostitutes, her wilderness. She called it a retreat, but I know better. She wrote:

This is the beginning of my retreat,
I am tired and sad,
still trembling, still fragile,
knowing in my soul that
God is gentle.
But I am still a
little afraid that I might
crumble and die
if I hurt anymore.
All I can pray this evening is:
Mother God, Father God,
gather me up
in your arms - and
let me sleep....
I feel like a child
left alone in the dark too long.

A hearty amen to all of that. Maybe it's this early morning hour when sleep eludes me that's driving this post. Or maybe it's a wilderness thing. Or maybe it's me being split open for seed. I don't know. All I can say is that I'm grateful I'm not alone. You're here. And I'm glancing up from bed to where I moved St. Therese's picture--I moved her from the living room to make way for the Nativity icon. She's here. And Dorothy. And Teresa of Avila and Mother Theresa. All of them saying, "Go the little way." Even Edwina, though she's alive and well, and hopefully asleep at this hour. Her words bring her presence in my room.

I have no idea how any of the work I'm craving in my soul will be born. It's all shrouded in darkness this morning. And the only way I can bring any light to it, is to stay in the Word, pray like a dying woman, and rest in God's arms with the saints who keep urging me not to think bigger, but much, much smaller.

And wait.

"Come, Lord Jesus."

mair-francis

2nd Friday of Advent

"I am waiting for my loved ones to rise again. You, who are the Resurrection and the Life, come quickly, and reunite us."

So, last night I was searching for a friend from high school, Paula. I'd recently heard her sister Reshonda was so kind to my mom when my aunt Suzie passed away around Thanksgiving. And then mama told me Reshonda suddenly died. Lord, have mercy. Of course I prayed for them, but I thought maybe I'd Facebook Paula, see what she's up to these days, and offer her my condolences. Everybody is on Facebook.

Everybody except Paula. The information I found on her was beyond scant. I google myself and a frightening amount of information comes up, but the only thing I found with Paula's name was the obituary of her brother, Paul.

Paul is dead??? I thought, shocked. I was so saddened lovies. I didn't know Reshonda at all, though her death touched my life through my mother, and I mourned with those who mourn her. But Paul and Paula were old friends. We went to school together. Shared classes. Ate lunch at each others tables. Paula was the pretty, fun loving girl who never met a stranger, and Paul was the soft-spoken cutie who had a crush on me. Crushes on me were rare, y'all. I was not the popular one. Nor was I a social butterfly. I was a little sweet on Paul, too. He had the biggest, prettiest eyes, and a massive afro back when big afros were hot! But nothing ever came of it.

I'm getting older, and grayer, and my waistline has disappeared. I've had a few moments in which I wondered about my old crushes. It wasn't long ago that I thought about cute Paul and wished him well. He'd had some trouble early in his adult life, and spent a little time away. I'd hoped he righted himself, as we often do when we're a little wiser. Then again, sometimes we don't. I'd lost all contact with him and his sister. I only know because I learned from a Michigan newspaper site that he passed away the day after his birthday last September. I found no information about what he died of on his second day of being 44, and it was with a heavy heart that I added the weight of his death onto the burden of others I've known to be lost to us living this year. My wonderful, crazy aunt Suzy. My lovie Steve's newborn grandchild. My cousins father, on the birthday of her dead mother! Lord, have mercy. My cousin Linda. And others, too. And then I took that huge ache to my Beloved.

All week I've been thinking about the first advent of Christ reminding us of his second coming, and I can't help but feel a surge of immense hope. The one who destroyed death by death will come again, and give us so many of our loved ones back. Those who sleep in him are like butterflies in their mysterious chrysalises. At the last trump they will be changed into bright and beautiful butterflies and together we'll soar. I am so very grateful for that joyous thought, so needful in these days as dark and cold as a grave.

Rest in peace, my lovies who sleep in death. I hope to see you all soon.

"Come, Lord Jesus. Do not delay."

mair-francis

Metanoia! 2nd Thursday in Advent

"I am waiting for the Bridegroom to come. And I want to be lovely for him. Come, Lord Jesus, my tender lover. Do not delay."

So today I rested! I know. I've been resting for a couple of days, but that was Nyquil fueled rest. That was forcing my body down so that it could heal. Today I rested to ease my mind. In my joyous languishing I did some reading. I got a kick-butt e-news letter from Ruth Haley Barton today. Love her! She wrote about John the Baptist, and I love him more than I love Ruth! He's one of my favorite saints, with his extreme personality; his locust and honey diet; his wildness and his wilderness. Even his doubts in prison when he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the one?" move me. When I think of St. John the Baptist one word comes to mind:

REPENT!!!

Ruth said the Greek word for repent is metanoia. It means "to turn around; to change your mind; to "go beyond your mind." I've heard the first two, but I never heard the "go beyond your mind part." I don't know about you lovies, but I need to go beyond my mind badly right about now. I seem to get stuck fairly often, thinking the same old thoughts, which begets engagement in the same old behaviors, which means I don't change at all. Or I change for a day or two, but it doesn't last because, I have to face it, sometimes my spirituality is an inch deep and a mile wide. I can put on a good show, but it's all smoke and mirrors, and none of it impresses God.

I'm hearing John's voice crying from his wildness a call that resounds in my own wild places: Repent! He says, and I can't get away from the word. Turn! Change! Go beyond the limitations of your mind! Another voice cries too, and I hear it in the core of my being. "Prepare the way for me. I'm coming quickly. Are you ready, my beloved?" How I know that sweet sound, and I hear the urgency, the hunger in his voice. Like he's in a wilderness himself, away from me. From us.

I've been so busy thinking about cuddling sweet baby Jesus, that I forgot all about the fact that Advent teaches us to watch and wait in wonder for all the ways Jesus comes. He's not just the baby. He's also the Bridegroom, and I'm over here looking a hot mess!

"A voice cries out: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all the people shall see it together, for the mouth the the Lord has spoken."

I'm doing a little soul cleaning y'all. And to be honest, some body cleaning, too. There are too many crooked places in my life, and the Lord's road to me, his beloved, is a little too littered with my garbage. It's time to make his journey to my heart easier.

A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, right? He's coming, and he wants to make an honest woman out of me, in oh so many ways. He wants to be one with me, and I want to be ready for such a glorious union. And lovies, I intend to be beautiful for him, inside and out, whenever he arrives.

Prepare the way of the Lord, indeed. And may God have mercy on me, and teach me what I need to do to receive him well.

mair-francis

2nd Wednesday of Advent '09

"I am waiting for your rest, and for your strength. Come, Lord Jesus. Do not delay."

Today I got up from the bed. I pulled my sweats on over my long johns, put on my wool socks that Alana knitted, and braved the day. Thank God for friends. They sent the socks and long johns!

I bundled up in as much as I could against the cold, only to get outside and find it wasn't so bad out there. It felt like it was about 50 degrees, very pleasant when the wind wasn't blowing. Kind of cold when it was. The sky was both bright and sunny, and gun metal in parts. The wind was fierce, and sometimes still.

The weather mirrored my soul this morning: wild and paradoxical. I trust, and I doubt. I work, and berate myself for not working. I am sick, and I am well. I am tired, and I am on fire. And this great wind keeps gusting through my life, bending branches, lifting leaves, blowing away the garbage And Lord, there is so much garbage.

ZZ saw that there might be tornadoes in Atlanta. We do not live in Atlanta, yet she worried that we, too, would be devastated.

"Our house isn't very sturdy, Mama," she said. So earnest at ten.

And me: "Our house is old, baby. It's been around a lot longer than we have."

I had to remember I was talking to a child who was scared.

Softer now: "It'll be okay. We're just gonna pray, and trust God. What else can we do?"

Yes, I know. Not the wisdom of the ages, but it was all I had to offer at the time.

But seriously, sometimes it really is as simple as that. We drag ourselves out of bed. We soldier on. We walk the girl to school. We trust. The wind blows all around us. It looks like it's gonna storm, but the sun is shining at the same time. Don't bet on any of it. Not the sunshiny part of the sky, or the stormy part. It's all the same. We'll live through our joys and pains, our triumphs and our tragedies, our brutal failures, and our shining successes, and sometimes we'll do it simultaneously. I think it's best to see all of it from this place of humility and detachment. And great love. That detachment is hard! The humility and love aren't easy either, but what else can we do? I don't like any of the alternatives: arrogance, inordinate attachment, and apathy.

Part of the reading for today:

The Lord is an everlasting God,

he created the boundaries of the earth.

He does not grow tired or weary,

his understanding is beyond fathoming.

He gives strength to the wearied,

he strengthens the powerless.

Young men may grow tired and weary,

youths may stumble,

but those who hope in the Lord renew their strength,

they put out wings like eagles.

They run and do not grow weary,

walk and never tire.

and in the Gospels:

Jesus exclaimed, ‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.

I have no idea what either of them have to do with Advent, except that maybe on days when a soul is bone weary and can't seem to breath right in it's wretched body, and it feels like one's lungs are going to explode. When a person has no sense of bearings, and everything is fuzzy. When a soul is too tired to feel, it simply has to do what it's always done. Rest, then get that body out of bed. Take the girl to school. Know that it lives beneath the same wide expanse of sky that Jesus did. Soldier on. Rest again. Naps can be your friend.

Jesus rested. Then he got out of bed. He put on his tunic and his robe. He tied his sandals, and braved the day no matter what it brought. He too, was full of paradoxes but somehow he made sense of them. He was God and man. Fully. Truly. It's crazy.

And you? You are made in the image and likeness of God. Imagine that!

Rest. Get up. Rest again. Get up again.

You'll make it.

Stay alive.

mair francis.