Monday, December 5, 2011

Advent Reflections

Waiting.
We are all waiting, anticipating.
You and I, each one of us is
Waiting.
For a rending,
a breaking,
For the tearing of a crack at the edge
of our consciousness,
that opens to the slowly growing light.

Waiting.
 For that silent, uncreated Word
to speak Itself 
into voiceless silences,
gently and quietly
like mountain waterfalls,
like a symphony orchestra.

Waiting.

For the first ripple upon our stagnant waters
the first breath of wind upon our shores 
disturbing
the mosquitoes and the gnats 
a little,
an intimation of the Spirit's coming,
the rustle of dead leaves
that hung too long 
upon our branches.

Waiting.

For the Other. For perfect Being.
For the great eternal Something
to enter and to fill
the awful wastelands of our nothingness.

We are all waiting
as if in labor
broken,
bleeding,
crying out,
anguished expectancy,
the pain of a hope 
not yet fulfilled...
the convulsions and the clutching of a pillow.

And the others:
in the aptly named waiting room
white knuckled, breath held,
pacing the plain white floor
can only pray
and wait.

Is this also waiting?
This restlessness,
this nervous blinking, peering side to side,
thumbing through the morning papers,
one too many cups of coffee,
fumbling in one's pockets for a lighter,
and a cigarette
one does not have.

Is this also waiting?

The wastrel in the gutter
clutching at his gin
the narrowness, the closing in,
is he also waiting
in his small brown
paper bag?

The addict,
tired of waiting
flick his wrist to find a vein
worn out, afraid,
afraid of all this silence,
afraid of all these voices,

These too, are waiting.

A barren waiting,
devoid of hope.

Afraid You will not break open,
Afraid You will not speak,
not breathe, not fill.
Terrified You might....

And so the frantic
treading of water,
pushing dead branches 
over the open well,
skating very rapidly
on extremely thin ice,
busily nailing down the shutters
of a barren house.

All of these are waiting, too.

And there is expectancy,
another kind of waiting
one not barren
but filled with hope.

And there is another 
kind of silence
not the silence of death or lassitude
but the silence of a momentous
expectancy.

And another void, 
another place of emptiness
undespairing, full of potentiality

Only in this place of nothingness
where we are unmade and then
created,
only in this silence 
can we begin to strain our ears to hear
the first sounds
of the Coming.

Advent and the Parousia.
The First and Second Coming,
and in between a million lesser Comings
to you and me, and to all of those who 
wait.

Somewhere,
the desperate dropping of a needle,
the kicking of a bottle to the curb,
the sudden realization that one has no lighter,
the pouring of the coffee down the drain.

A sudden  silence strikes the waiting ear,
the cries and the contractions cease
more suddenly
than they first came.
And those in eager stillness waiting,
standing just without the door,
leaning forward,
strain their ears to catch
the first small glimmerings 
of sound.

For unto us a Child is born.




-- Isaac Fox

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Comments welcome.  Visit Isaac's website for more of his thoughts..

2 comments:

  1. Quiet Assent

    Lovely, lovely little star
    Above the winter snow,
    Silent crystal of the night,
    You’ve come from long ago
    When our earth had yet to know
    A viewer of your sight
    Brought from clay whose rise and mind
    Gave wonder and delight.

    For you were here
    Before our stand,
    Before our war and song;
    And you’ll be here in eons then
    When humankind is gone—
    Forever witness from afar,
    Lonely, lonely little star…

    ReplyDelete