new life in old twigs

i literally jumped for joy when i saw that the tree outside my window was starting to leaf and showing tiny signs of blossom!

i love this time of the year when things are ‘coming alive’ or ‘waking’ again. it’s wonderful… and nature’s parable re-enacted: that the cold barren days, the waiting in darkness, the dry brittle twigs weren’t really signs of all-is-lost, but of things waiting for their time (their ‘kairos’).

this is the kind of thing i meant before (over easter) when i wrote about death and resurrection - the experiences in the ‘here and now’ which feel like endings and loss, the cold/lonely/barren times that feel like wasted time, that are sometimes actually just the gateway to something new. not always what we expected, or what we think we’d want, but somehow blessings of new life.  

a little break

having really only just starting this blogging lark, I’m having a little break! (what a slacker!!).

I hope you find plenty to wonder at this Christmas and at New Year celebrations…there’s SO much symbolism around - we should all have a whale of a time thinking deep thoughts about it all!

Catch you in ‘08!

Andy for Advent?

  a perfect Advent message from Andy Warhol’s art works?

I think it’s true… I’m actually more excited about the presents I was given yesterday and will have to wait a couple of weeks to unwrap (yes, I’m squishing them to guess what they are!), than I will be when I get to open things immediately. They’ll be nice too, but the anticipation is part of the fun of it all.

Perhaps that’s part of what Advent is about - learning to enjoy not being ‘there yet’ (’are we there yet?’), but learning to enjoy ‘being here now’…

“leap up with lively joy”

Thomas Merton, looking at Advent sermons by Guerric of Igny, talks about the ‘quickening’ of foetus John-the-Baptist in Elizabeths womb when she met with Mary (herself pregnant with Jesus).

He sees that ‘quickening’ as something we can (should? do?) experience - he calls it “..a renewal in us of this shock of recognition…that ‘click’ that takes place in the human heart when we realise the Saviour is come and is seeking us…” and suggests that, “our spirits should leap up wtih lively joy to rise up and meet our Saviour…”

What d’ya reckon then? ready to have your spirit ‘leap up with lively joy’?!

I love this idea, the quickening of the spirit, internal recognition that is beyond the intellect and is about ‘knowing’ on a different sphere.

I’ve been blessed enough to meet people with whom I’ve had that ‘click’ and sense of my spirit ‘leaping up with lively joy’, and it’s amazing.  I’m guessing you know what I mean!

I guess those things are like a ‘pre-cursor’ of what we can experience if we’re open to God. Here’s to some lively leaping of spirits!  

Advent - ‘are we there yet?’

I’ve been thinking this Advent how bad we are (I am!) at enjoying where we’re at - Advent is something in itself - not just ‘how many days is it til’ Christmas now?’.

I think perhaps we miss out when we view one stage as only a necessary ‘hoop to jump through’ to get to the next stage.

I’ve been wondering how I can be more in the Advent spirit - to live in the sense of anticipation, enjoy the deliciousness of feeling hope, enjoy the ‘now’ intrinsically.

Sometimes I’m in a rush to get the next thing, and I wonder if I miss what is in the now. Like children who just can’t wait to be grown-up, single people who just can’t wait to be married, pregnant people who just can’t wait to give birth, students who just can’t wait to graduate…

 …it’s good to move on when the time comes and embrace the new stage of life, age, challenge, but all we actually have is now - yes, a time of waiting, preparation, and also, if we allow it to be, and are able to be truly in it, ’the time of now’.