WORDS, WORDS, WORDS
Here we are: Blogging Day Number One.
I wondered what would actually happen when it was time to start writing. Because it’s not like a sermon; if you’re bored stiff by the preacher in church, few of us would actually walk out. Yet online, just one flick of the finger and I’m gone.
So, before you do anything hasty, may I offer this Calendar of Advent Reflections as my gift to you for the holiday season?
I realize a traditional advent calendar, with chocolate behind every window, may seem more appealing. But chocolate quickly becomes only a memory—a lingering sweetness on the lips--and all too soon a bit of cellulite upon the hips.
Words, though; words matter. Words, and the ideas they represent, linger much longer, in ways that are more life-changing than chocolate's fleeting delight.
We know too well how hurtful words can harm us. They stress our bodies, raising blood pressure and spiking our responses into high alert. They remain clenched into muscle and bone and mind long after they are spoken.
But good words linger too — life-giving words, healing words, uplifting words--sweetly singing their messages into our psyches and bodies.
Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
This Advent let us share the wonder of the Spirit Words which are a perfect gift at this season or any other.
Words that create us.
Words that speak of new ideas and fresh stories and ancient love.
Like a song from old times,
like a medieval image painted on gold leaf,
like the memory of childhood days,
the sound of the wonderful word of the soul has grown foreign to us….
The little word “soul” sounds just so wonderful and strange
in the confusion and shouting of voices that extol it;
the language is so soft and still
that we hardly hear it anymore over the raging
and roaring going on within us.
But the word speaks a language
that is full of the greatest responsibility and deepest seriousness....
It is the life that God has given us….
It is love in us and longing and holy restlessness
and responsibility and happiness and pain;
it is divine breath breathed into mortal being.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Wonder of Wonders pp. 18 and 19
In the days to come we will travel together through the unpredictable wonders and the serious magic that is Advent: the Advent of our souls, celebrated in and through the Advent of Jesus Christ.
Well come, m’anamchairde. (my soul friends)
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Want some more on words? Here is Word Number One for Advent, from the Society of St. John the Evangelist: WAKE UP. (Click here for more information.)
