The Rescue

Dietrich Bonhoeffer compared our Advent waiting for the coming of Christ at Christmas to the waiting of a miner trapped underground. The miner is totally alert, totally absorbed in listening for every blow and every footfall of his rescuers making their way toward him. Can you imagine, Bonhoeffer wonders, that the miner ever thought of anything “other than the approaching liberation from the moment he heard the first tapping against the rock?” Advent is like that. “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28).

Bonhoeffer writes:

It is already knocking at the door, don’t you hear it? It is breaking open its way through the rubble and hard rock of your life and heart. Christ is breaking open his way to you. He wants to again soften your heart, which has become hard… he calls to us that he is coming and that he will rescue us from the prison of our existence, from fear, guilt, and loneliness…

The only question is: Will we let redemption come to us or will we resist it? Will we let ourselves be pulled into this movement coming down from heaven to earth or will we refuse to have anything to do with it? Either with us or without us, Christmas will come. It is up to each individual to decide what it will be.

This picture, The Rescue, is by Jan Oliver, a contemporary painter of retablos living in Pueblo, Colorado. It’s one of the most moving portrayals of St. Francis of Assisi I’ve seen, since it so clearly captures his total identification with Christ’s mercy for all of creation. I just love Jan’s work, and I’d urge you to click on her name and check out her excellent website for yourself.

Hat-tips:

Gabrielle, for introducing me to Jan’s work
Jay, for the original Bonhoeffer Advent meditation

What have they done to the rain?

It’s been raining gently but steadily since the early hours of the morning; I went for a nap this afternoon, and woke up with this heartbreaking song, which I haven’t sung, or even heard really, for many years, going through my head. Now it’s become a full-grown earworm I thought I’d pass it on. Malvina Reynolds wrote it, but the version I remember, of course, was Joan Baez’, which changes a couple of words here and there:

What have they done to the rain?

Just a little rain falling all around,
The grass lifts its head to the heavenly sound,
Just a little rain, just a little rain,
What have they done to the rain?

Just a little boy standing in the rain,
The gentle rain that falls for years.
And the grass is gone,
The boy disappears,
And rain keeps falling like helpless tears,
And what have they done to the rain?

Just a little breeze out of the sky,
The leaves pat their hands as the breeze blows by,
Just a little breeze with some smoke in its eye,
What have they done to the rain?

Just a little boy standing in the rain,
The gentle rain that falls for years.
And the grass is gone,
The boy disappears,
And rain keeps falling like helpless tears,
And what have they done to the rain?

Malvina Reynolds

The Feast of John the Baptist

Today is the feast of John the Baptist, the prophet shouting in the desert. We have always considered him sort of our patron here at the Center for Action and Contemplation. It is now exactly six months until Christmas Eve, and the Christian version of the summer solstice. John the Baptist’s “birthday” is seen as the counterpart to Jesus’ birthday who is born when it appears to be winter, but light is already returning.

Now at the height of summer, we are reminded that the darkness is already returning too. That is often the unwelcome role of the prophet, to reveal the shadow side of things when everyone is cheering and celebrating supposed victories. John’s memorable statement that “He must grow greater and I must grow smaller” was seen mirrored in the very cycles of the cosmos. Christianity does not always realize how nature based its messages invariably are, and how we can know them just by “looking.”

Richard Rohr