Geranium Farm Home         Who's Who on the Farm         The Almost Daily eMo         Subscriptions         Coming Events
Hodgepodge         More or Less Church         Ways of the World         A Few Good Writers
Gifts For Life         Pennies From Heaven         Light a Prayer Candle         Links

WHAT YOU CAN SEE FROM THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE
November 26, 2005
 
And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!
Mark 13:37


Never mind how unnervingly fast this year has been, how recent last Christmas still seems. Never mind how the hot sun of July seems like yesterday. The increased speed of the year's passing is only apparent: the years are fast, now, only because they represent a smaller fraction of my elapsed life span than they did when I was a child, not because time has actually speeded up.

On the other hand, it hasn't slowed down any, either. Whether time seems to drags or to race, it is passing, and each day we live is a day I will never live again. We all only have today: yesterday is irretrievable and tomorrow may never come. We are here, now, in the only here-and-now we have.

Live today fully, because you may not have tomorrow. But watch, also, because it will not always be like this. Live in the present, but live also in hopeful preparation for good things. That way, your happiness is increased: you get to anticipate delight and then you get to enjoy it.

Now, the reverse isn't true: we're never well served by dreading the future. It just ensures that we will experience every bad thing twice, once before it happens and then again when it does.

What are we watching for? Are we searching scripture this Advent for clues, working it over until we can make it yield secret details to us, until we can solve the puzzle of it, the puzzle that will illuminate everything that is and is to come? If we can get the chronology right, make the geography work, will we suddenly know that one thing that will make everything clear? No. Everything isn't going to be clear -- not while we're here, at any rate. So the project of combing through things, of running the numbers again and again to find the trick is a useless one. There's no trick. God isn't hiding from us, and never has. God is here to be seen, if we watch.

Watching isn't bustling. Watching is quiet. Slow, still -- all the things we are not. Animals watch, motionless against a protective background, watch for predators, for food, for other animals, watch the weather. They watch until they see the truth they needed to see.

We need to see a savior. We've always needed one, and we've always had one. It has always been possible for us to rely on a power beyond our own power, a goodness beyond our own, a strength beyond our strength -- we just don't do it. We prefer the fiction of our own omnipotence, and are prepared to overlook a ton of evidence in order to maintain it. It has always been possible for us to be simply human, to know our limits and resist accept them, to step down from our teetering perch at the center of the universe and find where we really belong. We just prefer not to.

But we can't see the savior from the center of the universe. We can only see Him from our own place, the place in which we've giving up fantasizing about our own importance, the true place of humility and truth. God is patient with us, more patient than we are apt to be with ourselves. We keep watching, and keep forgetting how to watch. Keep forgetting about that stillness. And every Advent, we get another chance to learn.
+
Isaiah 64:1-9a
Psalm 80 or 80:1-7
I Corinthians 1:"1-9
Mark 13:(24-32)33-37
Copyright © 2024 Barbara Crafton
  2016     2015     2014     2013     2012     2011     2010     2009     2008     2007     2006     2005     2004     2003  
  2016     2015     2014     2013     2012     2011     2010     2009     2008     2007     2006     2005     2004     2003  


Copyright © 2003-2024 Geranium Farm - All rights reserved.
Reproduction of any materials on this web site for any purpose
other than personal use without written consent is prohibited.

2003-2004 Golden Web Awards Winner     2003-2004 Level 2 Diamond Web Award Winner     WorldWebWebAwards.net Humanitarian Award Winner     2004 WebAward Winner for Standard of Excellence