Continuing our Advent journey, on day 5 we consider how we might come to imagine a different future.

I see the Bible as a magnificent library of books that record how mankind seeks to understand God. There are many ways to read and engage with the texts but one way that I find meaningful is to see the stories it contains as a process of evolution of understanding; humankind starts in innocence, then we stumbled into acquisition and successions of empire building. All through this process however, there were people who saw differently. People who risked everything to speak a different truth, calling us to a more lovely, more beautiful, more loving (otherwise known as ‘more holy’) version of ourselves.

These people were usually called ‘Prophets’. Men and women who belonged to the awkward squad. They were often irritants, weirdos, wild visionaries. Sometimes people in power listened. Mostly they did not.

Notice friends, that we have tended to understand the word ‘prophecy’ to be concerned with predictions of future events, but this is just one way to understand it. The more common use for the recorded prophetic utterances in the Bible was to speak truth to power. Prophets were people who saw things differently and were brave enough to do something about it. Some things have not changed. We need our prophets more than ever.

The Advent story includes an old man called Simeon who had spent a life time longing for things to be different. You can read about him here.

A shuffling walk, awkward

silences,

followed by strange words,

spat out like spears.

Be still my child

for the Prophet speaks.

“For unto us a child is born.

Unto us a son is given.

And the government shall be

upon his shoulders.”

“The Spirit of the Lord will dance within him;

He will turn the power games upside down

The poor will be his priority

Those locked out will be welcomed in

Fools will open their eyes for the first time

To the debtors

He will shout

jubilee.”

The Prophet was rigid

All angles like a marionette

Eyes shining.

“He is coming.”

“He is coming.”

Day 4 in our Advent journey, and today’s poem is a tribute to those of us who plod on, under heavy burdens, because that is what we have been called to do.

Blessed are you, the wage slaves. Blessed are you as you make the monthly mortgage, as you keep the electric meters turning. Blessed is the shrinking margin that you salt away for summer, and for the purchase of pink plastic things for the kids. For this too is holy.

It takes love to be a donkey. Lots of it.

Another day drops with a dull thud;

Dawns yellow from behind my unpeeled eyes.

I sigh.

Still, this old world keeps turning.

Two cups of coffee and a three rounds of toast

Set me on the road-

For the mortgage must be met

There is the holiday to pay for

And the kids need new shoes.

I’ve played these blues

before.

There is a photograph on the dashboard

Stuck fast with love.

For their sake, this weary way

Is sacred;

It is my plodding pilgrimage.

Each hiss of tyre, another chant

Another spin of my holy prayer wheels.

I smile-

This old world keeps turning.

Continuing our advent journey, here is another poem from We who still wait…

The comparisons are rather obvious don’t you think?

The bones behind his face

Are buried deep under all that privilege

Clothed in a royal robe of bloated flesh

Barely bagged by pampered skin

Puffed up by great importance

But I see him; the boy he once was

Shadowed still in the shape of him

Betrayer of old terrors and teenage fears that

All of the subsequently acquired power

Could never fully vanquish

One day it could all be snatched away

The fear of it stabs at his innards

His knuckles are white with all that grasping

And bloodied by keeping it exclusive

How much could ever be

Enough?

The beginning of the Advent story has nothing to do with Joseph or Mary or stables lit by starlight. Rather it centres around a childless woman weeping because what God has not given her.

Sure, the Gospel of Luke tells of a prophecy of a child to come called John who would be a joy and delight to his aged parents. But that was years down the line. She did not know. Her husband did not believe it possible.

There was just emptiness. Barren emptiness.

Elizabeth

They say every flapping scrap of life is

A brand new miracle

– I see them all in the street

Displayed there by their miracle makers

For the rest of us to worship

But I am earth

Not sky

I am dry desert soil

Blown around in the ordinary wind

I am empty

And can never be full

What use have I with all this holiness

If I am never whole?

Meanwhile in the temple

An angel

Whispered

Today, advent begins.

It is a season often out-clamoured by the churn and burn of preparation, in which we have no time for waiting. There is no time for quiet reflection when there are all those presents to buy.

It is an easy criticism because advertisements give us all the cultural indicators that we could ever want. It is they who define the season of advent after all. It seems that we need to order a new sofa and a new carpet for Christmas, and that Christmas is about… football.

But I would like to give you this seasonal invitation;

Take time. Peel back the surface of the season, just a little. Look a little more deeply when you can. Breathe deeply and remember that there is more. It may be wrapped up in mystery, but there is better- there is love. When you look for it, it is everywhere.

And what better to assist us on this gentle quest, than poetry?

So, as the advent season unfolds, I am going to offer you a poem each day- ones taken from this book; We who still wait. (If you should order a copy, you will get to immerse yourself in Ian’s meditations and Steve’s photographs also…)

So, on this first Sunday of Advent, we begin our season of waiting…

Advent 1

Here we are again.

Starting a new journey towards hope.

Setting out in uncertain times

towards a rumour glimpsed only in the shape of the stars

and the smell of something strange

in the changing of the weather.

Have I journey left in these brittle bones

what did it ever mean before?

How many false donkeys and tin foil angels can one man take?

We know that this Messiah fell from heaven not

on feathers, but to the stab and scratch of straw.

I get the humility, but when will things be different?

When will Kalashnikovs be melted into spades?

When will missiles be just fireworks in the shining sky?

When will Lions chose to nurture Lambs?

But here I am again

Starting a new journey towards hope