December 10, 2017 - Second Sunday in Advent - Still and Small Advent Contemplation and Discernment

In today's worship we heard the readings we read on Wednesday and I will start this where I ended last Wednesday's post.

A call to a new way of being in the world. How do we correlate this new way with what we are do? I am reworking my original answers and observations around this question because Monday on Facebook I saw this post "Waiting For God to Act", from Creator which directly addressed what I felt about worship yesterday  Brian Zahnd's article moves right to the heart of what Advent means to me this year.  This is not simply a season of waiting To quote the article:

"Waiting for God to act only seems like waiting for God to act. God is always acting because God is always loving the world and always giving birth to something. Waiting for God to act is actually waiting for your soul to become quiet enough and contemplative enough to discern what God is doing in the obscure and forgotten corners, far from the corridors of power or wherever you think the action is."

There is a conceit the article also points out that we live by and what we judge as significant. We expect God to act in "big and loud" ways when, in scripture, God more often works through the small things in life. Instead of God causing miracles in imperial Rome (as we would expect), God first acts in a stable at the edge of Bethlehem.

My wife, Mary, quietly reminds me of what we believe and hope, even as I am tempted to react to the "big and loud" craziness that can fill the news of the world. Contemplation and discernment are the truly crucial practices to cultivate for Advent. This stands in stark contrast to how most of us live in contemporary American society.

Singing All Earth Is Hopeful as our Call to Worship today showed me the contrast in my thinking on the world and I assumed hopefulness and "the savior comes at last" is not currently the lived truth for most people I encounter when they judge the world situation. The "big and loud" wrongs in the world cause us to react in opposition to something we sense is being taken away, just like those with whom we disagree.

This time last year my family was with my wife's illness and subsequent treatment. This something else I am currently considering as I practice my contemplation and discernment 

As fara as the liturgy, this Sunday's Call Us Home liturgy compliments what we can cultivate within ourselves this Advent season.