weirdness and waiting

(spoiler alert: 2+2 remains 2+2; there is no resolution. But, if you're a regular, you're used to it.)

funeral
+job application
+cousin having baby (it's a girl)
+gut-wrenching conversation with a friend with a broken heart
+studying Advent (2 very different wreaths: 1) hope, faith, joy, & love 2) patriarchs, prophets, John the Baptist, Mary)
+Mexican for lunch
+car inspection and tag renewal
=Today

Life is all about weird juxtaposition. The profound and profane all crowded and jostled in the same subway car. Death, birth, bureaucracy, grace, red tape, enlightenment, boredom, laughter, disappointment.

Thought of the day: I've been role-playing through the Advent Cast: Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist, Wise Men, shepherds, etc., trying to unlock the spiritual/practical application of the historical story. (I can't help myself. I spent several semesters studying Lectio Divina.) Mary is self-explanatory-- Jesus lives and grows inside us in a nutshell. I was wrestling with Joseph-- he clearly demonstrates obedience and servanthood. But, upon my conversation with my friend, I think I may see Joseph as the role of the broken-hearted and shattered/unfulfilled-dreamers. Imagine what he must to have gone through if he loved Mary; he arrives at treating Mary with some dignity on his own. However, God doesn't let him off the hook. He's called to go into this continent of self-denial and faith that's far beyond normal expectation. It's like a precursor of the Sermon on the Mount mixed with Job post apocalypse where he gets double the children.

To sum up the rest of this incoherent post I'll quote my mom's response to my blathering on about Advent: "Studying is fun, isn't it?" You may read on if you wish.

There are the three comings Advent celebrates/acknowledges:

1. his arrival into history/incarnation
2. his return/second coming
3. intermediate entrance into our lives

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. -Romans 8:22-5 (Message)

I've learned how much the Advent season holds, how it breaks into our lives with images of dark and light, first and last things, watchfulness and longing, origin and destiny. Kathleen Norris