2 December: A river went out of Eden

In one of the several Advent devotions we are reading, the theme this week is LIFE.  Life breathed into the muddy flesh of our ancestors, life rushing and replicating through the lush biology of that primordial world, life flowing out of the garden planted eastward in Eden.  Life and paradise both lost in the human presumption to imagine that God was withholding something good for our lives which we should grab and horde for ourselves.  Life returning to the ground after that fateful choice in blood, sweat and tears, in decay.  Life in the seed, quiet, dormant, germinating, returning to revitalize all of creation, in the person of a king disguised as a baby, a wandering preacher and healer whose willing submission to death conquered it for all time.  Life wins.  The darkness cannon overcome it.

One of the images of life is the river in Genesis 2 that flows into four great branches watering the troubled intersection of the continents, from Ethiopia through Syria to Iran.  That river comes back to us in the prophecies of Ezekiel and in the last chapter of the Bible, Rev 22, where it is a stream whose waters heal the sea and restore the fish and that waters the trees that heal the nations, a cascade that widens and grows as it flows outward.  The river begins where God is present, and moves out to bring life to all.

The river image jumps out because here in West Virginia, days of rain have swollen the river that runs by us.  Drizzling, constant dampness does not seem very powerful.  But the mountains catch the run off and gather it, and where there may have been a ditch there is now a stream, a stream is a cascade, and our lazy often shallow rocky river that you could easily wade across is now a torrent.  All the boulders and rocks are submerged, and the water has come many feet up the banks.  It is flowing with power now, with purpose.  Even if it weren't 40 degrees outside I wouldn't dream of swimming in this wild water.  We stand on our porch and listen to the dull roar of that tide.  Thankfully our house is up on a rock.

Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.
He who continually goes forth weeping, 
Bearing seed for sowing,
Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, 
Bringing his sheaves with him. (Psalm 126)

Could it be that the constant drizzle of tears, the seasons of weeping, the pouring out of our lives back into this broken place, are not the end of the story, but the source of the life-giving river?  Each tear is joining a rivulet, a stream, a creek, until there is an unstoppable flow of the Spirit of Life healing all the hurts and wrongs.

There is a deep mystery here, tying our suffering to the presence of God and the healing of the nations.  In this season of Advent, we weep.  We mourn for those who mourn in California tonight, for refugees who continue to ply dangerous escape routes from zones of war, for kids who are just trying to make it through papers and exams.  Tonight we wept with a loved one who feels the frustrating inevitable unfixable losses of the last few years, the isolation of being unable to communicate and understand.

Advent is not just a season to cover sorrow with tinsel and light.  The tears of this time not only make us long for the final coming of Jesus to rule over disease and mass shooters and crushing workloads and hate and fear.  Those tears are in an inexplicable way somehow watering the very life we long for.  They are gathering into a river that grows in power until nothing can stop its life-giving force.

Tonight the rain continues, but the river reminds us, Life will Win.

Stranded in Time

Who belong to eternity, stranded in time . . . (Michael Card, Joy in the Journey)

Advent began this weekend, a season that only makes sense from the shores of this island of earth where we are moored.  Living linearly defines the mortal life, chained to gravity, orbits and rotations, cell replication and death.  From Eden onward, humans experienced time differently than God.  We can look back with memory, and look forward with hope or fear.  But we only live in one moment at a time.  Hence Advent, a time of anticipation, of waiting here in our time-stranded need.

To rescue all of creation, the Bible tells a story of the divine entry into time's shackles.  The prophets pointed towards the branch that would shoot from the decimated stump of the tree, towards the light that would shine in the darkness, towards the human Son of Man figure who would terrify the nations with a rod of iron.  After Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection the prophecies continued to look ahead towards his return.  But sometimes the timeline is murky, with the victory being a completed fact that has yet to reach every part of creation, with the battle being won but still waged. The Book of Revelations zooms in on a poetic dragon drama of Christmas right alongside a stunning vision of beasts and battles yet to come.  The dreams and images come from outside of time, from the eternity of the One who was and is and is to come, so that once inside our atmosphere the jumps of minutes, years, and millennia become difficult to differentiate.

Perhaps that is because we are to be reminded in this season of things greater than the temporal.

I put up the Advent Calendar today, and it reminded me that part of the "wonder and wildness to life" that children grasp better than we middle-aged adults is the ability to live in the moment where anything is possible.  On December 1, with the tree sparkling and stockings appearing and the first rounds of special baking, the youngest ones are not thinking of a to-do list between now and the 25th.  It struck me today that the oldest ones aren't either.  There's a certain freedom in being very young or very old, in living in the present and collapsing decades into sharp peaks of memory, in knowing that a wild possibility may arise in the next hour or the next decade or century and not being too concerned which it is.

Meanwhile I feel the melancholy of a house drained of the vibrant life of kids and guests, the days shortening and dreary with rain and chill.  Stranded in time, I look back and miss Christmas past, and look forward with a PTSD kind of pre-mourning nostalgia knowing that this West Virginia Christmas with all 4 kids (and 2 grandparents) under a roof that is ours may not happen regularly.  Advent, then, is for people like us who too easily let time become our chains.  Advent lets us peek into the huge story of God's redemption, looking back to imagine what it was like to experience prophecies fulfilled, looking ahead to imagine a time when Isaiah's words from today's reading are fully true:
    Fear not, for I am with you;
    I will bring your descendants from the east,
    And gather you from the west;
    I will say to the north, 'Give them up!'
    and to the south, 'Do not keep them back!'
    Bring my sons from afar,
    And my daughters from the ends of the earth . . .
(Is 43:5-6)

Advent anticipates not only the birth of Jesus, but the time when goodbyes will be no more.  Amen.
     
(Here is the full song lyric from the beginning)

There is a joy in the journey
There's a light we can love on the way
There is a wonder and wildness to life
And freedom for those who obey

And all those who seek it shall find it
A pardon for all who believe
Hope for the hopeless and sight for the blind

To all who've been born of the Spirit
And who share incarnation with Him
Who belong to eternity stranded in time
And weary of struggling with sin

Forget not the hope that's before you
And never stop counting the cost
Remember the hopelessness when you were lost

There is a joy in the journey
There's a light we can love on the way
There is a wonder and wildness to life
And freedom for those who obey
And freedom for those who obey

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving weekend:  grandparents, kids, visitors, food, wood-splitting, apple butter making, cooking, pies, games, laughter, walks, memories.  Here are some of the things we are thankful for.

Breakfast at a leisurely pace, and coffee that tastes as good as it looks

Time to go with my mom to her old college . . below is the porch swing on her dorm, where she used to sit with my dad. . . 

Venison, from our land, butchered in the garage and served fresh alongside the turkey, a three-generation activity

Nana's help with cakes and pies and laundry magic

Brothers and sisters, walks in the woods

Reunions

Early morning moments stolen for quiet work and study

Croissants, and a lovely table, while the turkey is on the grill.

The Biggerstaff Family, my sister and her husband and kids.

Special mention to Micah, who loved his turkey leg:

Acacia, who probably didn't even get to taste the Acacia wine we found:

 The whole crew:

And some other weekend activities, including wood splitting and stacking

And working on the pizza oven, of course

 A rainy Saturday trip to the local Christmas tree farm:

Cookies and chai, and a bit of decorating:

And did we mention the bonfire?

This may not happen again, so we are treasuring the moments.