Breath of the Spirit

Advent Reflection

December 12, 2004: THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

GENTLE US OPEN

Lord of Life and Light,

Help us not to fall in love

With the darkness that separates us

From you and from each other,

But to watch large-eyed, wide-hearted,

Open-handed, eager-minded for you,

To dream and hunger and squint and pray

For the light of you and life for each other.

Lord, amidst our white-knuckled,

Furrow-faced busy-ness in this season,

We realize deep within us that your gifts

Of mercy and light, peace and joy, grace upon grace

Can be received only if we are unclenched open.

So this is our prayer, Lord: Open us!

Gentle us open, pry, shock, tickle, beguile, knock,

Amaze, squeeze, any wily way you can us open.

Open us to see your glory

In the coming again of the light of each day,

The lights in babies’ eyes and lovers’ smiles,

The light in the glaze of weariness that causes us to pause,

The light of truth wherever spoken and done.

Open us to songs of angels in the thumping of traffic,

In the rustle of shoppers, the canopy of pre-dawn silence,

In the hum of hope, the wail of longing within us,

In the cries of our brothers and sisters for justice and peace,

And in our own souls’ throb toward goodness.

Open us, then, to share the gifts you have given us

And to the deep yearning to share them gladly and boldly,

To sweat for justice, to pay the cost of attention,

To initiate the exchange of forgiveness,

To risk a new beginning free of past grievances,

To engage with each other in the potluck of joy

And to find the gifts of a larger love and deeper peace.

Open us, Lord of miracles of the ordinary,

To the breath-giving, heart-pounding wonder of birth,

A mother’s fierce love, a father’s tender fidelities,

A baby’s barricade-dissolving burble and squeak,

That we may be born anew ourselves

Into the “don’t be afraid” fullness of your image,

The fullness of a just and joyful human community,

The fullness of your kingdom,

In the fullness of your time;

Through the eternal grace of

Your son, our brother Jesus.

Amen.