On The Fifth Day of Christmas...

O Clavis | Malcolm Guite

Even in the darkness where I sit

And huddle in the midst of misery

I can remember freedom, but forget

That every lock must answer to a key,

That each dark clasp, sharp and intimate,

Must find a counter-clasp to meet its guard.

Particular, exact and intricate,

The clutch and catch that meshes with its ward.

I cried out for the key I threw away

That turned and over turned with certain touch

And with the lovely lifting of a latch

Opened my darkness to the light of day.

You’ve come again, come quickly, have set me free,

Cut to the quick to fit, the master key.

On The Fourth Day of Christmas...

O Radix | Malcolm Guite

All of us sprung from one deep-hidden seed,

Rose from a root invisible to all.

We knew the virtues once of every weed,

But, severed form the roots of ritual,

We surf the surface of a wide-screen world

And find no virtue in the virtual.

We shrivel on the edges of the wood

Whose heart we once inhabited in love,

Now we have need of you, forgotten Root,

The stock and stem of every living thing

Whom once we worshipped in the sacred grove,

For now is winter, now is withering

Unless we let you root us deep within,

Under the ground of being, you’ve grafted us in.

On The Third Day of Christmas...

“If Advent is the season of waiting, Christmas is the season of wonder,” so may this poem and the ones to follow aid us in our wondering at heaven’s answer to our heart's deepest pleas.

O Adonai | Malcolm Guite

Unsayable, you chose to speak one tongue;

Unseeable, you gave yourself away;

The Adonai, the Tetragrammaton

Grew by a wayside in the light of day.

O you who dared to be a tribal God,

To own a language, people, and place,

Who chose to be exploited and betrayed,

If so you might be met with face to face:

You’ve Come to us here, who would not find you there,

Who chose to know the skin and not the pith,

Who heard no more than thunder in the air,

Who marked the mere events and not the myth;

You’ve Touched the bare branches of our unbelief

And blazed again like fire in every leaf.

December 17th | O Wisdom

This is the first of our seven O Antiphons. Prayers that have been sung by our faith family for centuries. Sung so that the quickening pace of Christmas is not just all the things on our calendars but the longing in our hearts.

In case you are interested, the tune which I sing them is from (appropriately!) O Come O Come Emmanuel. Let us rejoice in praying together:

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other mightily,
and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.

Orthodox Advent Prayers | Three

One final time this Advent season, let us join with our sisters and brothers in the Orthodox Church and beyond, and pray together for the Spirit to stir amongst us the Name that is our deepest longing...

O Lord, stir up the hearts of our neighbors, friends, and family
you have established your house and your kingdom forever
through your Son Jesus Christ.
Reveal your saving purpose and your holy love to us,
and move our hearts to faith and obedience;
through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.

Eastern Advent Prayers

In the Orthodox tradition, the “stir up prayers” are spoken one each Sunday of Advent. Let us join with our sisters and brothers around the globe and pray these prayers for our faith family today, and in the week to come. Let us stir up one another by seeking the Spirit’s movement…

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come.
Keep us watchful and ready for the day and hour of your return.
Empower us with the gifts and strength we need,
and keep us faithful to the end;
through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.

From the Ages

Our particular stories of faith, as Hebrews 11 and the season of Advent so aptly remind us, are written within the page of The Story. While knowing this truth is important and helpful, it is by praying this truth that the power of faith’s history takes hold of our hearts.

So this week, let us pray together this prayer from the ages— prayer adapted from John Ballie.

Father of our ancestors, we cry out to you. You have been teh refuge of good and wise, prodigals and prostitutes in every generation. You are the beginning of history, the light of life which enlightens every woman and man to realize their full humanity. Throughout the ages you have been the Lord and giver of life, the source of knowledge, and the fountain of all goodness.

The patriarchs & matriarchs, like Abraham and Ruth, trusted you and were not put to shame;

The prophets & prophetesses, like Isaiah and Anna, sought you and put your words on their lips;

The psalmists, like David, and the humble like Mary, rejoiced in you and youer were present in their songs;

The apostles, like Peter, and disciples like Martha and Mary, waited for you and were filled with your Spirit;

The martyrs, like Stephen and Felcity, called upon you and you were with them in the flames;

Our poor souls called, and have been heard by the Lord, and have been saved from every trouble.

Father, you have always been there, you are with us now, and you endure forever;

We thank you for this well-worn Christian path, a way ancient and ever-lasting,

a road beaten hard by the footsteps of saints, apostles, prophets, and martyrs.

Thank you for sign posts and warning signals which are there at every corner and which we can understand through the study of Scripture and history, through great literature and the stories of others in your Spirit.

Above all, we give you sincere and humble thanks for the great gift of Jesus Christ, the pioneer of faith.

We praise you that we have been born in an age and a land where we can know his name, and that we are not called to face any temptation or trail which he did not endure.

Holy Father, help us to profit from these great memories of the ages gone by, and help us to enter into the glorious inheritance which you have prepared for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Chose Again

Many of our habits, routines, rhythms, and practices as a faith family are not in and of themselves means of instant spiritual transformation and maturation—though we are grateful when in our structured life of faith, we meet the flowering of the Spirit’s fruit and clarity! In truth, much of what we do each week is “choose again what we chose before.” We remind ourselves and are reminded by others of the commitments that keep us moving in the right direction.

So this week, let’s choose again what we chose last week, to commit our way to the LORD together. And to “do good” as we dwell in the land, ever open and listening for our particular call.

Trust in LORD and DO GOOD; DWELL IN THE LAND and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. COMMIT YOUR WAY to the LORD; trust him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light…(Psalm 37:3-6)

Let’s pray:

Father, into your hands we commit our day and the week ahead. We commit, in Your strength and grace, to do good in whatever way is required of us in our homes, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, in the unexpected places and persons You lead us. We commit, in the life of Jesus, to trust and delight in You, to keep our hearts soft to You. Father, into your hands we commit our spirit!

A Committed Prayer

Often in our attempts to unearth our vocation—that call with the call that demands our unique response—we go searching through our past or in the depths of our hearts. Both, as we learned on Sunday, are necessary tools for digging up our God-designed work. Yet neither are the place we’ll find our calling.

While reflection and contemplation—in both solitude and in community—help us clarify our calling, our vocation, that thing which we are made, for which we are “reverently set apart,” is always discovered in “the land,” in the soil of everyday life. The good for which we give our life is never an abstraction or generalization, but a particular: some specific problem, some specified activity, some distinct injustice, some peculiar place, some unique person or peoples which call out “to the deepest level of your nature…down in the substrate…and demand an active response.” A particular call that arises in the course of a committed life, at least that’s how the Psalmist describes it,

Trust in LORD and DO GOOD; DWELL IN THE LAND and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. COMMIT YOUR WAY to the LORD; trust him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light…(Psalm 37:3-6)

So today, let us commit our way to the LORD together. To “do good” as we dwell in the land, ever listening for our particular call.

Father, into your hands we commit our day. We commit today, in Your strength and grace, to do good in whatever way is required of us in our homes, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, in the unexpected places and persons You lead us. We commit today, in the life of Jesus, to trust and delight in You. Father, into your hands we commit our spirit!

Where Jesus Is

In his “High Priestly Prayer” found in John 17, Jesus prayed for you and me, and we,

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

What Jesus desires for you, me, and we; is for us to be with him where he is, where he is active and living and working. And being with him, see the beauty of his life, the light of life and love shining from his presence. And where is Jesus? As Dylan helped us see on Sunday, Jesus is often in the places and people we’d tend to avoid unless he leads us there.

So this week, because we desire what Jesus desires for us, let us pray for strength, the courage, and the compassion required to be with and see Jesus wherever he leads.

Father, we confess that stepping into the unknown, even with you, is a bit disconcerting. Our hearts long to trust you, so help our unbelief, especially when the way ancient and everlasting is anything but smooth sailing.

Jesus, thank you that your desire is for us to join you in your glorious life. A life that has given us our lives, freeing us to live and move and have our being. A life lived in the clarity of your knowledge. Help us to see that what has been given to us, you desire for all, and are presently working towards your desire today.

Holy Spirit, strengthen our inner being, so that Jesus might dwell in our hearts and we might know the vastness of his love for us. In your loving strength, let us share the heart of our Father for those in our lives whom you are leading us to. And let us speak of the goodness of your Son to all who will hear. 

Let our words and our actions and our affections be yours, cultivating your life in those we see today. In Jesus we live and with Jesus we pray. Amen.

To Loving Well

To “love your neighbor as yourself” is to want good, the truly good, for ourselves and the person on the other side of the street, the house, the cubical, and the screen. Hopefully, over the last month, you have seen the truly good for yourself—a glory not of your own making, but of God’s knowing and crafting. What we have come (are coming) to know, desire, and love about ourselves through Psalm 139 and the Examen, is what we are made to know, desire, and love for our neighbor. Not a “generic” good or even our own vailed perception of good, but The Good of God with, God for, and God in them.

To love another well, we must love the truth, and, as Thomas Merton once pointed out,

“The truth I must love in my [neighbor] s God Himself, living in "[them]. I must seek the life of the Spirit of God breathing in [them]. And I can only discern and follow that mysterious life by the action of the same Holy Spirit living and acting in the depths of my own heart.”

We enter into a new day and week in which “the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining” (1 Jn. 2:8)—even if unacknowledged or avoided—in the lives of those around us. So let us pray together to love well—to discern and follow the Truth of God’s love in His “wonderful works.”

Father, let me see you with us—myself and my neighbor. Within us and for us, in every step of our past, in Your presence now, and within the days written in Your life.

 Holy Spirit, let me see Your searching, knowing, and leading in my neighbor. Let me see where are You, the light of life, are already shining.

Jesus, lead me in joining Your Way, Your Truth, Your life given in love for their true good.

Grant me the strength to wait until I see, and when I see, grant me the courage to love well and true.

By this, is love perfected with us. Within Your love, we live. Amen.

Something Old...Yet New

Living in the light of who God knows and has crafted us to be and become happens when our hearts are calibrated to His heart for us and for His world. The truth that we are created to desire what God desires, and so we are to learn to seek His desire (will) above all else, is nothing new. Still, as John, the beloved friend and follower of Jesus, said, there is something new happening because of Jesus.

Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning…At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in Jesus and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. (1 John 2:7-8)

Already, the darkness that keeps God’s intimately crafted knowledge of us is fading as the true light of what God desires for us and through us is shining in the world. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27), as the apostle Paul put it, adds a new dimension to the old command, for “it is God who is at work within us both to desire and to work for what He desires” (Phil. 2:13). But, John says, there is a way that we remain blinded by the fading dark: when our hearts are against one whose God’s heart is for.

…because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. (1 John 2:8b-11)

What often keeps us from living in the light of who we are, is not a heart that doesn’t desire what God desires, but a heart that, as the “old commandment” forbade, hangs onto a grudge rather than loving a neighbor (see Leviticus 19:17-18). So, this week faith family, let us join together in asking God to know our hearts toward those in our lives, and lead us in the clarity of His love for them.

Father, we come to You because our sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake, and we are called Your children because of His love for us.

Father, we come to You because we desire what You desire and want nothing more than to live the fullness of Your life in us.

Father, search us and know our hearts. Show us if there is any violence or animosity, any bitterness or apathy towards those in our lives (even the ones we fail to see).

Father, create in us pure hearts, and let the love of Jesus lead us to see clearly the way before us.

Because Jesus lives and is pressing back the darkness already, we pray. Amen.

Recalibration

C.S. Lewis once said that “we are made for heaven” and that “the desire of the proper place [is] already in us, even if not yet attached to the true object….” Our most essential longing is for a life whole and free in our good design and in concert with our good Designer—even if we are not always able to name the ache. But, when we discover that the thing we desire most is actually what God desires most for us, is actually working to make happen with us and for us, something in us changes. Rather, recalibrates.

Our hearts are always drawn by desire to something or someone or someplace, but when that desire is attached to “the true object” our hearts can be, as the psalmist contends, “the highways to Zion (God’s dwelling)” (Psalm 84:5). Our hearts, when drawn to what God desires for us, lead us to Him, and make us a blessing for others along the way:

Blessed are those whose strength is in You, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the lonesome and dry valleys, they make it a place of springs; the early rain [providential grace] also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in His dwelling. (Psalm 84:5-7)

So this week, let us pray together, with and for one another, for hearts that desire what God desires and then follow our hearts to Him. Pray with me…

Spirit of Truth, show us the heart of the Father,

and what He desires for us.

Give us eyes to see His heart in Jesus.

Unite our hearts with Jesus’,

that we might live in awe and wonder and obedience in Your love.

Let the fullness of our recalibrated hearts be a source of life

to those desperate for something that will last.

Thank you, Father, for working in us,

to give us the desire and the power to do what You desire,

always arriving home.

In Jesus name, amen.