December 9, 2006

• so last night, i took a break from all this research for my Liturgics paper, and bc and i went shopping.   nothing too exciting, since all i bought was bread and... Chistmas Lights!!!!  so now in the front windows (the ones that face the campus quad) of my dorm living room i have multi-colored lights, and in each of the other two rooms which front on 21st street i put electric candles... "it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas".... and sound like it too, especially now that one of the radio stations has switched to an all Christmas/holiday music programme until the end of the year.

  it has become very cold here, and the wind that whistles in off the water just funnels down these manmade canyons and freezes everything.  the clothing ministry here, St. Martin's Closet, at least is now fairly full of clothes, particularly women's > we have coats finally, and many sweaters... we never have enough large men's pants (38-44 waists), but we are even getting some of them; the problem is they don't last long.  yesterday we had several people, about evenly split between men and women, and of course they were all looking for long pants, sweaters, coats.  two of the women only spoke spanish, but fortunately one of the volunteers also spoke spanish.  one of the clients, Gabe, is an aleut from alaska, and has been traveling about as an itinerant musician > when he was ready to leave, he asked us if we would like to hear him play.  of course we said yes, and so he brought out a 1979 yamaha 12-string guitar and proceeded to play and sing some bob dylan.  immediately it was as if i had not left salem, mass, but was back then hanging out in the Campus Christian Fellowship listening to steve or betty or elaine playing... oh, and then a young woman who was trying on clothes said that she played guitar, and the next thing you know, he'd offered to let her play, and she did... they walked off together...

  i am reminded of the importance of aiding the homeless and the poor, especially in this time of Advent, of preparation for the coming of God, incarnate in the human baby Jesus.  "prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made sraight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." (luke 3:4b-6)  how can we make straight the paths that are crooked? or raise the valleys? or lower the mountains?  only by working for the equality of all, the dignity of all, the reconciliation of all.  we must raise up those who have fallen or who are down-trodden, help them out of their valleys.  we must reach out to those isolated and alone, whether by nature or circumstance, and bring them down from their mountains of isolation.  we must be a light for the pathways of our fellow humans so that they don't stumble, or follow the crooked path. 

  we are all in this lifejourney together.  what allows us to sit in and with the suffering of others, homeless or depressed or victimized or disenfranchised or imprisoned, is the knowledge that it is within suffering that redemption happens.  even the birth of the little baby, Jesus, took place in the shadow of the cross > what baby gets funeral ointment for a birth gift??  Jesus died for us on the cross, suffered all of the horrors of that death and rejection, in order to show us that the way to salvation and redemption is not to rise above suffering, but to dwell within it, to sit with it, for it is in suffering that God is with us.  God holds us in suffering, reminding us always that there is resurrection in that suffering.  suffering is not something to be sought, but it is something that is redeemed.

  and so, as we go out into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit, ready to give our suffering Lord to a world that so desperately needs to hear this release from death, look up!  lift up your heads!  the Lord is near.  Rejoice.

   

  • 2:16 pm
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