Saturday, December 17, 2016

ADVENT AT THE SHOPPING MALL

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I came across this passage in John O’Donohue’s book To Bless the Space Between Us (187-188), and it seemed a beautiful basis for an Advent reflection. The quotation from O’Donohue is in blue, my reflections are in black


For the exploring eye there could be no dream greater than the world that is. The human eye falls in love with the enthralling plenitude of the visible. This fascination is addictive; then almost immediately our amnesia in relation to the invisible sets in. We live in this world as if it had always been our reality and will continue to be.


The “enthralling plenitude of the visible” gets translated into “the plenitude of the marketplace” during the holiday shopping season. Precisely during the season of Advent,  “our amnesia in relation to the invisible” seems to be at its peak. (Think shopping malls or online shopping.)
However, when we think about it, we recognize that invisible light does accompany a new infant into the world.


“When we think about it.” This is what Advent does for us, it provides the mental space for us to look for the invisible light….


However, when we think about it, we recognize that invisible light does accompany a new infant into the world. We also notice, at the other end, how the shadows of old age are lit more and more from the invisible world. Then in our day-to-day lives, we continually fail to recognize the invisible light that renders the whole visible world luminous. This light casts no shadow; or perhaps we could invert the usual priority we give to the visible and say that the actual fabric and substance of the visible world is in fact the shadow that this invisible light casts.

I have been glimpsing this luminous quality of the visible world this week, first of all in faces -- whether of the first-graders in the hallway, or of young women on the street. Second, I caught this luminous quality at a rehearsal on Friday, when the sixty-four voices of the Christmas choir joined in singing "A Voice Cries Out" with full voice. These were all instances of an Advent theme: to recognize the presence of Emmanuel in our midst.

Fixated on the visible, we forget that the decisive presences in our lives ––soul, mind, though, love, meaning, time, and life itself––are all invisible. ...


This is one of the great ironies of the timing of Advent: While the Church is presenting us with the calls of prophets and the promises of seers, all of them challenging us to change our focus from the earthly to the “decisive presences in our lives,” our culture of consumerism, materialism and marketing is doing everything it can to keep us “fixated on the visible.”


Before time began the invisible world rested in the eternal. With the creation of our world, time and space began. Every stone, bush, raindrop, star, mountain, and flower has its origin in the invisible world.


“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be” (Jn 1:1-3).


That is where the first sighting of each of us occurred. We emerged from the folds of time, each an intense mixture of visible and invisible. Our eyes cannot see this [invisible] world. Our hearts are usually too encumbered to navigate it, our minds too darkened to decipher it. As the Bible says: "Now we see through a glass darkly."


It was because “our eyes cannot see this invisible world” that the Almighty took on human form and dwelt among us as one of us: “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail th’incarnate Deity.”


Yet it is exactly on this threshold between visible and invisible that our most creative conflicts and challenges come alive. Each new beginning, each new difficulty always finds us on that frontier. And this is exactly why we reach for blessing. In our confusion, fear, and uncertainty we call upon the invisible structures of original kindness to come to our assistance and open pathways of possibility by refreshing and activating in us our invisible potential.


What a lovely summary of the greater purpose of the Advent season! “In our confusion, fear, and uncertainty we call upon the invisible structures of original kindness to come to our assistance and open pathways of possibility…”

So, as we prepare for the coming of our God at Christmas, "on this threshold between visible and invisible," let us be on the lookout for his countless comings right now, comings of "the invisible structures of original kindness to come to our assistance and open pathways of possibility by refreshing and activating in us our invisible potential."


“O come, o come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.”

Postscript: I finally got that letter from the publisher this week. Because of changes in their direction as a publishing house, they decided decline my offer to send them the manuscript of my Easter book. At least they did not read it and reject it! Now I have to search for a new publisher...




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