“I don’t really see the point of going on, it is all too much.” This is an all too common phrase I hear all the time. Sometimes it is the cry of the comedown of some high (I don’t necessarily mean only substance highs). I hear it in the voice of those who have lost someone significant. I hear it when a child tries and tries and is just missing the one thing which would make their task complete. I hear it in the cry of a call at 3 am of one who is afraid of taking their own life. I hear it in the voice of rioters in detention centres who have learned that they may stay locked up indefinitely – potentially for ever. I hear it in the voice of the one recently made redundant, or demoted. I have heard it in the cry of people trying to play the game of the economic system with life-draining debts and sacrificed relationships. I have heard it countless times in the addictions and vices that create their own repetitive internal songs. “I don’t really see the point of going on, it is all too much.” This may well be a cry you know or have known well, too. If I am honest enough, I even hear it in myself when I too am overwhelmed. In the Christian tradition, Advent is a season for the prophets, for the dreamers, for the poets and the song writers. A great desire emerges in this time of Advent for a real peace to be embodied, for an end to the things that cause us to say “I don’t really see the point of going on, it is all too much.” Advent is a time for us to allow the poets, the dreamers, the prophets and the songwriters to emerge; to sing their uncomfortable and soul stirring songs, to say their inconvenient truths and to call for disturbing justice. Advent is a call to honestly engage with all of life in such a way that may move us to encounter something beyond the horizon of our limited plane of existence to that of the cosmos and the stars – from whose dust we are made. Advent is focused on a real hope coming among us, as a new emerging potential of transformation – full of peace and goodness, grounded in human life. Advent is not about covering everything in tinsel, fairy lights and gifts, but is an invitation to an experiment in spiritual honesty, truth-telling and gritty compassion. Advent Greetings from Ben Gilmour
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 03:16:29 +0000
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