Today as I go about my work, I am simply stunned by the tangible presence of God around me. I have spent my morning coffee time lately praying Blessed John XXII's Decalogue for Daily Living (you can find it on Elizabeth's sidebar) as my morning offering, reading the Psalms and journaling, and reflecting with Ann Voskamp on His presence in the ordinary. He has moved in my soul. And today as I go about my tasks, He speaks to me in so many small, humble ways. I wash dishes beside a lit candle and an open window, soul-soothing piano whispering in the background. I am so struck by the beauty of my tea mug and yellow pottery bowl perched atop a pile of dirty silverware, I almost stop to take a photo of it. I scrub dishes, Ann's poetic reflections turning themselves over in my mind. Her voice in my thoughts. I am thinking, and it sounds the way she writes. I am scrubbing the big soup pot, half full of warm soapy water and thinking about how the top half looks clean but underneath that water lies the worst of the stuck-on residue...then thinking about my soul, half-full of God, half clean, my dirtiest and most stuck-on residue still hidden from Him, waiting for a good soul scrubbing. I pledge to lay myself bare to Him, let Him scrub me all the way clean.
Then I am sweeping, the bare wood of my bedroom floor, finding a small group of coins tucked ever so stubbornly beneath my Victorian baseboards. I swipe at them once, then twice, then decide to just leave them. What difference does it make? His voice presses into the ordinary again. I remember the widow of the gospel who searched the dark and dimly lit corners for her one lost coin. I stoop to free each one, gather them up collectively and place them neatly in my dresser drawer. It's not about the value of the coins today, although I do smile at the joy they will unexpectedly bring the preschooler the next time he is deserving of praise. But no, not about the value of the coins or the completion of the task to perfection, it's about the stooping today, taking the time to bend low, go slow, seek Him in the darkness and the dust of my life. For His tender mercies are not as apparent as they were in early weeks of grief. They are quieter, more intimate. They require a certain disposition of a soul to be noticed, then to be treasured.
In the midst of the work of this day, my mind is tumbling over and over the season of Advent, the living of it, the listing of it, the anticipation of it, the slight tinge of manic mental list-making it usually evokes in me tugging at my heart-strings. Advent tends to bring out its own nesting instinct in me. I have a tendency to prepare for the coming of the Christ Child in much the same way I prepare for the coming of a new wee one of my own. I think of the the lists of years past, and the nesting lists of this past year. A wound is touched, a pain is freshly felt. I can't do it this way this year. I don't have the strength. It makes my chest hurt just to think about it. Suddenly, I am fretful, fearful. I need to be able to ride the rhythm, grasp the familiar this Advent. Lord, don't throw me off kilter again, please. Don't send me to my knees again. Don't look at the brokenness at the bottom of the my spirit, look at the top part that I have shined up so nicely for you. Don't search into the dark, dusty corners of my heart room. It is clean enough. Don't stoop so low, Lord. He stops me. He calls to mind the refrain of my grief: "Tender is His Mercy." He is stooping low, He is sweeping underneath my comfort zone, He is bringing to my knees. And He is asking me if I will spend the season of preparation, the season called Advent, nesting in soul. And I am begging for the grace to say yes, and making a different kind of to-do list this year.
- Instead of vacuuming the crumbs out of kitchen drawers, I will vacuum the crumbs of broken trust, of shattered dreams, the residue of fear from own spirit. I will make room for the future full of hope He has promised me.
- Instead of sweeping the dusty corners of the chambers of my house, I will sweep the dust from the chambers of my heart. I will shed light in the corners and humble myself to show Him the brokenness that hides itself there. I will wait for His tender mercy to polish it to a shine.
- Instead of making room in my home for trees and decorations, packages, and the company of men, I will make room in my heart for the company of a humble family seeking refuge, a woman on a donkey and her hero carpenter, and their little one -- the Little One, for the company of shepherds and animals and gift-bearing kings, and for the grace they bring.
- Instead of finding comfort in new sheets, quilts, comforters, sofa throws, I will find comfort in the straw bed and swaddling clothes that wrapped the Word, the Living God. And I will accept that salvation is not so much about human comfort as it is about the very real, very hard task of being holy, which sometimes call us to lie down in the hay, to accept the pricks of suffering, the pokes of persecution, the sad stench of our own humanity.
- Instead of seeking to light the season with plastic strings that twinkle and wax that burns into pleasant scents, I will light the season with guiding glow that leads to Him, the heavenly Hosannas of the choirs of angels, the Heavenly radiance of my Savior's little face.
- Instead of endless chatter, tinny music, and the roar of the crowds, there will be the quiet of a soul preparing with reverence, the way she prepares to receive the Eucharist, and the awed of hush of a sinner beholding her Savior's birth.
