Advent.

A season of looking forward to the Earth鈥檚 restoration through the remembrance of Jesus鈥� birth –
that moment of divine interruption. That moment when the Heavenly realms and the Earth met in a beautiful collision only previously known in the Garden of Eden, the innermost room of the tabernacle and temple.

And as we remember that moment, we enter a season of anticipation. Hopeful anticipation in the midst of cold days and long nights. While every year has its fair share of each season – reminding us of the life, death and new birth cycle that our Creator invites us into – this year seems to be presenting us with a particularly long winter. I鈥檓 not sure what a hundred year long winter without Christmas feels like, as the Narnians experienced in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, but it might be safe to say it feels like this: ongoing despair and more than enough reasons for hopelessness.

It鈥檚 so much easier to anticipate in hope when we know that winter will cease and the cold sting of death will subside to make room for an empty tomb. It鈥檚 exciting to plant trees when we know they will bear fruit. Calming to pray when we know there is relief ahead. But oh, how difficult it is to hope when winter has taken over and our Advent season continues without respite. When the White Witch has a hold over the land and we find ourselves in constant states of confusion and pain, we wonder where Aslan is… the battle rages on but… where is our King? So many hearts have been turned to stone. How can we keep fighting when our world seems to be solidifying into emptiness and hatred and fear? How do we journey onward in hope?

It is here that I am reminded of my Breath. Our collective Breath.

This year has revealed to more Americans than ever before the preciousness of the inhale and exhale sustaining our lives. Finally, the cries of suffocating Black and Brown image-bearers are reaching past the ears of many White Christians to penetrate the Soul. We are realizing that any asphyxiation is an atrocity. Such a disregard of the Breath of Life鈥檚 sanctity is sacrilege, ruthless, and heartless. Eyes that did not wish to see this are opening. Ears that did not wish to hear are listening. And the whole Earth, both oppressed and oppressor, seems to be howling out: 鈥淟ord, save us!鈥� This lament, this cry, this 鈥渕oaning too deep for words,鈥� seems to fall on deaf divine ears.

But it is not so. YHWH has breathed into our lungs the Breath of Life. And so in the harshness of winter, when the sun has hidden herself from us and the land is bare, we recall that there is a healing power, a 鈥渄eep magic,鈥� flowing through us: for the reviving breath that Aslan breathes onto lifeless statues is the same breath in you and me.

Yes, like Lucy with her cordial, except that our power does not come from something outside of us and in small quantities. Bestowed on us from our Creator, it comes from within – that which sustains us and permeates our entire being. We are intrinsically co-healers with the divine, able to reclaim our hearts of stone and bring our seemingly dead world back to life. No, we cannot do it alone: we need one another. But all of us can go out, trusting that our work is good. Our work is holy. Our work is bringing about that 鈥淏eloved Kingdom.鈥�

Work that is far from being over – for winter is still fighting back the forces of spring – but the ground we tread is thawing. The White Witch鈥檚 control is slipping, the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve have awakened to their own life-giving power and Aslan is on the move. So we journey onward鈥� with renewed hope, knowing that the hold of Winter is weakening.

Behold, spring has come.

The post Always Winter, Never Christmas: An Advent Reflection appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.

Maybe you鈥檝e just begun your time in Seattle or at the School, and are facing our Winter 鈥� and shedding your leaves of identity 鈥� for the first time here. Maybe you鈥檝e heard tell of our relentless rains, but you鈥檙e now finding the shell you own isn鈥檛 in fact as leak-proof as you thought, that you鈥檙e taking on more water and sooner than you ever imagined, frantically
battening down the hatches.

Or maybe you鈥檙e midway through your studies. You鈥檙e no longer a stranger to the inevitable darkness, but feeling it in your bones with a new heaviness, weighing down under it even as you need to run some gloomy gauntlet, unable to imagine the dawn of a spring graduation ever appearing on the horizon.

Or maybe you鈥檙e a Seattle and 天美视频 veteran. You鈥檙e hoisting your collar against the crisping wind, layering linings against the seeping damp, cocooning yourself in comfort, but still unable to escape the question that gnaws like frost: why you linger at a latitude of months-long sleet and twilight. Or maybe like most Cascadian born-and-bred, you鈥檝e actually grown fond of Winter here after all these years.

After living here for 3 years, I find my own disposition somewhere in between these two 鈥� sometimes dreading the dreariness, disruption, and doom of Winter, but more and more able to welcome it. This heartening in me is partly just the fruit of experiencing the tread of time though multiple cyclings of seasons, seeing them shift every year just as surely into Spring as they did into Winter. But it鈥檚 also a product of practices learned in an aspiration to embrace the movements of Nature, a simple strategy crafted of equal parts effort and equanimity. (And a dash of unabashed and indulgent alliteration, if you haven鈥檛 noticed already.)

Embracing the cold is a matter of mustering the gumption to venture boldly into Winter鈥檚 gusts. Of pressing on with a needed walk or run or bike ride in spite of the elements, using exercise to fuel your body鈥檚 natural furnaces, so you can lean into the chill wind and dampness. Of sailing with them come what may.

And it鈥檚 also a matter of making frequent berths at cozy ports of call, of which the 天美视频 will always be one, thanks to the unsinkable mirth and merriment of fellow students, faculty, and staff. Each thawing person is always a reminder that the cold does indeed end.

Embracing the darkness is a matter of, despite the drudgery or disdain, entertaining the truth in what may feel threadbare maxims: trust the Spirit, trust the process, trust that we will crest out of the valley of night into a breaking day, that beyond the mountains of shadow are sunlit pastures, that Winter accedes to Spring鈥檚 flowering.

And it鈥檚 also a matter of forsaking Winter鈥檚 clouded and concrete landscapes for woodlands and wilderness, forsaking gray canopies for green. Here brushes of moss-chartreuse and cedar-ochre flourish for those willing to get close enough to touch the artwork. Here fermenting memories of fallen leaves and branches nourish the roots of their origin. There are many such gardens and groves even within the four corners in the city: northerly Woodland Park with its old-growth elders, southerly Seward Park with its contemplative coastlines, the easterly Arboretum with its Pan-Pacific panoply, the westerly Me-Kwa-Mooks Park with its hillside secrets. Each green place is always a reminder that it is a veil and not a wall separating life and death 鈥� and that it is natural that we, like so many others of God鈥檚 children of the Earth, hibernate in between these two ways of being in accordance with the seasons. Each green place is always a reminder that the darkness does indeed end, or at least hibernates peacefully.

And embracing the rain is a matter of remembering that, again like all God鈥檚 creatures, we are born and made of the waters. And so we can remember how to swim 鈥� if we only let sinking ships sink, not going down with them, but letting them find rest among the reefs, and coming back in our time to dive for their treasures.

And it鈥檚 also a matter of letting the tides in their time carry us as they always do to dry land, a new continent where people have been calling our names out to the stormy sea, praying that it delivers us to this hopeful home. Here we will remember that, with each Spring, the new leaves of iterated identity emerge even healthier than the old leaves. Here we will remember that those pieces we have shed retain their own beauty, and fall to feed our new growth. Here we will remember that, again like all the Spirit鈥檚 creatures, we are born and made of fresh clay, and so, ashore, can walk again.

This birthing and making Spirit knows 鈥� is 鈥� both sea and land, both treasured ship and treasured reef, both the calling from the shore and the delivering tide, both the storm and the rainbow reminder that 鈥� always, even in Winter 鈥� the rain does indeed end. This Spirit welcomes our dread of the dreariness, disruption, and doom, even while it welcomes, and helps us welcome, Winter.

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