RESTORE

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Where do we even start on the daily walk of restoration and awakening? We start where we are.

Anne Lamott               

 

We spend so much of our spiritual lives trying to ascend.  Descent is the path of having everything that offered comfort stripped away.  In the mystical tradition, the descent is also the slow revelation of the true face and incredible mystery that is God                                      

          Christine Valters Paintner, the soul’s slow ripening, pp. 120, 121

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the days are short, the nights are long

the ground is frozen

 

the snow is littered

with the debris of trees lashed by winter winds

 

and we have descended slowly into a deep darkness

 

it is a season of struggle

a season of descent

 

in the darkness, we turn in on ourselves

and in the deep stillness come face to face with ourselves

our own barrenness

 

when we stare out the window at the blackness

all we see is ourselves, looking back

 

Sometimes in the dark, we are haunted

By things we would rather avoid

By the hungry ghosts of fear and failure

that leave us dis-eased

 

yet as much as we struggle with

this journey into darkness

it is a fertile time

 

For as we sit and keep our souls company

in the cold soil of our souls

the seeds of newness linger

ready to be awakened

 

they are necessary, these times of descent

these dark nights of the souls

for out of such winters of discontent comes new life

comes restoration

 

It seems we must descend before we can ascend

We must empty before we can be filled

rest before we can toil

die to be reborn

 

if the Advent of Jesus teaches us anything

it teaches us the power of love and life

the ability of Sacred to restore

 

from humble birth

to scandalous death, the Jesus story is permeated

with struggle and pain

with oppression and poverty

 

there are wounded people everywhere

there is an ignominious death

 

and yet everywhere there is newness

a baby born

shepherds rejoicing

demons expelled

errors forgiven

bodies healed

hope restored

generosity found

life out of death

 

God is always doing something new

always working to turn our descent into ascent

 

so as we sit, frozen and stolid

barely awake

barely alive

 

we are called to remember, remember, remember

the spring

 

to remember what Love can do

 

that no matter how deep hope and joy our buried

no matter how far we have descended

 

God will feed and restore our souls for the good work of ascent

for the good work of living in the light

of being the light

 

in a glooming world