Advent Book Club: Music of Eternity
Part 2 : Awaiting God’s Coming
This blog is a response to the daily prompts in Robyn Wrigley-Carr’s Advent book ‘ Music of Eternity’ inspired by Evelyn Underhill. spck publishing. A journal of half-formed , tangent thoughts. Each new day I add my thoughts to the top of the page. There is a new blog page for each section of the book.
Like Ruth Harley I was struck by the forest tree imagery, although I admit to having to re-read the chapter as on first reading I almost missed it. In fact that is what I appreciate about this club. I often need to go back to re-read slowly the chapter before blogging my response.
In my last home I had a magnificent silver birch tree in the garden which grew over the years alongside my children. We planted it not long after moving in. For 29 years that tree was my companion, teaching me a lot about watching silently. In the mornings I could draw back the curtain and be greeted by her. on lazy days I could sit in bed and watch the birds and squirrels feeding, sheltering, playing, singing. On stormy days she would whip her fingers against the window pane, bending with the suppleness of a gymnast but staying rooted to the earth, sustained by her hidden network of roots.
The Woodland Trust write about Silver Birc — ‘In early Celtic mythology, the birch symbolised renewal and purification. Bundles of birch twigs were used to drive out the spirits of the old year, and gardeners still use the birch besom, or broom, to ‘purify’ their gardens.’
Birches are particularly known for their rejuvenating of the earth. When there is land damaged , undernourished, birches are often planted to help repair and enrich the soil. As I try to find and spend time in contemplation this week I will recall the Silver Birch, perhaps walk up to my local common and spend time with one, giving thanks for all she taught me about being rooted in silence and how gazing at creation is a prayer.
Day 12 : Advent Contemplation
Day 10 and 11: Advent Silence and Advent Prayer
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
An interesting chapter on Silence. I love silence but rarely achieve it in stillness. More likely to achieve it when moving or watching something move. Somehow that stills my mind. Perhaps that is why I find yoga, walking, body prayer and prayer postures helpful or focusing on a running stream, waves, a candle flame. Something about the external business creates an inner stillness.
The sentence that struck me particularly in Day 10 was — ‘You would hardly enter the presence of the human being you most deeply respected and loved in the state of fuss, preoccupation and distraction in which we too often approach God.’ I’m not sure that’s true — especially today with mobile phones buzzing in our pockets even when on silent. Maybe in the initial stages of a relationship we might be more focused on the person we are getting to know but having observed my sons and their partners I’m not sure about that. Today’s world seems one of constant multi-tasking, screen sharing and multi- relating.
For me, as someone more mature in age, once comfortable in a relationship one of the joys is being able to be real — distractions, preoccupations and all. But the flip side of that is taking loved ones for granted and not making the effort to pay attention — lacking apparent interest as mentioned top of page 67.
I wonder if I should look at it the other way around ? Perhaps there is an attentive discipline to be learned from prayer that I need to transfer to human relationships? Also perhaps it is as important to be vocal about our love for others as it is to voice our prayer.
Day 8 and 9 : Advent Expectancy and Advent Hope
Rev. David Runcorn recently reflected on whether God could ever be suprised by us? Recognising how we delight in the unexpected surprise , suddenly bumping into an old friend, receiving an unexpected gift, getting to the top of a ridge and suddenly seeing the sea he asks whether an omnipotent God could ever experience delight like that? Can we bring God joy by doing something unexpected or can only our expected, pre- existing response bring it? I wonder?
I wonder though whether the joy or dread of expectancy is a longer, more sustained experience. As a child expecting Christmas or a Birthday I often couldn’t sleep for excitement which the occasion rarely lived up to — partly because I was over tired! Other sleepless nights of expectation occur before exams, journeys, events — happy and sad. I wonder if Mary, having experienced the unexpected angel, found the end of her pregnancy somewhat less than she expected — tired from a rough journey, in a strangers room alongside animals, giving birth without her kin women. I hope other women were there with her. Did the unexpected message of the Angel sustain Mary’s expectancy of God’s presence throughout her gestation and beyond?
Perhaps we need both — the unexpected, topsy -turfy playfulness of God and the sustaining confident hope of expecting to see God in our everyday lives and eventually face to face.
Day 7: Advent Waiting
‘ Our Contemplation and our action, our humble self- opening to God — keeping ourselves sensitive to His( Her)music and light - and our generous self-opening to our fellow creatures — keeping ourselves sensitive to their needs - ought to form one life; meditating between God and His (Her) world and bringing the saving power of the Eternal into time… how truly and really our souls interpenetrate, and how impossible and unchristian it is to ‘ keep ourselves to ourselves.’ p.46–47 ( feminine not in original)
Pregnant waiting at the start is strange — rather like waiting for springtime. Knowing that life is growing but you can not see it, feel it and yet it is inextricably there, linked to mother via an umbilical thread . Then come the first flutterings , tiny moments like butterfly kisses from within that pass so fleetingly you think you might have imagined it. Over the next few weeks and months the connection and feeling of fullness grows with swelling body, the mis-shapen abdominal movements of a child turning acrobatics in their watery world, reacting and responding to music and light. I wonder how it would be to be so pregnant in contemplation, so full , living life so inextricably interwoven with God’s spirit? To give time to nurture and grow my relationship with the Divine.
The challenge for me from today’s reading is to find that Time.
