Advent procession reading from A Daily Spiritual Rx for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany
December 1, 5:30 pm 2019, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Little Rock, Arkansas.
Joanna Seibert, “God Coming” in A Daily Spiritual Rx for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany . P. 62
During Advent we await and look for the coming of Christ in our hearts and lives./ This has been my experience./ God often comes to me in the early morning if I take time to get up and listen and read or just look or even sit outside./ God comes when God sees me “straining at the oars against an adverse wind.”/ God comes to me in some miracle, almost as if God were walking on water. It may be a word, a letter, an email, a call from someone I would least expect to hear God’s word. I “by chance” meet someone who was not on my agenda for the day./ God may speak in the actual daily scripture reading./ God may be the wind at my side, or the sun bringing light to the cold dawn, or the first bloom on a barren tree./ I usually perceive God as a ghost and do not recognize the occurrence as a message from the one who cares so much for us. I may even ignore it because it was not in my busy plan for the day. I may even cry out. I may be terrified by what I hear or see.
Talking to spiritual friends helps us see God in these places we were blind to God’s presence. Friends remind me that somehow if I stay present to the moment/ and say my prayers, fear will leave me. FEAR IS AFRAID OF PRAYER. (repeat)
God literally gets into the boat where my life is sailing on, and the storm in my mind and in my body ceases. I am astonished. I do not realize why I am comforted, for my heart is still hardened./ This happens daily. But my experience continually teaches me that God WILL NEVER Ever give up on us, even/ and perhaps especially,/ when we live in the dark of winter/ and our hearts are still hardened and cold. Do not give up./ Let us wait together in the warmth of this assembled community for the coming of the promised light.