This year I’m going to offer four advent reflections that will move us from darkness into The Light. Prepare yourself to join me on this journey. Today as we begin our journey into Advent, I invite you to find a candle, a match, a timer and a Bible. Open the Bible to Isaiah, Chapter 9, Verse 2 and set it by your side.
First some reflection —- Right now, as I live in the Northern Hemisphere, I’m in the darkest season of the year. From October 21 to December 21 each day, we’re heading into deeper darkness. For years I have resisted the shortness of these days but this year, as several people mentioned this season to me, I found my attention drawn to the many shades of darkness. I’m not resisting it as I have before. I’m more open and accepting of the short days and descending darkness. I realize there are many kinds of darkness.
There’s Fearful Darkness. When I was a child, I was so sure there were ‘bogey men’ out there, or snakes creeping around! Even as an adult, standing in the deepest dark of the night can be disconcerting. What is that sound???? When I can’t see much around me, my imagination can begin to play games so I’m not always comfortable walking up our unlit street at night. And then there are the times of emotional darkness, times uncertainty, unsettledness, unknowing. Sometimes it can feel dark even when the sun shines. Those are times of emotional darkness. And yes, I can still be scared in that dark!
There’s Lonely Darkness. Sometimes darkness can highlight the sense of loneliness. If only there was someone with me, it wouldn’t seem so dark. Their human presence would bring a light to me. I’ve had times in my life when I’ve felt alone and lonely. Sometimes it’s a physical loneliness for there is no other human with me. Other times it’s a mental loneliness when my ideas, beliefs or experiences separate me from others and there is no warm human companion walking with me. Sometimes it’s a spiritual loneliness when God seems so distant. I would name those as ‘dark’ times, difficult times.
There’s Womb Darkness. We all began our earthly lives in the darkness of the womb. That’s warm darkness, heartbeat darkness, nourishing darkness. That’s the darkness that allows seeds to sprout. Jesus began his earthly life in the very same way as you and I did, curled up within Mary’s womb, feeling her heart beat, being nourished by the food she ate, protected and cared for by her. During her pregnancy, I wonder how many times Mary repeated to herself and to God, ‘Not my will but Yours be done.’? Each time she repeated her desire to be open to God, Little Jesus within, heard her. How nourishing that might have been for His Spirit. Darkness can be warm and nourishing. It can bring forth new life.
Now some experience. —- Set the timer for five minutes. Turn off as many lights as you can and begin to sit in darkness. Wait in darkness. Become aware of what it’s like for you to be in darkness, to not know what is around you, what is coming. Experience the uncertainty, even the discomfort, perhaps the fear of the darkness. Be patient with everything unresolved in your life, every unknown aspect, every shadow that flickers. Just be present within the darkness. If you can, sit for the full five minutes, then light the candle and read Isaiah 9.2.
Allow that verse to be yours: You are a person who has walked in darkness, and now you can see a light.
The Advent Journey requires that we spend some time in darkness, knowing pain and difficulty. Being pregnant isn’t easy! There is no way it could have been all easy for Mary. May we pause long enough to acknowledge that we too, sometimes, wait in darkness, with unresolved ideas, relationships or decisions.
In the midst of our seasonal darkness, let us be patient. More light will come. In time. But we must wait.
Love and prayers
Anne
Mystic in Motion
“Companion on the Way” with Contemplative Fire
Contemplative Fire Canada (Founder)
I love the games that our English languages plays, like the way ‘ear’ and ‘hear’ are embedded within ‘heart’. Hmmm so is ‘art’! Today I found a new one. ‘Compete’ and ‘Complete’ are distinguished by just one letter ‘L’.
something deep within. I can sense something embedded within me that competes. I want to be noticed, known and valued. I worked in places that didn’t value me as a woman or as a contemplative. From this safe distance I can feel a competitive spirit driving me to be accepted and valued as both a woman and the offering of a contemplative pathway. Oh yes, I can see that some of my offerings came from a desire to show those active oriented men a thing or too!
So practically this week how will I do that? I could be more attentive to being in the present moment, to seeing who is around me, hearing what is happening and listening to whoever I am with. I could be more aware of my choices of activities and motivations with a gentle reflection during the day and at the end of the day. I could be attentive to any negative voices that whisper (or shout!) in my mind, anything negative about myself or another, anything that breathes competition and firmly open the escape hatch to let them go. I will not feed those monsters but will set my course to walk gently and bow often, to live from a place of completion not competition.
Right! I’m NOT. I’m NOT. He locks his eyes on me. I turn my head away, plowing deep into my book. Then the nails start clacking. The dinner dance had begun. He’d moved from the deep concentrated stare to the dance with prancing and jumping added to the deep stare. The final level comes when he adds in a bark or two. Just random barks that I accompany the prance and are always tied to that deep concentrated stare. When he is in full flow, he is one powerful beast!
time have I done a ‘dinner dance’ with God? How much of that time has been fully concentrated on God, not taking my eyes off, prancing and jumping, evening barking till I get what I’m looking for? How much? Honestly not that much. My mind wanders. A lot. It’s not that I don’t seek God and love God, it’s just that my mind wanders and I’m still much of the time, lost in my mind.
Ask yourself this question: “Have I ever tried to do anything that nobody else has ever done?”
When I juggled that question around in my lap, I began to find many things that I had done that nobody else had done in the world. I began to savour anew my uniqueness. Some of the unique things I found were on the showy side, the upfront side, the side that can be noticed in the world. Other things were quieter, small everyday expressions of creativity. I appreciate that I was given the privilege of bringing Contemplative Fire into Canada – that’s on the upfront side of life. It touched my creative side and has been a real joy to me. I appreciate too that I was gifted with being able to birth four amazing young women. They are like no one else in the world. But creativity is in everyday things too. I moved from Stibbard Avenue in Toronto to Oceanview Road in Lions Bay. I don’t think anyone else, besides my husband has done that! Let’s get into even smaller everyday things looking for creativity. A dear one taught me how to open my closet and create an outfit to wear each day that will give me joy! No one else in the world will have that particular outfit on, on that particular day!
Ask yourself this question: “Have I ever tried to do anything that nobody else has ever done?” 
The week was full of activities, with people, with conversations, with experiences and ideas being exchanged, with errands and appointments that make up life, with meals out with family and new friends, with an abundance of worship services and punctuated with a day of fasting and prayer.
me closer. As I sat in a contemplative prayer service around the last supper with Jesus and his friends, he called me to trust him. The words were both surprising for they weren’t in the text, but also so familiar and real. Again and again I’ve heard the invitation to trust God’s Spirit, to lean into the presence within me. Surrender. Let the Spirit carry me forward. I am to be open.
Easter Sunday gifted me with the words of Jesus to Mary in the garden, ‘Don’t hold on to me.’ Ah yes, trust, let go, surrender. Are there old beliefs, labels, perspectives that no longer serve me? I’m in a new life here, finding new ways forward. It’s time to trust even more deeply, trust the goodness, the abundance of God.
prayed for our hurting and suffering world. Instead of a sermon, there was a gentle reflection. No one told me what to believe about his death. The speaker simply led me closer to the experience of it. I appreciated not being ‘taught’ about one of the biggest mysteries of my faith.
So often I’ve said to grieving families when it’s a small cluster of us gathered around the graveside, ‘Take care of yourself. You’re heading out into a busy world. They’re not grieving but you are. You know a deep loss, a hole, a wound. You need to take care of yourself. You are living in a different space than they are.’ Today I feel the need of those words for myself. The world around me is whirling, but I’m not. I’m grieving. I’ve looked at death this morning. I grieve what was done to Jesus. I also grieve the lack of spiritual awareness in the world around me. No one seems to care that he died.
I last wrote to you in mid December. Since then I’ve felt silent, very quiet. Although invitations come to be engaged in many activities, and although our social circles in our new BC Village Life are expanding, I’ve found myself stilled deep within. I feel as though I’m wrapped in a cocoon. I’ve entered it as a caterpillar and I’ve no idea what my new form will be when I emerge.
so grateful to the contemplative tradition, the Contemplative Fire community, and the individuals who have nurtured my soul over these years. I’ve experienced so much inner healing. In the last thirty years I’ve moved from holding a deep pain within me, to feeling the brightness and warmth of internal sunshine.
was so open, honest and challenging with me. He saw the depths of my hurt and didn’t draw back but stayed present with me and called me out to play with him. In contemplative community life I learned so many ways to pray, each one slightly different, each allowing me to face my shadows and not fear them any longer, each one speaking more of loving acceptance to me. Then within the security of the contemplative world I could engage with emotional therapy and integrate the two worlds of therapy and prayer. I’m so grateful to the many, many people who have walked with me over the last thirty years of my healing journey.
and I’ll post as I go along. You might never know when you’ll hear from me. I do enjoy hearing from you Gentle Reader, but truthfully, I write for myself. I think things through as I write. I record them. If they are helpful to you – that’s a joy.
I first found the reading “Patient Trust’ from Teilhard de Chardin at the end of a book on contemplative leadership by Ruth Haley Barton. (Its at the end of this note if you’re not familiar with it) Instantly I knew I needed to live into the truth that he wrote about. After a time, I put it aside, but it re-appeared about a year and half later when I was on a Centring Prayer retreat. I was in the midst of a major life discernment and again felt convicted that his words were for me. After that I shared it with the Contemplative Fire leadership team and our Board Chair kept bringing it to every meeting we had. For the last sixteen months we’ve read it again and again. On Friday I joined the Contemplative Fire leadership via Skype and we read it again at both of our meetings.
It doesn’t matter that our pictures aren’t hung, or that there are still piles of things on the floor, or that I keep moving things around or that the workmen just knocked down the stairs leading to the house and found rotten wood! The instability all around me is just the way it is but it doesn’t claim me as it had in the past. My feet are 
beginning to touch solid ground again. I’m grateful that I know Deep Joy and that I smile in the midst of our mess. It’s such a lovely feeling when I’m swimming in deep water and then feel the bottom with my toes. I trust in the slow work of God, gently drawing me to feel the solid bottom again.
bought a cake at Loblaws. I can still see the roses and taste that icing! But I don’t recall much of a fuss let alone a ‘celebration’ of me, or of anyone else on their birthday.
and texts. Even a card and a present survived the postal disruption to arrive at my home and somehow fresh flowers arrived too which may not seem like much to you city dwellers, but here in the country where delivery people laugh when i tell them where I live…..was a treat. I’m not a Facebook person, but those notes too popped into my inbox. I felt surrounded by people, known and appreciated. I wasn’t alone. Yes, I’m in a new place. I have no ‘friends’ here, but I’m still within a circle of people I care about and who care for me.
celebrate their 80th birthdays, ‘The Book of Joy’. I think it’s a treasure. They describe how each day is our birth-day. Each day we get to celebrate and begin anew. Ahh… each day is a day we bring new life into the world. Each day we can set our intention to be light, to express kindness, to extend compassion. Each day is our birth-day. Hmm… I think that means too that each day we get to laugh a lot, play a game or too and eat Smurf cake!