Sunday, December 9, 2018

Prepare the Way, "Lanes", "Letting Go" (2018-12-9, Advent)

SUNDAY 9 December 2018    [ advent  –  week 2 ]

• Baruch 5:1-9  • Psalm  ___ • Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11 • Luke 3:1-6  •
BibliographyPope Benedict XVI (B16) 1st Vespers, Advent, 28 November 2009.

[_01_]  John the Baptist spoke of PREPARING THE WAY OF THE LORD, MAKING STRAIGHT HIS PATHS.
          Arrivals can be tricky, challenging, in these ways, I’d like to reflect on… the
LANE of someone’s arrival
LETTING GO of someone’s arrival…
          I’d like to reflect on, after this Gospel passage is the LANE, the LENGTH of time and the LETTING GO.
          As you know, “company”… “guests” they arrive in our LANE …and the also invite us not only to do things but also to LET GO.
[_02_]  LANE OF ARRIVAL.
            These days, the latest devices – phones – and cars – tell you if you are in someone else’s lane or someone is in your lane.
            In fact, if later today, you are to encounter someone, you can track their “lane”, their direction, their whereabouts. Where are they…
[_03_]  In 2005, I had to meet someone at the airport… and things were not quite so advanced or easy… and I had no phone with GPS. And, I was rolling the dice…because I don’t think I even had the arriving guest’s cell phone number. I certainly had no lane-detection on my car.
          So, I had to do the whole thing by sight.
          The airport and airline would not provide guidance. As you know, the airline will only tell you that the flight has arrived, or what “lane” or “gate”  or “terminal”…they will not give up any information on individual passengers. It’s all up to you, or to me, to be in the right place – the LANE - at the right time.

[_04_]  When someone is in your LANE … how do you feel about that?  When someone gets in your LANE or in your SPACE…
            I went to the airport to help out some people who were waitng for this arriving guest.
I found out later was that I was not the only one asked to pick him up. I found this out after I arrived at Newark Airport.
           
[_05_] This was actually good news…    I was trying to get out of this all along and now I was free.  I could go back to my LANE.
          It’s interesting … a paradox … the only thing that I really remember about that day was the trip to the airport, meeting him, greeting him and then sending him on his way.  His presence is all I remember. I have no recollection of anything else I did that day. I only remember the person I met.

[_06_]  ADVENT is an ARRIVAL.
          There is an arrival LENGTH OF TIME of which John the Baptist is urging is not very much…. And  a LANE,  a way to be prepared.
          Pope Benedict XVI (B16) wrote that Advent (1st Vespers, Advent, 28 November 2009) in a technical and ancient sense referred to a personal presence, or a personal arrival, a VIP, surely someone who would need to be greeted at the airport.
          Jesus is also arriving. And, while other people may also be greeting and meeting him, each of us is called to meet him personally, each in our lane.
          Because, when someone important is arriving we also prepare ourselves, internally, do we not?
          I’d like to touch also on the LETTING GO of an arrival.

[_07_]  LETTING GO.
          I’d like to make an observation of the events of this past week …which was an advent with lower-case ‘a’, the arrival of a VIP.    The body of deceased President George Bush, 41st President of the United States was transported to Washington D.C.. It was a political-national ‘advent’ with  small a.
          Yet, I believe this advent resonates with our understanding of presence, personal presence, respect for life, respect for eternal life, and of LETTING GO.
          President Bush was lying in state in Capitol Rotunda on Capitol Hill. Hundreds of members of the legislature, of Congress, the Senate, the judiciary, the Supreme Court, military and cabinet members were there.
          And, this presence absorbed their action and attention and perhaps forced them to surrender – to LET GO of their smartphones and their agendas. They could not do anything. They could not make excuses. Their presence – or absence – would be noted.
          They just had to sit there which may have been hard for them, but it was not a bad thing.

[_08_  In Advent, we are called to be in  a LANE, and to LET GO..
            B16 wrote that, in our daily lives, we all experience having little time for God and also little time for ourselves. That is, we find it difficult to be fully present to Christ or even fully present to our own thoughts.  We end up being absorbed by ‘doing,’ by producing, by action. Rest? That’s boring…
[_09_]   In my case, at Newark Airport, I was able – and rather eager -- to say good-bye and sayonara to my passenger because someone else would now drive him, in their LANE.   My duties were fulfilled. I had nothing more to do. I had no reason to wait.

[_10_]  In Advent, we are asked to find reasons to wait, reasons to be present, reasons to rest, to pause – in our LANES --- because while we may not wait to wait any longer than necessary, God waits for us as long as possible, as long as He needs to.
            And, like the father of the parable of the Prodigal Son, watching out for us. To meet us, and he sees us coming down the lane, down the street, from a long way off.
            He finds us even in a crowd.
            Knowing this Good News, we are called to welcome Jesus each day, to prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight his paths…[_fin_]  

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