The day the clocks spring forward and the days begin to grow longer, I rejoice. My ankle length down coat can be packed away and I am free to revel in the spring, summer and fall. Falling back, however, is not as easy. I watch the sun sink behind Brooklyn at 4:30. I have to wear coats and layers and put away my flip flops. Curses. I realized that when daylight savings ends, I begin to wait. For five long, cold, bundled months. I am not good at it.
The virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Immanuel, which means God-is-with-us. Matthew 1:23 "By calling God Immanuel, we recognize God's commitment to live in solidarity with us, to share our joys and pains, to defend and protect us, and to suffer all of life with us." Nouwen goes on to describe what the definition of compassion means to him: "It is not a bending toward the underprivileged from a privileged position; it is not a reaching out from on high to those who are less fortunate below; it is not a gesture of sympathy or pity for those who fail to make it in the upward pull. On the contrary, compassion means going directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and building a home there."
Now I'm trying to figure out how all of these threads fit together, other than the word and thought association led me from one to the next. I think it is this: I struggle so much with all that is a mess in the world. I am constantly waiting to see things change. But, I do not have to despair. For this liturgical season of waiting, I want to be filled with this kind of compassion. I want to remember that it is often in the waiting that we are most changed; that in the waiting is when our cup just might overflow.
1 comment:
Good post!
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