How We Live Between the Words

The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
                  ~ Rumi

Rumi’s Guest House holds words that more often than not live just beyond my grasp. I wonder what happened to Rumi right before he wrote this poem. What occurred or who had shown up unexpectedly and nudged him to find these words? These particular words. These haunting, impossible-to-believe-let-alone-follow words. Was the poet writing about grief or is that just my own lens?
 
Grief is like the guest that never leaves. Consistently hovering. Often exhausting. Sometimes maddening. Demanding with a sense of entitlement. Intrusive and draining. Guest House calls for gratitude. Even tonight with the moon waxing, doing her part and bringing light to the ever-darkening sky, I’m not so sure I can get all the way to gratitude. I know, nonetheless that deep in my heart, I am committed to this journey. Even in the midst and mess of what is happening around the world and in our country, I am committed to looking East.  
 
Eleanor Farjean’s carol, People, Look East was first printed in the Advent season of 1928. She wrote this timeless piece as everyone was recovering from the war to end all wars. Most everyone was feeling the strain of what would be a global, economic depression. Into those dark and dreary days, Eleanor created a song that called us to hoping, still. Her fourth verse says, “Stars, keep the watch when night is dim, one more light the bowl shall brim. Shining beyond the frosty weather, bright as the sun and moon together. People, look east and sing today: Love, the star is on the way.”
 
Advent holds so many things. Stories and histories. Candles and starlight. Separations and coming togethers. Holding on and letting go’s. Waiting and wondering. Many of us carry many of these things at the very same time. Advent holds calendars and commitments. It holds songs and carols, traditions and fresh starts. It holds great joy and sorrow, tender hearts – empty and full, both. People, Look East continues to call us over the years from mornings past to this evening. Here in these never-the-same-twice living of our days, this hymn invites us to not give up. Even here in these late autumn days, these words remind us of the song of Love that is always, somehow singing.
 
We have been gifted with wise and gracious composers and writers of songs that often carry us through. Quaker, folksinger, Carrie Newcomer speaks well to the gifts that come from just-right words. In her song, Two Toasts she sings, “To the words and how they live between us. And to us and how we live between the words.” Thank you, God for these women and men who have composed melodies that somehow hold us throughout our lives and hold us now in this journeying to Bethlehem season. Words and melodies that are holding places for our tears and sorrows, our best hopes and best wishes.
 
People, Look East is a hymn that continues to sing to me of hope. The Guest House continues to stretch my weary heart and claim a spot in my spirit for an awakening of YES. These pieces remind me to trust and believe my newly claimed YES into what will be next. These timeless words remind us that we are not alone. They remind us that this is not nearly all of who we are in these days. There is more…love, story, welcome, song. This hymn, this poem, this phrase from Carrie's song encourage us to wait just a little longer on through the night. In this melody, with these words we are reminded once again that the dawn will surely come.

Prayer
God of words and melodies, you somehow share our days and our nights. One day for us holds minutes into hours, one for you holds all of creation. And still, you hold us. Forgive our weariness and our despairing, we pray. May you continue to welcome us back and welcome us in. And may we continue to trust your YES as it weaves her way in and through the words we pray. Amen

---