Two Wise Women

Prepare
Strange how one word
will so hollow you out.
But this word
has been in the wilderness
for months.
Years.
This word is what remained
after everything else
was worn away
by sand and stone.
It is what withstood
the glaring of sun by day,
the weeping loneliness of
the moon at night.
Now it comes to you
racing out of the wild
eyes blazing
and waving its arms,
its voice ragged with desert
but piercing and loud
as it speaks itself
again and again.
Prepare, prepare.
It may feel like
the word is leveling you
emptying you
as it asks you
to give up
what you have known.
It is impolite
and hardly tame
but when it falls
upon your lips
you will wonder
at the sweetness
like honey
that finds its way
into the hunger
you had not known
was there.
~ Jan L. Richardson from earlier Advent writings
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                                                                                                                    Words from Two Women 

​      What would change if "Prepare." "Stay Awake!" "Not yet" became living words inside of us? Would it be odd? Impossible? Wonderful?

     Coming in midwinter, these words find us in our going inward season. And it is in this season that we travel to Bethlehem. By definition our journey is meant to take us from one place to another. And so, as we've been moving in and through these growing darker days, we can take heart because beginning today more light is coming. This time of Advent invites us to keep moving, keep looking for what is yet to come. And today with journey with more light leading the way.

     Much of grief's work happens internally. This work that feels too tender, too confusing, too messy to share. There are times when minutes and even hours pass, and I can't seem to account for any of them. There are times when words coming slowly or they don't come at all. There are times when I think I won't quit crying. Left foot, right foot. Prepare has companioned us these past Sundays into Mondays for weeks now. Stay Awake! has walked side-by-side with nudgings and encouragements of `look over there," or "did you see that?" ​Not yet has reminded us minute-by-minute that what feels so empty now may not always feel this way. Left foot, right foot.  

     Jan's beautiful words find us this day. Here she reminds us:
                   "Prepare, prepare.
                      It may feel like 
                      the word is leveling you 
                      emptying you 
                      as it asks you 
                      to give up 
                      what you have known."
"Prepare" asks us to do something we may not feel we have the strength to do. Jan asks us to claim that strength anyway. Her words ask a great deal, but also invite us into hope and maybe then find a new place of healing. 

     We have just a few days remaining in this Advent time, just hours really. What is yet to come for you and me? What have we allowed into our hearts as we've been making our way to Bethlehem? What songs - old and new - have we sung? What has shifted? Is there anything that needs to be released?  Is there anything that has taken root?

   The other day I read a mind-bending article, "Very Like a Frog Hopping," by Gertrude Stein. [Editor's note: her words and punctuation.] She begins her piece, "Then also there is the important question of repetition and is there any such thing. Is there repetition or is there insistence...It is very like a frog hopping he cannot ever hop exactly the same distance or the same way of hopping at every hop. A bird's singing is perhaps the nearest thing to repetition but if you listen, they too vary their insistence." Her words speak about each life encounter being new. Even if we live day-to-day with deep grief, our grief is not the same day-to-day. Changes come organically and come with intention. There is always transformation. Cellularly we know this to be true. The rhythm of our heartbeats teach us. And yet, hearing Gertrude's words, perhaps we insist on believing that we are always predictably, repetedly in the same place as before.  

     These two writers are nudging us to step back and revisit our grief in this tender time. Both Jan and Gertrude are inviting you and me to feel what we feel in this moment. It's sometimes so easy for me to get into the pattern of predicting how something will feel in the future. This coming Wednesday there will be an empty chair (chairs) at the table and I have been tear-full about that for a while. Precious energy and time given for something that has been weeks and now hours off. For Jan prepare "empties us." Empty, open, unguarded we experience what is present with us. In this way, we might best take-in and hold-on-to what is here now, here in this moment. Gertrude cautions us to not get caught on the merry-go-round of repetition. Because grief is all-consuming, I find that sometimes grief becomes my fallback place. My sadness these days is as familiar as the jacket I put on for these chilly December mornings. Maybe Gertrude is holding a mirror in front of me and asking me to look: "Stay awake!" she whispers. How much of my grief is so familiar that I begin with it? Have I taken a look to see if it's time to unpack a journeying bag and see if there's something that's no longer needed for this journey?  
 
     Frogs and Preparing and Emptying and Hopping. Surely more than enough to pray over from these two wise women. Blessings and grace to you and me in these more-light-is-surely-coming days. 
 

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