Your pattern is perfection
It quiets the soul that knows it
And its eloquent expression
Makes everything clear
So that even the simple are wise.
-Psalm 19, translation by Norman Fischer
Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness?
Can you let your body become
supple as a newborn child’s?
Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light?
Can you love people and lead them
without imposing your will?
Can you deal with the most vital matters
by letting events take their course?
Can you step back from your own mind
and thus understand all things?
-Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell
Dear Keystone,
It has been a whirlwind Festival of Hope Season so far, full of joy and hard work and warm hugs and delicious soup. We now enter the season of Advent, the dark time, the time of waiting, the start of a new liturgical year. During this year, we will draw stories primarily from the Gospel according to Luke, whose primary setting is “On the Road.” So many of Luke’s beloved stories take place on a road: Mary, discovering she is pregnant, travels on the road to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who is pregnant with John the Baptist; Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem for the census; the traveler who is helped by the “Good Samaritan” is attacked on a road; the Prodigal Son’s father runs down the road to meet him; the two disciples (most likely a husband and wife) encounter the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus.
The road is a liminal space between two fixed spots, a place of transition and travel and adventure, but often without security and safety. I think of the half a million people who traveled across the Darien Gap last year; the millions of people displaced from their homes in Lebanon and Palestine; our neighbors who camp by the side of roads throughout our city and country. Christians, too, exist in a strange liminal space, ever since the time thousands of years ago when a Galilean rabbi came into the world and invited us to follow him on “the Way,” the name adopted by the earliest Christian communities. The word “Way” in Greek is hodos, which also means – you guessed it – road. The earliest Christians expected Christ’s imminent return, and many today are still waiting to “see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” (Luke 21:27) Some of us are not sure Jesus meant that he would return exactly like that; but in any case, while we wait, we look for the face of Christ in our neighbors, especially those facing weary journeys on the road.
Recently I had a conversation with my son about his favorite movie when he was in 7th grade and had faced many losses and changes. Every day after school, Jack would watch The Terminal starring Tom Hanks, a movie about a man named Viktor Navorsky, who travels to New York as a tourist, but while he’s in flight, the government of his fictional Eastern European country is overthrown and his passport is no longer valid. Viktor is trapped inside the terminal at JFK, a liminal space if there ever was one, unable to return home or to enter the United States. Viktor remains in the airport for nine months – he makes friends, is able to earn some money, and even falls in love while waiting.
As Christians, we also find community and love as we help one another along this road between birth and death, between Christ’s incarnation thousands of years ago and the apokatastasis, when all will be restored and drawn together into One. Advent especially reminds us of this liminal space, this place of waiting, watching, readying ourselves to set out on the road once more to follow Jesus.
In On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Dean Moriarty says to Sal Paradise, “Sal, we gotta go and never stop going ’till we get there.” Sal asks, “Where we going, man?”
“I don’t know,” Dean replies, “but we gotta go.”
Advent Blessings,
Rev. Adina