To revere another is to behold their indigenous sacredness
and to stand in awe before the One in whom
they live and move and have their being. ~ Dan Miller

Human being is either coming into meaning
or betraying it.~ Abraham Heschel

Yesterday, I met online with others who are participating in the Spiritual Exercises for Everyday Living (SEEL). SEEL is another name for St. Ignatius’ 19th annotation to the Exercises he developed in the 1500’s allowing for people who are unable to make the 30 day retreat to do so spread out over nine months. Our focus (as it will be this coming month into mid-January) was timely during this season of Advent. It was called LONGING FOR INCARNATION and is the second week of the 30 day retreat.

During our reflection time we were encouraged to reflect prayerfully on four questions. The first two were:

What do I long for in this time? And
What does “waiting in joyful hope” mean for me?

I’d like to share with you some of my own thoughts that emerged during my reflection. Of course, during this unique and difficult time of pandemic who among us is not longing for the suffering and dying to stop, for Julian of Norwich’s famous words penned in the wake of the Black Plague, the deadliest pandemic in human history, to become a reality: ‘all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well’? When historians look back on this time, certainly in the United States, they most surely will give attention not only to the tumult caused by COVID-19, but also to the political and racial turbulence that plague our country. Who among us does not yearn for the caroler’s words “peace on earth” to be more than a pious lyric or the text on a Hallmark card or the Gospel for Christmas midnight Mass?

This is where my thoughts began — a deep yearning for what feels like a nearly unfathomable reality, namely, for our earth and the human and other-than-human community to know in our bones, our blood, our embodied souls, our being together the Shalom that is at the heart of the dream of God referred to in the gospels by the Greek term basileia tou theou, the reign of God. The shalom of God for all yearners is not pie-in-the-sky bye-and-bye wishful thinking, no more than the dream of God is a naive fantasy, and no more than the basileia tou theou is a physical kingdom somewhere. These are synonyms for the happening of God, the happening announced and embodied by Jesus, and the happening of Spirit when all things are made new and all become one. The reign of God is not a place but the dynamic, loving, liberating, and healing presence of God.

Advent waiting is not the waiting of Vladimir and Estragon for Godot. It’s not passive. It’s not impotent, twiddling our thumbs passing time. Ask a pregnant woman or any mother if her nine-month runway up to her birthing forth new life was a passive experience. I imagine not. So then, how do we wait for the shalom for which we long? For healing? For wholeness?

What does it mean when we hear in the Sunday liturgy “We wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ?” Perhaps the greatest gift inherent to our humanity is that we get to participate consciously and intentionally in the divine life, that we get to participate in the happening of Spirit here and now, what Merton called the cosmic dance. The deep reality, the present and accounted for truth of Christmas 2020 is that the basileia tou theou is among us now just as in that first Christmas (Lk. 17:21). We’re not play acting each Advent and Christmas, pretending we don’t know the names and numbers of all the players, the journey of Joseph and Mary, and the itinerary of God. What has been lost so continually all these years after the birth of the Christ child, is that it is not only we who are waiting. God is waiting for us. Huh? God is waiting for us to enact and actualize the incarnation of love that is at the heart of the dream of God (that is, the vision, intent, and realization of the basileia tou theou).

This is what I’ve come to realize after living so many Advents. I tried to express it here in Advent Prayer I. Namely, that rather than being passive, the way we wait in joyful hope is by enacting what it is we are waiting for. If we are waiting for light in these dark days, then we are to become for others the light God brought once and is bringing again. If we wait for healing in these days of brokenness when humans as well as the earth groan in anguish, we are to become a healing presence for others. The Advent summons is not merely to wait, but to wait in joyful hope. It is not merely to wait but to prepare the way for the coming of the peace, harmony, wholeness, joy, and oneness personified in Jesus. We are the body of Christ. That is our inheritance, our blessing, our charge, our vocation. I suspect God awaits the day we will begin to act like it.

In these times of severe fragmentation and civil discord, noxious from vitriol and violence, what does it mean to long for shalom, for peace on earth? In a culture prone to superficiality and facade, peace is thin and anemic, all warm-fuzzy, cozy calmness, and shallow tranquility.  The peace of Christ, the shalom of life, is substantive, earthy, real. It is not an external, ethereal thing like a foggy mist that floats ashore toward us. It is rather the tangible, robust, and dynamic wholeness that is the realization of reverent relationships. It is symbolized in the deep, sincere, almost prayerful bow of the body toward another. This is why peace is so often combined with justice when we talk about the necessary conjunctive of an authentic enacted faith. Jesus is often referred to as the Prince of Peace, enfleshing and pointing the way by how he related to others, especially showing concern and compassionate care for the most vulnerable targets of dehumanizing behavior.

♦

If we are actively waiting for peace in these turbulent times, we might start by learning the meaning of reverence, and then treating one another, and all others with reverence. Reverence is what awe looks like in everyday relationships and interactions. Reverence is respect marinated in love. It is as far removed from pro forma politeness or cringing timidity as the North pole is from the South pole, as love is from indifference, as genuine holiness is from pious pretension. It is grounded in the conviction that each person, beginning with oneself, is the imago Dei (image of God), that each tree, river, blue heron, trout, rainfall, wheat field, bumble bee, beetle, and elk are innately sacred, bear the Spirit of the Creator Spiritus, and worthy to be treated in kind. Poet, agrarian, social commentator Wendell Berry insists, “There are no unsacred places. There are only sacred places and desecrated places.”

There are no unsacred people, only sacred people and desecrated people, which also means there are only reverent people and irreverent people, or more modestly put, there are only people who are trying to act reverently and people who can’t be bothered with such inexpedient endeavors. While reverence is a human capacity we all are born with, it has to be enacted regularly which requires awareness, willingness, and effort.

Mother Teresa bows in a gesture of welcome and peace

Our country has known irreverence. It was unleashed and perfected when the lands and animals among whom the native people lived, and the personhood and rights of the indigenous people of this continent, were individually and systemically desecrated. It was manifested when people were brought to this country against their will, enslaved, and desecrated by people who, while calling themselves people of God, were, in fact, perfected blasphemers. And it continues to this day, in America and throughout the world, wherever violence and violation are perpetrated against the typical targets: women, children, people of color, people with disabilities, members of the LGBTQ community, the materially poor, visibly vulnerable, and virtually all creatures and the very environment that sustains us.

And yet, in many ways, these times in which we live are arguably the most overtly irreverent times in the history of the United States. Sadly, sinfully, and tragically, the irreverence has never been more vocally, visibly, and unapologetically modeled, inspired, approved, and encouraged in our country than it has been from the highest office in the land these last four years by our current President and his goose-stepping minions. I take no pleasure in saying this. But who could deny that the tenure and tone of this presidency has been and continues to be characterized by the daily (was there ever a single day in the last 1,423 that were absent of), conscious, and intentional assaults on the sacredness of the very people and land he was elected to serve, honor, and protect.

I submit it is not merely civility that is needed from our citizenry and leaders, but rather the courage and commitment to reverence one another. For those of us who take the name of Christ as our calling card, it is not an option or a suggestion. It is a mandate, a categorical imperative. For people of other religious traditions and spiritual paths it is a constitutive part of your heritage as well, as it has always been for noble-minded, tender-hearted people with no religious allegiance or belief. We can’t wait for those with whom we disagree to turn down the volume and temperature of their mendacity. Nor can we carry ourselves with an air of superiority. Who among us has not been irreverent at some point in time? But if we continue to fight fire with fire, the conflagration will be total. Irreverence and desecration will get their way, and we all will have lost. Without a doubt, in such a nonchalantly vicious time, to live and lead with reverence is counter-intuitive and counter-cultural, but it is not counter to spiritual maturity, full human becoming, the common good, and the integrity, nobility, and wisdom that are its fruits.

Advent is not a time of passive waiting. It is a time of longing and preparation tenderized by anguish and suffering. Our only hope, as I see it, to end the cycle of presumption, insolence, and dehumanization is to prepare the way for the Prince of Peace, the coming forth of shalom, the manifestation of kindness and hospitality, the real presence of non-violence and justice, and what Dorothy Day called the revolution of love, by committing ourselves to fostering kinship with all the earth and reverencing each and every person we meet bar none.

Pie-in-the-sky bye-and-bye? Only for those too full of themselves and the righteousness of their beliefs to risk the humility and to dare the spiritual audacity involved in compassionate care, the incarnation of love, and the reverence that appears ridiculous in a time when sacrilege is both commonplace and itself a catastrophic pandemic.⊕

Goodpeople, please consider passing on THE ALMOND TREE to others, then do so. I appreciate it. ~ Dan

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