In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen. You are aware of the beating of your heart. The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.
-Frederick Buechner
Get up, my dear friend, fair and beautiful lover—come to me! Look around you: Winter is over; the winter rains are over, gone! Spring flowers are in blossom all over. The whole world’s a choir—and singing!
(Song of Solomon 2:11,12 MSG)
Sometimes, when shrill voices tell us to look at what’s happening there, and there, or over there, we overlook the still, quiet voice of the Lover of our souls inviting us to look here. I was looking for photo-worthy balsam root blossoms that thrive in the Okanagan. I wanted to photograph a patch, but they all seemed to grow in places where I couldn’t stop the car, or places too hard for me to walk to.
When I told my daughter my frustration she said, “Oh, we have some here in the forest beside our house where the children play.”
I found them! What a wonderful place to be a child! I’m so happy for them!
When I was a young child, our little house was in a eastside neighbourhood squeezed between a meat packing plant, an oil refinery, and a railway yard. No matter which way the wind blew it never smelled like a forest of flowers and evergreen trees.
When I was a child, I carried worries that were too heavy for a little kid. I thought God was mad at me all the time like everyone else seemed to be. I didn’t know that he actually liked me and wanted to be with me. It was many years before I could hear him calling me to come away with him, not to do a job for him, but because he loved me and wanted to be with me.
It’s so easy to say, “I’ll be happy when this is over, or when this is done.” We can have joy now, in this moment. I hear the loving invitation of my Lord inviting me to leave stress and worry behind, to come away with him, and appreciate the song that beauty sings here in the secret place he created for the two of us, here where he made it accessible. Here –in my heart.
Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you;
love her, and she will watch over you.
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom.
Though it cost all you have, get understanding.
Cherish her, and she will exalt you;
embrace her, and she will honor you.
She will give you a garland to grace your head
and present you with a glorious crown.
Proverbs 4:6-9 NIV
When I was a child we often spent summer vacation in the Okanagan. Warm evenings on the beach, and hot days picking ripe cherries and peaches growing in orchards full of giving trees. Mmmm. You could reach up, pick the fruit, and bite in as the juice ran down your chin! For a girl from the prairies who had seen snow in every month of the year and who had only ever picked crab apples from a tree, it was heaven.
I must not have been the only one to feel that way because members of our family have moved to the area — and I get to visit them. One of them lives on the shores of the lake below the vineyards and wineries on the mountainous hillsides.
While we stayed there we needed to drive into the city several times. We planned for the extra time it takes to drive on roads that definitely do not pay attention to the route a crow would choose. The lanes wind through orchards and vineyards include steep inclines and hairpin curves. I watched the compass on my dashboard switch between opposite directions several times before I reached the highway on the other side of the hill.
I learned to drive on Alberta country roads laid out in a grid that headed north, south, east, or west without hindrance. Rivers and correction lines were the only diversions. Roads in the mountains straighten out only long enough for prairie drivers to speed up for the half kilometer-long passing lane.
The hairpin turns in Lake Country caught my attention. It felt like the path in my life lately where I have been making progress moving in one direction, then suddenly circumstances force a sharp turn and I am headed in the opposite direction. Gathering/divesting. Constructing/deconstructing. Extending latitude/enforcing boundaries. Making connections/breaking off connections. Gaining health/losing health. Learning/unlearning. It looks like vacillation, like I can’t make a decision and stick with it.
So what’s going on here, Lord?
Then I notice that although a hairpin road takes me in the same direction from whence I came, it now takes me higher. The territory is familiar, but the view is slightly different. I have a better perspective. I can see farther. I wonder if this is a place and time in the journey where God has called me to come up higher, but the direct approach is too steep.
Just before he was led away to be crucified Jesus told his disciples, “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”
What was about to happen was a reversal of the direction they were expecting. It was illogical. From their perspective, before the Holy Spirit had come in power, it made no sense.
Sometimes the faith life is realizing logic that functions only in our limited perspective is not reasonable. It’s realizing that aligning with greater perspective — God’s perspective — necessitates change. And change again.
In his kindness, the Holy Spirit gives us a vision of the way things could be. We set our hearts on the dream God planted like the orchards in the sun – and then he puts us on a road that appears to be going in the opposite direction. What?
Sometimes following Jesus results in miraculously rapid acceleration. Sometimes learning to follow him means steadfast unwavering marathon-endurance running with eyes fixed on the goal. Sometimes learning to follow means willingness to make sudden changes in direction that may not make sense to us.
Not everyone is at the same point on the road, but wherever we are in this journey we remember that Jesus is walking it with us. He promised he would never leave us or forsake us. Even when it doesn’t make sense. Yet.
Charis: Subject to Change 