Christmas 2012: Longings, Loss and Hope

I'd like to share a few thoughts on the sometimes difficult path back to God and hope.  This fall I led a women’s group whose purpose was to discover God and hope anew.  It was a challenging, vulnerable and hopeful journey.  In Advent, a time of expectant waiting, I think about the invitation to find hope in quiet waiting … a waiting that invites the longings of our hearts to find fresh hope in Christ’s coming.  Too easily I'm tempted instead to go through the motions, settling for something that's more akin to a dulled optimism.  But optimism is a cheap substitute for deep hope.  One author writes of the need for quiet, deep hope:

Optimism speaks incessantly, fearing that if it stops framing this reality in a positive manner it will be annihilated by the nothingness all around us.  But hope is a secret that calls for silence, contemplation, and deep reflection.  Hope bubbles up from deep within our being that is so close to nothingness, making its way to our lips in fear and trembling.  We find ourselves choking on the wonder of its possibility; we find that contemplating it forces us to speak lower; because we are hoping in an altogether different reality, in the dawn of God’s future, where death is not optimistically given face paints and cotton candy to hold, but is obliterated in the fullness of life in God’s Love.  (Andrew Root, The Promise of Despair, p.143-144)

As Christmas approaches, in celebrating, longing and hoping for the fullness of God’s love, we sing out:

O Come, O come, Emmanuel, / and ransom captive Israel,

that mourns in lonely exile here / until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice!  Rejoice! / Emmanuel shall come to thee ,/ O Israel.

We celebrate the Hope fulfilled in Jesus’ coming … and we await, with lonely longings, for the day when there will be no more tears and no more exile.  Apart from connection to our own brokenness, longings and need, how can we make room for the Christ child in our lives? 

Hope, longings and loss closely comingle.  In the women’s group, we grieved how our hope had grown dim, and we opened up deep, historic longings and disappointments.  We courageously wrote and expressed laments to God. 

As Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn: they shall be comforted.”  Henri Nouwen comments on this, “That’s the unexpected news: there’s a blessing hidden in our grief.  …  Somehow, in the midst of our mourning, the first steps of the dance take place.  Somehow, the cries that well up from our losses belong to our songs of gratitude.” (Henri Nouwen, With Burning Hearts, p.31)    

The risky path of vulnerability is the path of hope.  It was what Jesus embodied: naked vulnerability and deep trust.  It is the path of growth and the path of salvation.  It is the greatest gift. 

This is the gift we celebrate at the Soul Restoration Project, the path we walk in therapy, workshops and groups. 

I hope for both you and I to know abundant love and hope deep within this Christmas and to be agents of it to those around us.