Here and Now
Moments come in each life to choose how, if, we focus.
Are autumn and winter dying times only or long days to prepare for new life?
Will we only mourn the dead or will our tears renew love for the living
to protect them from dread disease or social rejection and annihilation
to find the cure or create new ways of living and loving thus far beyond our grasp?
We can read the signs of these times
or we can cling to stories past like Muzak in a merry mall.
Advent calls us to decide: Is it presents under a tree,
not wrong but off center, or is it about new life-ours-
shaken up when tenacious hope sprouts against odds
and we are taken over yet again by holy bald truth
of boundless grace cutting through our defense?
The joy is coming here and now,
calm and euphoric, bright and deep.
Are we ready to go beyond cards and carols,
eggnog and stringing lights, to open our lives to the grandeur of God's gifts
in delicate moments of wisdom as naked and loving as a babe in a crib in a manger,
cutting through never-ending jockeying for position against the other
to find holy rest and our deep truer life where it has ever been,
never apart from us,
even as we, terrified, run and hide?
The day is not only coming. It is here.
The choice as well. What will it be?
