Tuesday 1 December 2009

Advent as coming out

Kittredge Cherry has published a lovely Advent poem by Chris Glaser over at the Jesus in Love blog.
Out of dark soil sprouts new life,
from darkness springs embodied hope.
Both stretch for the illumination
of the cosmic landscape.


This reminds me of another Advent reflection by a gay Anglican priest, written in 1997, and still relevant today.
So I was in love with the dark; not a dark which was cold or menacing, not a dark in which nasty things lurked but rather a dark where I could begin to feel. The dark was nurturing, it was where, in church, I was connected to everyone else; living, dead, present or not, mentally disturbed, outcast, old, young, poor, rich, intelligent, of the establishment, or criminal - in fact, everyone gathered around that table. All Eucharists are like that for me but Advent held special mystery.

At the end of Advent the church plunges itself into a tiny stable and all the church throughout the world stands crowded into a small and dangerously revolutionary room in Bethlehem.

2 comments:

Beth P. said...

Beautiful! I did a talk this past weekend about making birthing Jesus a habit, and in it talked about uncovering where all our dusty old stables are...and birthing Jesus there.

Thank you for this--lovely poem and prose.

Yewtree said...

Your talk sounds interesting. It sounds like what the Quakers would call the inner Light, or the inward Christ, as described here by Andrew Brown, a liberal Christian.

Glad you liked the poem. Kitt's blog is excellent.