Let us rise to this season of hope
Life is precious. Each day seems to remind us life is precious, fragile, precarious, and uncertain. The words ascribed to Jesus in Luke’s gospel, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done,” floated through my mind this morning as I attempted to leave Woodland for work only to have all exits to Sacramento blocked.
Perhaps your journey with surrender has been easier and filled with gentle peace. Mine has not. I remember the first invitation to surrender over 30 years ago. My response was not as trusting and grace-filled as Jesus’ response. Today was no different. I left the house loaded with a full agenda and a plan for the day. After going in circles falsely believing I could find a way around closed freeway exits, and building traffic, I headed for a backroad home.
Sometimes I need all roads to be blocked before I give in to surrender. I am so grateful for backroads, open spaces, and the reminder of God’s ever-changing nature surrounding me.
Sun shifts shafts of light, baron fields tilled and waiting, and birds dancing on wind currents evoke wonder and awe.
Wonder opens again to gratitude and hope. Sheepishly I give in, not without a few words of lament not fit for print.
Only after returning home did I learn the reason for the road closure. I offered a prayer for the lives lost and for those who would receive the phone call we all dread. Humbled and a little ashamed I realized how often I take life for granted and how seldom I give thanks for arriving home safe and sound. Once again, I am reminded life is precious, fragile, precarious, and uncertain even as it is filled with wonder, gratitude, and hope.
I long for the innocent trust and grace of Mary who when invited to surrender answered, “I am the Lord’s servant … May your word to me be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:38 NIV) Mary, a young girl without the benefit of 30 years of practice simply said, “yes, and invited new life to be born through her.”
Mary’s example and the Christian season of Advent invites people to become “God-bearers.” It is an invitation to surrender to Life and to be fully human in this precious, fragile, precarious, and uncertain laboratory called life. It is not an easy task. I am comforted Jesus asked for the cup to be removed before He accepted.
Professor of Psychiatry and Religion at Union Theological Seminary
Ann Belford Ulanov, wrote, “Aliveness comes down to one thing — consenting to rise, to be dented, impressed, pressed in upon, to rejoin, to open, to ponder, to be where we are in this moment and see what happens, allowing the breath of not knowing to be taken, wanting to see what is there and what is not there. Aliveness springs from our making something of what we experience and receiving what experience makes of us.” (Ann Belford Ulanov, The Unshuttered Heart: Opening to Aliveness/Deadness in the Self (Abingdon Press: 2007), 15—16, 17.)
This is also the invitation to awaken to the wide-eyed open-hearted wonder and awe at the fullness of life in all its messy bits and to say, “Yes.” Yes, to all that is sacred and holy in us and around us. Let us rise to this season of hope, peace, joy, and love with aliveness and new possibilities.