Recently, one of my foundational small groups broke open an unpublished homily given by one of our great modern-day mystics, Thomas Keating [Contemplative Outreach News Volume 38, Number 2 June 22].  The homily was given on August 19, 2001, and was entitled “Our Myths of Peace.”  One of the key pieces in the sermon involved a distinction between  Peacemakers and Peace lovers.  Summarily, the distinction made by Keating is that Peace lovers “…like the way things are… they don’t want anybody to rock the boat by raising inappropriate questions or pointing out things that need serious improvement or possibly things that are unjust.”  On the other hand, “Peacemakers are the voices of the voiceless.  They are those who are not afraid to confront…they speak out.”

What strikes me most about this presently is that it seems to be speaking directly to me, i.e., to the inner world of my own struggles within, never mind how my outer actions reflect either Peace loving or Peacemaking, in Keatings distinction.  This is not to say that I am not concerned with any outer actions, but it is to say that the pull is an intimate ingress toward something mysterious, dark, challenging, but also hopeful and vivifying.

The John the Baptist figure prominent in the Second Sunday of Advent readings somehow captures this for me, with more than a small smattering from our Advent Prophet-in Season, Isaiah.  I have always thought of the wilderness aspect of Advent mostly in somewhat tame imagery, wherein we ‘choose’ (or not) to enter into the Advent Season of wakefulness and light, by being led into the wilderness.  However, it strikes me quite viscerally at this moment that sometimes the ‘choice’ can mask almost a spiritual bypassing of what the reality of Advent energy can be about.

This advent epiphany struck me down so to speak, in the reading from Isaiah from the Office of Reading (Vigils) of the Second Sunday of Advent:

“The Lord shall hurl you down headlong, mortal man!  He shall grip you firmly and roll you up and toss you like a ball into an open land, to perish there, you and the chariots you glory in, you disgrace your master’s house!  I will thrust you from your office and pull you down from your station.“

I had to look to Psalm 76 to find an apt description of how this scripture assaulted me:

                       “At your threat, O God of Jacob, horse and rider lay stunned”

Once I recovered somewhat, enough to allow this to seep past my initial reactions of horror, defensiveness and temptation to simply write the scripture off as simply Isaiah-neurosis, it occurred to me that there was something real here.  It was not a reality of the wrathful vengeance of an angry God, yet there was something real, intentionally upsetting, that was a hybrid of both an invitation and an imperative.

I wonder if one way of looking at Advent, here at least in the second week, is precisely that we may not have the luxury, and indeed if looked at squarely, DO NOT have the luxury of entering the wilderness always by choice and spiritual effort.  We are hurled headlong into the trauma of a society, world, and personal inner landscape that is somewhat of a treacherous wilderness.  Thomas Keating’s fine distinction between Peace loving and Peacemaking here seems to blur into a choiceless morass.

And yet, there is the reality of Advent agency.  Here, I mean the willingness to first see, if possible, what is present, and see with an agency that does not trip and fall into only a mental rationalization or even willful defensiveness to address ‘what is’ in simply a narrow head space.  Advent agency includes the wholeness of Who we are.  This is an agency born from attuning our minds, our hearts, and our bodies (intellectual, emotion and moving centers) in a way that does not reject or deflect the seemingly treacherous reality of our inner and outer landscapes, but rather allows the reality to touch against a gathered and collected space, which does not sugar-coat or reject that which is, but stands within in a way that is simultaneously clear, coherent, and humble.  It is atmospheric.

What could this possibly look like.  I can only share my own experience of this in the following way.  When I hear the scripture above that I will “perish there [in the open land], you and the chariots you glory in…I will thrust you from your office and pull you down from your station,” I hear this deep within the roots of my being; all my ‘chariots’ that carry me to and fro in the vicissitudes of my reactivities and unbridled desires and opinions; all those ‘offices’ and ‘stations’ that I foolishly place this ‘self’ of mine that feels entitled to all the supposed accompanying accoutrements that decorate my personal cacophony of belongings and identifications.  To be flung out into the humility – not humiliation – of the Real, into a wilderness of mystery and darkness, is not to be left alone, because this is an ‘open land’ that I have been flung into!  The painfulness of dissolving these chariots, offices and stations of identifications is undeniable; yet there is always something more.

In the same Office of Reading this morning, we hear from the Book of Revelation:

                        “Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one is able to close.”

So, how do we cultivate Advent agency?  How do we begin to see the intersection of Peace loving and Peacemaking, i.e., our personal and communal desires to have things remain familiar as they are and also embrace the urgent need for things to change, the passive and the active.  How do we be the sharp edge where the dualities meet, to refrain from demonizing or cancelling one or the other, but allow the fiery friction to birth something indeed unimaginable?  These are the questions with which we must grapple!

Is the wilderness we are hurled into indeed an open door which no one can close?  How do we see the opening, indeed how do we BE the opening – the Opening Edge!?

One more scriptural vignette from today’s banquet of readings now strikes me.  In one translation, Isaiah describes the new shoot that springs from the stock of Jesse as characterized this way:

“the spirit of wisdom and insight, the spirit of counsel and power,
  the spirit of knowledge and fear of Yahweh;
   his inspiration will lie in fearing Yahweh.”

The last line of this same scripture is translated by others in the following way:

                                         “the fear of the Lord is his breath”

This fear of the Lord is not a cowering response to a wrathful divinity, but rather a reverent and clear acknowledgement of the wholeness of reality, the reality of wholeness, the promise of God.  It is this that is his breath, our breath, the advent agency of opening and breathing, i.e., shining Light!

Yes, we are flung into the wilderness by the clashing appearances of our disparate communal and personal lives.  The task is to stand in the dark wilderness and wait in vigilance, hope and deep commitment.  There is nothing passive about this abiding presence.  It is a steady breathing in and of Light!  It is an agency that we all have access to.

For me, it is sometimes lying awake at night in the dark, feeling loss, unsure of everything, yet somehow knowing in the wholeness of my being, there is God, and even moreso, knowing that my being, as fragile as it seems, is upheld by and upholding all others in Being.  I cannot see clearly, but sight is given.  I cannot hear clearly, yet sound and vibrations are given.  Will I resist the urge to rush into reaction and stay instead in this moment of darkness that contains the light, waking up with all else, in tears and laughter, where peace is not loving or making, but love-making agency!

                              “Throw open the gates, for our God is here among us!”