Holding Scraps
Introduction
This is the third part in a series of Advent Sunday night meditations for paid subscribers to Field Notes. It includes scripture selections, a brand new essay, and reflection questions for conversation or journalling as well as opening and closing blessings as well as an audio reading.
Advent is the Church’s way of observing and remembering, of marking the truth we believe that God came to be with us once, and God is still with us, and God is coming again to set all things right. Tonight Christians all around the world – in churches and in homes, in refugee camps and on the streets, alone or together – light the third candle symbolizing Joy to open Advent.
Secret Field Notes Podcast Alert
You can listen to me read this reflection for you as part of The Secret Field Notes Podcast, Episode 33. (This is a private podcast feed of occasional Field Notes essays for paid subscribers.)
Catching Up
Advent Week 1: Let the Darkness Gather, We’ll Make a Home There
and/or the podcast version, if you prefer to listen
Advent Week 2: Advent comes, not in spite of this moment in time but precisely because of it.
and/or the podcast version, if you prefer to listen
Take a moment to light the candles for Hope and Peace, then the candle for Joy for this week. You should have three candles burning for tonight.
Opening Prayer
Creator, Saviour, Spirit, tonight we light a candle for joy.
There are three candles flickering in the darkness here at our table and we can see the light growing brighter. Tonight, we lit the candle for Joy - at a time when joy feels far from most of us. Joy feels like too much to ask right now. So tonight, we are open to a different sort of joy, one that doesn’t disengage from this beloved world but a joy well acquainted with sorrow, compassion, and open hands.
You are here in the midst of this, we believe (most of the time). Would You meet with those of us who are longing for joy, with those of us who are sadder than we’ve ever been, and those of us who find joy to be impossible right now? We believe you have something to say to us tonight, Holy One. Guide us in the way of joy, we yearn to be people of joy even in the midst of our honest lament.
Our candles are lit, Joyful One and Man of Sorrows, and we are waiting with you.
Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.
“On Joy and Sorrow” by Kahlil Gibran
Meditation
If ever there was a week I was regretting embarking on this Advent series, it was this one.1 How does one even begin to talk about joy right now? Every time I watch the news or scroll through social media or even chat with a friend, I’m reminded of how much suffering, pain, and violence stalks us. How does one “reimagine joy” this Advent when Bethlehem itself has cancelled the Christmas celebration?
I’ve written to you before about the importance of joy with our anger, the prophetic resistance of our joy, about the value of having fun on purpose in my own life right now, even created breath prayers for joy. I even have a whole chapter in my new book about giving yourself permission to feel joy and happiness!
But that isn’t the work of this Advent.2
This weekend, as we light that third candle symbolizing joy in our Advent wreaths, speaking of joy feels like a discordant note in the minor key of these days. This is a week when I don’t know if I have much wisdom to offer, so I’ll simply extend these pieces to you in hopes that it brings some clarity or at least some comfort.
Sometimes Advent’s themes feel like a pile of scraps. Like I’ve cobbled together little things, seemingly throw-away things, but somehow it might come together into something good and whole and even warm like a homemade quilt but right now? it looks like leftovers. Today is more of a ‘holding scraps’ than presenting a full fledged beautiful quilt sort of reflection, I guess. So? Here they are.