In-Dwelling
if God is with us then perhaps God is staying put with us, too.
Hi friends,
Good morning, good morning. I’ve got my coffee beside me and Lucy, our golden retriever, is snoring on my slipper-clad feet. Everyone else is still sleeping. This is one of my secret favourite times of the day. When you have a busy household, this early time by the Christmas tree lights and with a bit of quiet before the busy-ness begins is sacred time. It’s bloody freezing outside (yesterday’s weather “felt like minus 31” which… can confirm 🥶) and we have a white Christmas here in Calgary. But for now, I’m here at the kitchen table, writing one last missive to you as we head towards Christmas. Pull up a chair, my friend.
I’ve mentioned a couple of times in passing that the past couple of years have been quietly transformative for me as I’ve been exploring Celtic Christianity. Being me, I’m sure I’ll have (far too much) more to say on this in the coming years/pages, so I won’t belabour the point right now, but suffice to say, my experiences of learning more about my ancestral roots in faith has been a bit of a “born-again” all over again experience for me. Advent has been no different.
Celtic Advent is celebrated a bit differently: to begin with, it’s longer, a forty-day period starting on November 15th. And among other slight differences or shifts in perspective, there are three separate “comings” within Advent: the first being incarnation (Jesus’ birth or arrival), the second is known as in-dwelling (God with us now), and the third as the return of Jesus to make all things right at the end of time.
In all my years of observing Advent, the focus has almost entirely been on those first and third points: the incarnation and the return. I cannot recall ever hearing much about the second coming that we experience, that in-dwelling of Christ in our every day lives, as part of our Christmas celebrations and services. And sure enough, that’s the one that has grabbed me by the collar and set me back up on my feet these past few weeks. In-dwelling is an ancient but orthodox concept that God dwells in us and in creation. In Advent terms, it is God with us. Such a thing is not tame nor is not tidy and convenient, its wild and disruptive and beautiful and holy and sanctifying. And I love it.
The word dwell sounds a lot like the word abide to me, which turns my heart towards Jesus’ words in John 15, telling us to make our home in his love. I’ve always loved that phrase, translated as “abide in me.” We are abiding within the love of God, dwelling within as comfortable as home, and so God dwells within us. There is a restfulness to the word “dwell” - it eschews striving and achieving and earning, doesn’t it? If we are abiding in the love of God and if God is in-dwelling in us, well, then God is quite at home in us and in our world. And we are right where we belong when we live as if we are loved (because we are).
Sure and it’s been a busy month with piles of shoes and coats at the front door from hosting over and over again; with days of embodied service in our local community from nursing homes to shelters; with preparations and menus and planning; with church and coffee dates and final exams and baking and cleaning and prayer and generosity and all the same things you are doing, no doubt.
In the midst of it all, I’ve been circling the idea of in-dwelling as part of our days because this - all this - is part of how we are preparing our inner homes and our actual homes for the ways that God is here with us, Emmanuel. Much as we prepare our homes for Christmas throughout these days, we’re preparing our hearts and our minds and our days for the in-dwelling and arrival of Jesus even as we live within the reality of it already.1
Over my own Advent weeks, I have come to think of in-dwelling as simply and homely as God staying put with us.2 Few things have reset the broken bones of my heart like my deep certainty that God is with us, Emmanuel.3 So I suppose this is simply the next step in that journey: if God is with us then perhaps, maybe, what if… God is staying put with us, too.
I have questions I’m still trying to answer about that, questions like: what does it mean to live our lives as if the Spirit is actually here and present within us, the gift of gifts, as we move through our days of family and intensity and celebration and loneliness and managed expectations and joy and twinkle lights and candlelight alike? How would believing in the in-dwelling of God change how I move through my days or how I view others? If God is staying put, then how am I living out of that reality?
And so I have invitations waiting for me - maybe they are invitations for you as well, my friends, but only you could know for certain if that’s true - to recognize and live within the realities of God’s presence and love right now, right here, in these days.
God is staying put in you and around you, in your neighbours and in the world at your doorstep. So now what?
Perhaps, as the moon and the sun turn us towards the days of Christmas as Advent draws to a close, perhaps this is a quiet invitation for us to notice and cultivate our own experiences of in-dwelling in these days.
Perhaps these are the days to pay attention to the glimpses of God’s grace in your every day, walking around life.
Perhaps we will light the candles on our kitchen tables and pray for hope, for love, for joy, and for peace like we mean it.
Perhaps these are the days for gratitude and enchantment over the stars and the spruces, the sprinkles and the sorrow alike.
Perhaps these are the days for the music of crunching squawk of snow when it’s as cold as Canadian winter blasts that feels like a wake-up call to your own life.
Perhaps these are the days for finding a spot in your yard or the park to stand with your arms out wide, taking a few deep breaths and calling it prayer.
Perhaps these are your days to honour all who have come before you.
Perhaps these are the days to act as if we believe it, God is with us, God is staying put with us, in our real homes and our real lives with our real enemies and friends, with our money and our time and our corner of the couch in the living room.
Perhaps these are the days to practice a new language of grace towards your own becoming, one that blesses all the versions of you that carried you to this moment even as you bid them farewell. Perhaps you will learn how to love yourself as God loves you and then to love others in that same way.
Perhaps God came once and God is coming again and maybe, just maybe, you can believe God is also right here, right now, with you still.
What would that mean as we turn towards the light again, eh?
Merry Christmas, my friends. I’m sending you all my love and prayers for the days ahead in these words to you.
May the light and love find us right where we are this Christmas and always. May you abide within the love of God and make room for the in-dwelling of God in your life as it stands.
And may you remember, always, you are particularly loved, already and right now and always.
Love S.
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I’m sure you can hear my Canadian accent in even that phrase. lol
If you’ve read my last couple of books, you’re well-acquainted with my love for God-with-us and all that means.
Oh, this is a keeper, Sarah. Thank you! This Advent season has been, for me, a quiet counterpoint to the noise and discouragement of the daily news. God indwelling with us provides an assuring reminder that God loves us - all of us - and, dare I believe that everything will be okay? Merry Christmas blessings to you and your beautiful family.
Thank you. I was taught that in Hebrew the phrase “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” the dwelt meant “pitched a tent.” Staying with us. Right where we are. Making a home within us.