This past week in Advent, we made it to the fancily named Gaudete Sunday—or, translating the Latin, “Rejoice” Sunday. Lighting the pink candle, singing “Joy to the World.” Delightful.
(And sidenote: haven’t Jane Zwart’s prayers been a gift for each of these Advent Sundays? Do check them out if you haven’t been finding them each week.)
Yet, joy can be hard to find in this season—and not just because of news filled with violence and cruelty, suffering and loss. Here in Michigan, it’s dark. It’s been very cold. It’s so, so busy. And many of us are very, very tired. For teachers like me, it’s one of the very busiest times of year, filled with many hours of work to fit in just when the escalation of obligations gets the most intense.
Of course, what that really means is that now is when we need joy most of all.
I came across this poem recently–and I loved its clever way of naming our inattentiveness. How easy it is to miss so much. And worse, to know how much we miss.
May this season of rejoicing bring you many opportunities to find those “tiny pearls”–God’s gift of joy and presence to us and with us in every moment, in every day.
"Because These Failures Are My Job"
By Alison Luterman
This morning I failed to notice the pearl-gray moment
just before sunrise when everything lightens;
failed also to find bird song under the grinding of garbage trucks,
and later, walking through woods, to stop thinking, thinking,
for even five consecutive steps. Then there was the failure to name
the exact shade of blue overhead, not sapphire, not azure, not delft,
to savor the soft squelch of pine needles underfoot.
Later I found the fork raised halfway to my mouth
while I was still chewing the last untasted bite,
and so it went, until finally, wading into sleep’s thick undertow,
I felt myself drift from dream to dream,
forever failing to comprehend where I am falling from or to:
this blurred life with only moments caught
in attention’s loose sieve —
tiny pearls fished out of oblivion’s sea,
laid out here as offering or apology or thank you.
Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash
