There are days when nothing - or few things - go right. You missed an important phone call. You forgot an important note for the office. The wrong people were consulted for a project. The right ideas come a little too late, and the wrong ideas are blurted out too soon. The words you choose aren't perfect -- in fact they're absolutely the worse words in the English vocabulary to utter at this particular meeting. The people you meet -- try as you might, you can't seem to get on their good side. They turn their bodies away from you in a conversation and look the other way -- body language that effectively silences any hope of reconciliation, introduction, familiarizing. They appear onery, but only to you, because everyone else finds them cheerful, kind, generous. You, however, are dismissed like insignificant children not spoken to at the dinner table. The phone call you expect never comes. Who knows if the text message you sent was received. Everything - nothig - is out of sync.
All this was my day. My ordinary, extraordinary day. And it was my friend's super birthday, too.
Did John the Baptist feel something akin to this lack of synchronicity? He was neither the first (not a prophet, he says, not a prophet!) nor the One to come. Sadly, his was the voice crying in the desert. Neither the one with the elder-child responsibilities, nor the favored. Neither the first, unique voice, nor the final, lasting impression. Stuck in the middle.
How frustrating it must have been! Continuously striving to distinguish yourself, to get it done right, to get your point across. Not the smartest, nor the sweetest. Not the prettiest or the most desired, longed for. Something in between. Something to "tie things over". A bridge, but not really a bridge -- merely a disembodied voice crying in the wasteland.
What does it mean to be stuck in the middle? I'm not so sure how this connects, but I think of what's happening all over the globe. The earth is dying a slow, torturous death -- decay, destruction, pollution. Here we are in the middle talking about what we've inherited and bemoaning what we're leaving behind (or not leaving behind). Again, it's like we're a people stuck in the middle. Not the Adams or Eves of the beginning when the earth was rich and plentiful. And not the children who will inherit an earth transformed by Christ's second coming. We're the ones in the midst of the death and decay b/c we can't figure out our problems or live out our solutions.
And look at what's happening with the economy. We're neither the banks nor are we the automotive companies, but boy are we steeped in the middle of it. Right up to our elbows and eyeballs. We're not the ones who caused "it" but we surely are in the midst of "it" whatever you want "it" to be. We're not gonna fix it, but we definitely are living "it".
I'm falling into generalities now, so let's bring it back to NOW. Advent. This Sunday is the fourth Sunday in Advent. We are in Advent. Stuck in the middle of anticipation and waiting. We're wallowing in all its ugly glory. The frustrating mystery, the throat-clenching unknowing. The waiting, the waiting... the waiting. For something to happen. For someone to come. For some.
Remember this?
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.
Be
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