“Advent: A Time between Seasons—
A Service of Piano Music and Poetic Words”
Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman,
Ms. Wendy Pantoja and Dr. Artis Wodehouse
December 3, 2006
MUSIC:
Lullaby, Franz Liszt
OPENING:
Advent is a season in the Christian calendar that marks the time of waiting, in great anticipation, for the birth of the Christ child. Just as the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah marks a time of darkness blessed by the onset of a miracle of light, Advent, too, is a time of deep yearning. You can hear that aching exemplified by the straining minor chords of “Oh, Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel. Advent speaks to deeply shared human hungers, hungers that we all know. It is a season of stages that begins with the fading away of autumn’s magnificent raiment, goes into a time of deep, rich and dark stillness, and finally yields to the germination of an infant seed of hope, which – with faith – might sprout and grow in the seasons of the sun yet to come.
PART I: A FALLING AWAY
A: Introduction:
But for now and first, it is a falling away of what has been. Those of us who have loved and lost, and I imagine that would include each of us, know that letting go of what is lost is no simple matter. In Sonnet 73, William Shakespeare wrote, “This though perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.” And yet, if our fate is to go on living, our task is indeed in letting go.
B: Late November, by Mary Wellemeyer
One day it happens—
often it comes after a rain.
Suddenly the leaves are gone
from the trees of the hillsides;
only some oak and beech trees
cling to curled brown souvenirs
of summer.
Now comes a special time
of seeing into the depths of woods,
discerning shapes of hills,
locations of boulders and cliffs,
pathways of streams.
Now comes a time for stone walls,
for cellar holes and ruined barns
to tell their tales of farms now gone,
of lives lived out in open fields
now covered again in forest.
The underlying shape of Earth,
the hints of stories from the past—
these offer themselves to eye and mind,
now, between the falling of leaves
and the coming of snow.
looking deep and seeing what was hidden
opens a secret doorway
for seeing deep within ourselves.
C: There Is a Harvest, by Howard Thurman
For many of us the fall of the year is a time of sadness and the long memory. All around us there are the evidences of fading, of withdrawal, of things coming to an end. What was alive and growing only a few short days or weeks ago seems now to have fulfilled itself and fallen back into the shadows. Vegetation withers but there is no agony of departure; there seems to be only death and stillness in the fall....
There is a harvest, a time of ingathering, of storing up in nature; there is a harvest, a time of ingathering, of storing up in the heart. There is the time when there must be a separation of that which has said its say and passes—that which ripens and finds its meaning in sustaining life in other forms. Nothing is lost, nothing disappears; all things belong, each in its way, to harmony and an order which envelops all, which infuses all.
Fall accentuates the goodness of life and finds its truest meaning in the strength of winter and the breath of spring. Thank God for the fall.
D: Music: Prelude in E-Flat Minor, Book I Well-Tempered Clavier J. S. Bach
PART II: A DORMANT SPACE
A: Introduction:
Rev. Norbert Cápek, the Eastern European Unitarian minister who created the original ritual of our flower communion once wrote:
“Everything will calm down, thoughts seem to stop, and the spiritual cathedral of a great silence will open before one’s mind. The body appears to have a spiritual substance and spreads to infinity – and calm quiet, God’s peace, sacred silence, are everywhere.... Is it mysticism? It depends. For some people it is as daily and natural an experience as breakfast.”
Some of us might find such a time of stillness and quiet standing along a snowy seashore. For others of us it might come under the shelter of some other similar winter’s cloak. For still others, there may yet be other places to dwell…
B: An Indistinguishable Horizon, by C. B. Ortman
Silence enfolds the seascape,
As snow washes vestiges
That might have been…lingering
On some islet of promised, perhaps even forbidden
Fruit, or occurrence, or thought.
The deep and penetrable steel-grey skies merge
Upon the margin of the apparently languid sea
On an indistinguishable horizon,
Undulating, drifting,
Caressed by and in an effluvial stream
Of time and space,
Of knowing all and knowing not at all.
The eye is drawn to a place
Between the water and the heavens,
Between the shore and farther off places;
The heart is carried to a space
Beyond… living and dying –
Still before giving and trying,
Amidst the enormous flakes
Of the falling snow.
Here is a waiting space that is in between,
In between quiet and silence,
Between the storm’s implacable battering
Against near equally adamant cliffs
And the gentle slapping of waves upon compliant sand.
Here is an unchanging time that is in between –
What is and what is not,
Between what is thought and what is not,
In between what is dreamed
And what is beyond waking and sleeping.
Perhaps there are memories here,
Between snowflakes and seasons,
Memories at rest with no current reason
But to bob, or to flow, or to drift endlessly,
Somewhere between time, grey sky and grey sea.
Perhaps there are emanations of anticipations,
Of yearnings and longings of things yet to be
That for now rest dormant and float aimlessly.
It’s hither I pray
In some such space there to linger,
Between death and living,
Between even breath and forgiving,
Here in this vast universal embrace
To be held aloft, afloat in the glimmer,
Letting go what’s asunder
Accepting the oneness with no attention to yearning.
C: Winter’s Cloak, by Joyce Rupp
This year I do not want
the dark to leave me.
I need its wrap
of silent stillness,
its cloak
of long lasting embrace.
Too much light
has pulled me away
from the chamber
of gestation.
Let the dawns
come late,
let sunsets
arrive early,
let the evenings
extend themselves
while I lean into
the abyss of my being.
Let me lie in the cave
of my soul,
for too much light
blinds me,
steals the source
of revelation.
Let me seek solace
in the empty places
of winter’s passage,
those vast dark nights
that never fail to shelter me.
D: Footsteps In The Snow Claude Debussy
PART III: A BIRTH OF HOPE
A: Introduction:
Joseph Campbell, the renowned scholar of religions and myth once wrote: “The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.”
The journey toward wholeness never ends, trusting that… we can believe that the fertile darkness will hold us until we are ready and able to glimpse the first light of hope, leading us on the path to the fullness of light. Who knows what ray of hopeful light might shine through the darkness of a dreaded disease, or through a social crisis of global proportion?
Whether it is for one of us or all of us, the beginning of hope is born in the instant we are blessed, when we recognize that first glint of its light, and let it into our hearts. And it just may happen, if we allow it, in the long dark nights of soul searching and soul growing and winter mending.
B: Aids Advent Sunday, by Patrick Murphin
We light a candle and await,
await the coming of light and hope,
the promise foretold, fulfilled.
We light a candle and await,
await the pealing of the bells in joy triumphant,
where now they toll in somber mourning.
We light a candle and await,
await the hour of reunion,
prodigal and patriarch alike embraced,
alike forgiven,
all that was sundered made whole again.
We light a candle and await,
await the gifts a million shortened lives
could have wrapped for us
and our delight at their discovery.
We light a candle and await,
await the day the Quilt at last is finished,
can be lovingly folded and nestled in cedar,
and taken out only on cold nights
to wrap us in the warmth of remembrance.
We light a candle and await.
C: The Rock Speaks Out to Us Today, by Maya Angelou
A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no more hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.
The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.
The River sings and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.
Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.
Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveler, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers--desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot ...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.
I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours--your Passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.
D: In Deep Woods Edward MacDowell
CLOSING: An Advent Prayer, by Wendy Pantoja
Spirit of Life, Fuente de Amor,
Holiness known by many names,
As the trees shed their leaves, giving us a clearer view
of the landscape of the earth,
we pray that we, too, can let go of that which keeps us
from seeing more clearly the landscape of our lives.
We pray that the dormancy encouraged by the increasing darkness
keep our souls in poignant expectancy
of the rich possibilities that await us.
And we pray that as new light breaks through,
our minds will be illumined by new truths revealed
and our hearts warmed by love found anew.
Let us sit in the stillness,
to ponder with gratitude the promise of hope that awaits us
as we cross the thresholds of the seasons.
Que así sea. Blessed be. Amen
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