But if you are a gardener, you may say, Hold it! Earth and ground are part of it, but to get good produce takes skill, care work, patience. And that may be just the point to ponder. How does the gardener align purposes and hopes, labor and love with the generativity of something far more powerful than we can control? And yet that’s what’s needed, and that’s what the voices of the readings are urging: How to align our energy with that of God’s Spirit.
What is new this Advent season that invites us to liberation, asks us to make room for it by our deeds, challenges us to discern as we hear it? One invitation is to re-ask ourselves what--and how much--we need for happiness, for health, for holiness. Maybe less than we have become accustomed to wanting. Without making any statement about large bailouts and rescues or about the greed and grabbiness of others, I feel invited to rethink what’s necessary, who’s important. This may not be a breath of the Spirit I’d have ordered, and possibly the hearers of these words of Isaiah, Mary, Paul and John the Baptist might agree. But if that’s what’s being blown toward us, let’s consider it and try to align.
Barbara Green, O.P.
