The Slow Way, Advent Reflection: "Star"

On being invited to a story we weren't expecting

This Advent (which officially begins tomorrow!), I’ll be using The Slow Way newsletter to share the transcripts of the first five episodes of The Slow Way Podcast that aired last December. Each episode (which will also re-air throughout the month of December), will contain an original poem I’ve written for the season of Advent, as well as a prayer practice to help us open our hearts and minds in the presence of God. I hope this can be a holiday season in which we lean into to the quiet, where we slow ourselves down when we’re tempted to hustle, and where we experience sacred spaces and moments all around us.

Let’s practice.

Star 

“A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.”  -Revelation 12:1 

“…keep warm this small hot naked star/ fallen into my arms.”  -Luci Shaw, “Mary’s Song” 

After the angel dissolved, I stood among the skies,
clothed not in spun linen, but in fire:
the sun’s silk my gown. I leaned into the swirl of gold and lit.
 
Have I created my Creator?
 
My mother clucks her tongue. Questions, she says,
cause confusion. She could never hold what I saw:
 
the crown on this plain brown head,
twelve stars in motion, set spinning like a child’s toy,
and rushing toward me, flames in its wake, blazed
the greater star, its hot white orb.
 
Should I tell you it entered me, how the warm simmer settled?
 
When I woke to this dirt floor, my mother’s voice
in the next room, issuing me out the door,
I ran my hands down my belly,
knew my truth was crown, not dirt.
 
Later, when the nausea churned, when the accusations
birthed, when all I loved turned enemy,
I stood in the garden, arms raised,
closed my eyes and let the spinning crown encircle me,
felt this star descend to human form.

A Slow Practice 

It’s always been interesting to me to imagine Mary. So many songs and poems and images made of her. So many arguments around her level of divinity. But so little we actually know. As a little girl growing up in a male-dominated religious tradition. I heard men preach and watched men pray and pass the plate and give me communion. And Men were the heroes of the scriptures, almost every week, until Christmas time. Then Mary arrived. All young and confused and a poet, singing her song, believing the angel when she was chosen out of all the poor Jewish girls in the world, to bear the child of God. 

Who would ever choose the journey she took? But, of course, we know, that when the divine enters into our lives and sends us walking a path we would have never planned, that’s when our story become the sort of story that shapes the world, even if it’s just the small, steady world around us. 

Today I want you to consider your story. Get yourself into a comfortable place. Hide in the closet if you have to. I want you to spend a moment thinking about a quiet question. 

Breath in and out and with me for a few seconds. As you breath in pray with me: “Spirit, you invited Mary into a story she wasn’t expecting” 

Breath out: “Teach me to listen for your invitation.” 

Breathe in: “Spirit you invited Mary into a story she wasn’t expecting.” 

Breath out: “Help me live expectantly in your presence.” 

Breath in: “Spirit, you invited Mary into a story she wasn’t expecting.” 

Breath out: “Quiet my fear so I can listen.” 

Breath in: “Spirit, you invited Mary into a story she wasn’t expecting.” 

Breath out: “As I journey this Advent, may I feel your loving presence. May I walk in the path of Mary.” *pause* 

Take the next two minutes to center yourself in the presence of God. Maybe you want to remember a moment in your life when you made a choice to follow the leading of God, even if it took you into a space that was frightening. How was God faithful to you there. How is God here with you in this season of your life, inviting you to something new?