Advent 3 - Year B
Psalm 126
We dream we have been restored before.
We pray we will be restored again.
Advent dreams of fulfillments prior.
Advent prays for fulfillment on its way.
We live beyond our past.
We live before our future.
Tears became joy.
Weeping becomes blessing.
And so we stand, past bound.
And so we stand, future free.
We mourn being stuck here.
We laugh to move on.
When?
Always.
How does it play, this way
ReplyDelete(with much gratitude and apology, Wesley,
for "response" is always much easier than "call"):
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We pray we have been restored before.
We dream we will be restored again.
(If we have not been restored before,
the dream becomes a nightmare)
Advent prays for fulfillments prior.
Advent dreams of fulfillment on its way.
(Has any of my life really mattered?
and if it hasn't, may it yet?)
We live beyond our future.
We live before our past.
(An ancient Greek perspective saw our past spread out before us
as we moved backwards into an unknown future)
Tears became weeping.
Blessing becomes joy.
(A few tears become weeping;
blessing comes unsought, unexpected: joy follows)
And so we stand, past free.
And so we stand, future bound.
(After all, NOW is an open moment, free,
except for what is still, NOW, unresolved, which our future binds us to resolve)
We mourn having to move on.
We laugh being stuck here.
("Get it right and hold it" is the ultimate idolatry, no one is exempt;
but after all, we know how to negotiate our particular briar patch)
When?
Already and not yet. We are prolepts.
(Advent is hell. We are in hell;
Advent is heaven, we are in heaven)
T.
Thanks, Tom - it plays well both these ways and some others. The trick is to be able to pull the appropriate play out for a given situation.
ReplyDeleteOur past helps us know a bit about categories and styles of prayer that might be helpful and to shape what might be prayed about in a current context. It also is the stuff of which dreams are made and idealized/idolized beyond its initial reality.
Our future is but a dream that begins to take shape as we pray/act it into today.
The interaction between prayer and dream continues, background now and now foreground. Likewise with being bound or freed by our experiences of the past or fantasies of the future. And yet again with abiding awhile or traveling on.
I do like the shift you made with:
Tears become weeping.
Blessing becomes joy.
Hope you heard my postlept laughter to your proleptian assertion.
Wesley