Saturday, December 22, 2018

Reflection for 3rd Sunday of Advent (poem expanded)


A Reflection for IV Advent                                    St. George Episcopal Church Engelhard, N.C. December 23, 2018                                                Thomas E Wilson, Supply Celebrant
My Love Is My Gift For You
On this last Sunday of Advent, we light the last of the four candles in the Advent Wreath. We began with the first candle of Hope to lighten the darkness at the end of the year. We moved from Hope to the second candle of Peace. With Hope and Peace we were able to see the light from the candle of Joy. When Hope, Peace and Joy lighten our path we are able to shine forth Love; Love, the last candle. It is then, with Hope, Peace, Joy and Love that we are able receive the Light of Christ in the Christ Candle.

Lets clear up some language; Love is not a feeling. Feelings come and go and are often connected to digestion. Many feelings are investments of emotional energy on a person, place, thing or idea, what Freud would call a “Cathexis” upon an object. The word Cathexis comes from the Greek work “I occupy”, where one transfers one's own energy, either positive or negative, onto the object. Pat and I do dream work and we see dreams as a collection of symbols. We consider dreams Soul Work, where the Spirit, positive or negative, is speaking. When we work in a group we ask group members to share their dreams and then we focus in on the object with the greatest energy, like a door, a light, a lock, a classroom, a food, a movie star, politician, a body part or whatever. Think of a dream that you might have had and what energy seems to be invested in a particular object which is itself a symbol of something deeper.

This idea goes into everyday life as well. For instance I might say I love my mother's homemade meatloaf. The emotional energy is about my mother serving it as the family gathered around the dinner table. It was a time of quiet, polite space with each other, as we would share about our days. My older brother and I would NOT kick each other under the table or make fun of our younger brother. My mother was not an adventurous cook but often in the middle of the week we would have been involved in setting up the meat grinder after coming home from school and turning the crank and seeing her mix up the ground meat, cook it in the oven and we would smell it cooking, have that dinner that night and we might have a meat loaf sandwich for lunch the next day. My emotional energy went beyond the flavor and into what it was, a symbol of being in a family where there is hope, peace, joy and love.

Feelings of love and fear start within ourselves from the constant barrage of our ego to meet our selfish wants and to avoid our subconscious fears buried in memory. The way out is to listen to a new reality based on love not fear. Frederick Buechner wrote: “We are so used to hearing what we want to hear and remaining deaf to what it would be well for us to hear . . . that it is hard to break the habit.”

When I first met the woman who would become my wife; I disliked her intensely when I first saw her as she was hanging around with a bunch of unsmiling women, wrapped with big scarves, and smoking little cigarettes. My projections on her were that she was a small angry woman, surrounding herself with other bitter women complaining about how all men were scum. One conversation with her and I knew she considered me in that category of scum. My energy was not about who she really was but about the symbol that she represented to me and the treat to my ego. It would be years before I could see her as apart from the object in which I was investing negative energy.

It works the other way as well; in my life before, I had invested positive energy in girls who were symbols of hoped for adoration of me. Therefore, my relationships were mainly all about me and what I wanted or feared. But it was only after I was able to grow up and know that I was loved before the beginning of the universe and see how I was in the habit of using people as objects that I was able to learn how to love others outside of my projections.

Projections are like judging the present by the wrapping and never getting around to the present itself. While we are at it, unwrapping or wrapping a present around Christmas or birthday is not about getting or giving loot, but an outward symbol about giving and receiving love. But if it is given or received as an obligation, it is literally one more damn thing and God knows we have enough things.

Love is not a feeling but a free decision to act, to commit, to give oneself, then saying it and then doing it. Love begins in creation as God, who is Love, speaks the word of Love, and through that Love the universe is created, which the Apostle John in the 1st chapter of his Gospel sees as the Christ, the Word made flesh, Jesus. Jesus is the living image of God, as we are, made from the dust of the universe's explosion into being. Love is the decision that Mary makes to give birth to God's love. Love is the decision that Joseph has to take what could be shame upon himself and give himself to Mary and the child. Love is the decision that Jesus takes to give himself to God's healing of, and reconciling ministry with God's children. Love is the decision that we make in giving ourselves to God and neighbor. Love is the decision, without the illusions of self benefit, to unselfishly give ourselves.

Love comes when one has hope, when one has peace within oneself and peace with one's world, when one has a deeper joy not dependent on circumstances; then love can a gift to oneself and to others. Love is the decision to give it. Love is a gift.

I wrote a poem for this week and I thought I would just read it instead of doing a prose reflection, but I decided to unpack what I was saying behind the poem. I made copies of the poem for you to take home with you. Let me read it and let me ask you to join me and say out loud the refrain at the end of every quatrain stanza, so you can hear yourself say out loud “My love is my gift for you.” When you say that refrain, think of to whom you need to say it and make a decision to say it and to do it. This next week, as you read the poem at home, see who else comes to mind, could even be a chance for you to hear God saying it to you. Love is a decision to give yourself.
My Love Is My Gift For You
Slowly, God turning dream to song
singing Word, creates Galactic stew,
image-ing us from stardust of earth,
to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

Fearfully, Mary turns to see the angel
kneeling, hailing “Girl dressed in blue,
we know not why, but you are favored.
to hear “'My love is my gift for you.' ”

Joseph wakes in God's ongoing dream,
informing of task; a child to raise true
of heart, mind and soul as precious son
to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

The Innkeeper's wife sees the couple
with no place to stay and time is due,
she offers finest stable straw, and then
to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

The shepherds sense the angels invite
them come to Bethlehem and to view
a child to be their hope, peace and joy
to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

Mary holds all these things in her heart
seeing visions of both pure joy and rue,
raising their child to live and to die and
to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

From the East the Magi come placing
gold, frankincense and myrrh in queue,
leaving quietly as wisdom allows them
to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

We walk away from wrapping presents,
our fingers sticky with glitter and glue
hoping we'd have grace either to say or
to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

The outward packages are never enough
to proclaim what's in our souls we knew;
reason we are together is we were lucky
to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

We are older, the children have grown and
under the tree shows presents as very few,
yet turning to each other, we pray or kiss
to hear, “My love is my gift for you.”

This new year is a time for us to promise
that each day we'll choose to begin anew
forgiving the hurts, treasuring the joy and
to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

At the service, an offering plate comes
as way giving to God and neighbor too;
but best gift is living in way for God
to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

The day'll come when my table place
will be empty as I bid the world adieu
and on the other shore, again a chance
to hear “My love is my gift for you.”

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