When I was a child, one of my family’s advent traditions involved saddling up a horse, grabbing a toothy saw and heading out in search of a Christmas tree. When it was -20F or colder, we weighed the trade-off between the awaiting comfort of our oversized fireplace and the quality of the selected tree. Some years the ‘chosen one’ was a little Charlie Brown like, but tinsel, lights and decorations never failed to transform the tree and the room it bejeweled with colourful, cascading light. We understood Christmas trees to symbolically represent a generous disclosure of God ‘s presence in the midst of our “Birth of Jesus Celebrations.”
While I prayerfully sit near our Christmas tree, I am often soaked to the core with the weighty, warming experience of resting in the Holy Spirit’s presence. Creating spaces where calmness expands within us is one way of preparing ourselves to receive our King. Perhaps this expanding calmness is the generous space that poet, Ted Loder calls, ‘an unclenched moment.’
Guide Me into an Unclenched Moment
Gentle me,
Holy one,
into an unclenched moment,
a deep breath,
a letting go,
of heavy expectancies,
of shriveling anxieties,
of dead certainties,
that,
softened by the silence,
surrounded by the light,
and open to the mystery,
I may be found by wholeness,
upheld by the unfathomable,
entranced by the simple,
and filled with the joy
that is you.
We’ve been invited to cultivate a generous emptiness and to prepare Him room. May the Lord richly bless our JKCS community with a greater radius of light and compassion enough to share what we receive in His name.
“Lord Jesus, guide us into an unclenched moment and fill us with the joy that is you. Amen.”
Wendy Perttula, Director of Curriculum and Learning