Remaining present to the moment!

 This is the longest Advent season that we will experience leading up to Christmas. Already we can sense that even though it is a full four weeks the time can seem to pass by too quickly. I think part of this is an expectation of how we want Christmas to be guided by our experience over the last few years. The last few Christmases have been clouded by lockdowns, travel restrictions, and the fear associated with the spread of COVID. Some of the remnants of these fears remain as people become tentative about how far they can venture from home. We are kept on tenterhooks waiting for the next event to strike us and restrict us. Yet this is not the attentiveness spoken about in the readings for this weekend.

Rather we are called to remain awake to this moment. It calls us to be people who are guided by kairos time not chronos time. The difference is palpable. When we are guided by chronos we become beset by to-do lists and by when lists. We start to notice being pulled in multiple directions all at once. We seek to experience activism that seeks to bounce from function to function, party to party, and shop to shop. We become breathless and splintered trying to please everyone and we become distant from ourselves. There is a dulling of the senses and an experience of exhaustion that creeps up on us. 

Kairos time on the other hand seeks to allow us to be present in this moment and to this person. It seeks to befriend us in a way that does not alienate us from ourselves. We become awake to the possibilities of where God's grace is at work in our lives. Each day provides the opportunity to be awake and aware of how God is present at the heart of all things. It calls us to be focussed on who we are with and what we are doing at this moment. The more we become prayerfully aware of how we are called to match the rhythm of our own breathing the more likely we will notice people more than things. It allows us the opportunity to be guided to be present rather than rushing on. 

Will we be awake to those moments where we accompany each other along the way? As pilgrims who await the coming of Jesus at an unexpected hour and in ways that endear and befriend us with hope. We develop expectant hearts which are open to His presence. 

Whose are we?

 There are many voices that can compete for our attention and guide our lives. This is an ongoing reality of daily life when we wake in the morning to when we go to bed at night. The information age can shape who we become through the many media which seek us to invest in their view of the world and how we fit in. This tsunami of information can hold our attention for a moment and then we move on. There can be bite-sized pieces of news that we seek to discover a deeper pattern from which we can live. Yet ultimately who is the focus of our lives.

This is especially true when we seek to discover a rule of life. This is more than obeying laws or acknowledging a person who has governance over us. Rather it looks at who we submit with an active and listening heart that attends to the voice of the other because we trust their guidance. In this way, our obedience is not just an external act of submission to the authority of another. It is actually a recognition of what is good, beautiful, and true. This is what gives purpose to our lives and allows us to become present to a God who sees us as we truly are.

Thus on the Solemnity of Christ the King we believe that there is a voice that speaks goodness, beauty, and truth to our hearts. This helps us to discover that our lives have meaning and substance. We have been created out of love for the good of God, the good of ourselves, and the good of the whole of creation. In this, we learn to build on solid foundations that acknowledge that we have a deep inner worth. We become detectives of God's graced presence in every moment of our day. It helps to direct our attention and not become distracted by the voices which seek to destroy, distort and diminish life. We seek to find the voice which will enhance, empower and befriend us for the good of the whole.

As we enter these final days before Advent we seek to notice what holds our attention and who guides our life. In the end, we seek to listen to the voice which actually acknowledges whose we are!

The world seems to be on a rush to nowhere!

 As start the countdown for the end of the year there never seem enough hours in the day to complete all that we need to do. Added to this we are present tensions at home through floods, rising interest rates, and homelessness along with the pressing issues on the global stage of the conflicts in Ukraine, Yemen, Congo, Sudan, and Myanmar. We also notice how these issues relate to the security of food and resources among poorer nations along with the calls for freedom in Iran, North Korea, Nicaragua, and Taiwan including the strains placed on our democratic systems. There can be a temptation at these times to believe the world is coming apart at the seams. When we see many things that we have taken for granted being challenged it is tempting to become subsumed by our fears and be led astray by people who predict death and disaster.

Yet this is the very time when we need sober minds and loving hearts. It is all too easy to believe that our lives are on the road to nowhere but this is not what Jesus says. He talks about the importance of endurance and the ability to trust our lives to him. This calls upon us as Paul says to the Thessalonians to go on quietly working and earning the food that we eat. It is this quiet persistence that bears witness to our inner worth we do not see our lives as a burden but as a gift. It is from this gift that we see our lives as bearing that gift to others and sharing in the goodness of creation.

In many ways, it is all too easy to explore the destructive and antagonistic movements of our hearts. It can seem that so many negative images about the meaning or the absence of meaning can seem to besiege us with specters of armageddon. These can lead us into a sense of fatalism or worse superstition that there is nothing we can do to change the world for the better. Yet in the midst of the most serious crises people have sought to restore and renew a spirit of hope in what builds up our care for creation and each other. If we see all things as a gift then we seek to discover how we can share this good news with others. 

Developing a rule of life

 There are many self-help books that can assist us to know ourselves better. They seem to address the myriad issues that can besiege us in daily life. How do we become motivated? What helps us to focus on what is important? Who do we listen to and where do we believe our life is heading? Often there is an emphasis on developing habits and avoiding the ways that we can self-sabotage ourselves by taking on too many goals. There can be a sense in which we want to have it all with the minimum effort. Yet when we become disappointed and our resolutions melt away we can be left wondering what will make a difference. I believe this is where a rule of life can be helpful as it can embed who we are, whose we are and what is our mission in life.

This may take some journaling or just noticing whose voice we listen to the most. This can be easily monitored by looking at our daily activities, our conversations, the media that we most engage with, and what we respond to straight away. This allows us to see what influences us to become present and grabs our attention. Often writing a list as a way of reflection can show us what grabs our focus and what motivates us. This can often be noticed by the voices we retain and those that become tuned out. 

This listening then orientates us towards another who is significant to us and helps to guide our direction in life. This is where we become people of prayer who attend to God and our neighbor. We become aware of how we are known more than what we know. We start to be seen as a person who have been created in the image and likeness of God. Our spirituality starts to be both body and spirit and allows us to encounter another person as they are. Just as we allow God to gaze upon us we start to see the world through God's eyes.

This ultimately starts to direct how we use our time, our talents, and our treasure. We start to see them as gifts to be shared rather than as possessions to be amassed. Our lives seek to give expression to who I am and whose I am. We start to see ourselves as less distracted and dissipated by the events of life. We become more focused and available to others. This becomes a way of being not just a list of things to be done.