advent: entering and emitting light
“Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way; a voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord; make his paths straight,’” — the good tidings of matthew 3:3
Listen and consider the progression from graceless to grace . . . what if the language of “going through the glass” is about finding a new way through life — a new perspective — an exit from that which made us stuck and graceless.
This advent season I am thinking about the way we are layered . . . and that we both absorb light and emit Light. Some have believed that we are distant from Light and that we can only connect to it through certain ways of belief and ritual. Those being often beautiful and deeply meaningful can also be the very wall to knowing ourselves. Why must it be Light from beyond — only. Why must we believe that we ourselves carry darkness within?
Can Advent be the coming of Light and the emitting of Light together?
I’ve been reading James Hollis lately, and this question of his, has been quite penetrating,
Where do you need to grow up?
He goes on . . .
What is it that shifts one from a needy, blaming, dependent psychology to one of psychospiritual independence? What characterizes our culture better than a needy, whiny clamor of instant gratification, a flight from accountability, and an inability to tolerate the tension of opposites, rather than learning to live with ambiguity over the long haul and transcending the desire for rapid resolution of life’s quiddities (essence)?
The moment we can say, “I am responsible, I am accountable, I have to deal with this,” is the day we grow up, at least until the next time, the next regression, the next evasion.
Growing up has an aspect of returning to a childhood perspective. I’m confident that if we are to see a new way forward — if we are to find a that “There’s a science to walking through windows” we must first return to some childlike wonder. The problems and ruts we find in our lives/world today won’t be solved (if anything has ever been solved by adult-perspectives) in our knowing and highly controlling systems of belief. It is our unlearning, our embrace with uncertainty, and our fluid acceptance of mystery that is the roadmap to grace and light and new ways of living.
There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer, physicist
Hollis goes on to write about the reality that we often don’t have what ancient tribes had in ritualizing the reality of growing up. He marks to process of growth in six steps. I’ve added some to the beginning and end to connect these steps to entering the season of Advent.
In the Christian perspective of Advent, it is a coming of what has been hoped for — a waiting for the light to be shed on a dark world — the Messiah. In this story, which has guided many of us as the heart of Christmas story, we find a man known as John the Baptist being the one who is sent before Christ, to prepare the way. This is the first symbol, a path being made for our maturing.
Next, I’m drawing from both Oppenheimer’s thoughts and those of Teilhard De Chardin in echoing the importance of seeing from a different perspective. He writes that rather than being swallowed up by our anxiety, we must ascend the ladder above the treeline in order to view the world around us that we’ve been unable to see — we’ve been so micro focused on the haunting anxiety we are surrounded by. We see trees — but not the forest OR the world beyond the forest OR the universe beyond our world. Teilhard asks, what is the first question we have when we view above the micro view we’ve been seeing? What are the questions that come to mind as we see for the first time (anew)? He even asks if we were visited from this perch by those beyond this world — what would they see and ask about? We are on a path — prepared — that can bring another perspective than what we’ve been seeing. Will we grow? Will we grow up?
Growing up means getting out of the comfort of home. Home being whatever we’ve known most. Ancient cultures often kicked out those destined for adulthood — as the tough but needed invitation to the journey.
Once on your own, it is from this place of disorientation that a kind of death is encountered. It’s a death of what is known. A death of certainty. A death of comfort. A death . . . with so many faces.
It is from disorientation and death that new life emerges. A kind of new-birth, or re-birth, that was never possible without first descending. Hollis notes that rebirth is the third step in what has been observed in ancient cultures as the “growing up” ritual.
Once reborn, the individual is given tools and stories to shape the rest of their life. Tools for hunting and agriculture. Stories for making meaning and perpetuating the tribes culture. These are valuable skills and myths that bring about vitality in the community and adulthood.
The fifth step in the ritual toward adulthood is a descent into isolation. This extended isolation is about gaining the inner tools and ability to work through that which haunts. And Hollis, elsewhere in his book, notes that the two greatest “demons” that are at the foot of our bed every single day are FEAR and LETHARGY. In isolation (or just in our inner world) we are facing these daily. In the ancient world this was less of an inner world confrontation and more like — do we know how to overcome fear when the bear is chasing us. Will we stand paralyzed . . . resulting in being lunch for the ferocious beast? Or will we overcome fear and move! Same within — most of us won’t face a beast outwardly — but inwardly, it is everyday. And what of LETHARGY? We will put into action the tools and stories and teachings or we will starve from inaction. If the ancient one didn’t hunt or farm, they would starve. If we don’t move — we will slowly wither.
Are we growing up? Are we facing FEAR and pushing forward? Are we facing LETHARGY and making a way? I want to interject that community (in it’s many organic forms) can be what we desperately need to inact what we need to in isolation (of our thoughts).
We emerge from isolation to be welcomed home. But it isn’t the same. We don’t come home as children but as participants responsible for ourselves and our community. We come home to open arms — and autonomy. Being grown up is never controlling others or being controlled by others. Being grown up is never impatiently shucking responsibility. Being grown up is not being more certain or sure — or digging in and building a firm foundation in which we might never move. Being an adult is recognizing the shifting, both/and, mystery of life and embracing such things with hope.
We hope inspite of all that haunts. We hope inspite of all those who are immature. We hope in spite of all the ways we’ve done this thing wrong. We hope.
Our conversation around this ritual led to a sub-conversation on hope. Specifically hope vs. happiness and how we often view happiness as the goal. But growing up isn’t about achieving some desired happiness — but it is about learning to hope. Seeing the world from the ladder above — as a child — and exerting that kind of hope on the world.
As an aside — check out the language Hope Theory brings, on waypower and willpower —
According to Hope Theory (yeah, that’s a thing!) people have high hope when they have these two things:
Waypower: The ability to see a WAY to shape one’s future.
Willpower: The WILL to shape one’s future.
As a way of seeing the bigger picture of hope and childlike perspective — and embrace of mystery — and how this all fits within the world at large — check out the amazing documentery episode from Abstract on Neri Oxman. It is a beautiful and challenging look at letting nature construct our future.
Watch it — and look for clues of hope . . . and the reality of LIGHT both entering and emitting from us.
