In Darkness, You Come

In the darkness of the morning

Is stillness

Night stars

Waiting for the dawn

The moon

Calling forth the brilliance of the sun

Come O radiant One

Come and awake the dawn

The dew of the grass

The frost of the night

Melts

At your warmth

All of creation

Gently comes alive

Singing forth

The praises of the new day

So it is

We wait for You

We anticipate

With hope and longing

Your arrival

We beckon you

In response

You declare

“Arise, shine for your light has come”

and You

Your glory

Shines upon us!”

Will Simpson, December 1, 2010

I Wait for You

In the darkness of the night
I wait for You
As a ship is sailing in a misty sea of fog
I wait for You
I seek Your beacon of light
that will guide me
out of darkness into light
all the while
I wait
for You
Anticipating
as a watch-person in the night
who with diligence seeks
and scans the horizon
I wait for You

Come, O Come Emmanuel
and ransom my heart
and all who seek You

PREPARING A PLACE

When I know someone is coming to visit I clean my apartment. There are various levels of cleaning; the superficial where I dust, vacuum, clear the clutter and oh, did I mention stuff absolutely everything into the closet and if they are just visiting for an evening dim lighting goes a long ways! Then there are the times when someone is coming for a longer visit, perhaps for a few days or even longer and maybe it is someone I have not seen for a long time and am so anticipating their arrival and can not wait until they arrive as I long to see them. There are many levels of preparation and cleaning and there are many areas that I want to have filled with light that have been either neglected, become musty or need more light as they are to dark.

So it is I prepare, we prepare our hearts during the season of Advent for the coming of God Incarnate who gently knocks on the door of our hearts and asks "May I come in? May I come and enter that place, that room within and as you have prepared your house, may I by my gracious Spirit prepare your spirit for the birth of Emmanuel, God with us within your heart? May I place within you, in your journey a longing for a return in fullness the Son of the most High God whom the angels proclaimed "Glory to God in the Highest and peace to all people on earth. May we with great anticipation and hope run to that door and open it and proclaim "Let me open up the gates of my heart that You, the King of Glory may enter in!

I.....we have been waiting for You!

May we pause a moment......let it be so......Come Lord Jesus, come and renew our hearts.

What are we waiting for?

How many times do we wait? Wait in a que at the grocery store, wait at DMV, wait to see a physician and for those who ride public transit waiting for the Metro or bus. We wait, waiting to get to the next thing, usually hurried, stressed and already planning what we are going to do when we arrive so we can move onto our next item on our agenda. When was the last time you waited and used the time to be present, to be present in the moment and to take a breath?

Advent is the perfect time, a time to wait. A time not to be stressed, although our culture insists on it with hurried shopping, advertising, parties and the like, filling up our schedules with events and "things to do." We get caught up in it, swept away as in a raging river that is out of control and yet we "try" to be......in control.

Consider this season, the season of Advent, the 4 weeks before Christmas to give yourself permission to take a breath, relax and wait. Wait not with an agenda, things to do or places to be but rather.... be still, wait. Instead wait with all of creation and within your heart for the Incarnation of the Divine, God made into a person, Jesus Christ. Isn't that what Christmas is about? The Divine made into the person Jesus Christ, God Incarnate? Allow in that waiting a stirring to take place, a stirring that renews, refreshes and brings great hope to you, to all of creation that says "Rise, shine for your light has come!" A light that shines in the darkness of our hearts where we are discouraged, have lost hope and are afraid. An illumination that kindles within us a desire for newness, a saving from where we feel helpless, paralyzed and unable to change and instead speaks grace, forgiveness and freedom.

Wait with me won't you and let's leave behind the hurried pace our culture especially demands of us at this time of year and pause...... take a breath and breathe in the newness of life that is within us and we wait for especially now with great expectation, anticipation and hope.

Maranatha.......Come........We wait for you.........the Incarnate Word........made flesh.

REUNION

What is a reunion? So many things come to mind these past couple of months as I have received telephone calls from former high school classmates who are informing me of our 40th High School "reunion" in July, 2011. The reunion of a friend of mine I had not seen in over 15 years this past summer and two of his young adult children, reunions with friends that I have known over the years while in California at a mutual friends wedding and celebrating the joy of her marriage and commenting to one of them "I find it so moving that we have known each other all of these years and have had the privilege of growing older together." It struck me, we, I were growing older......together. What richness, what a journey we have all taken individually and together. The joys, sorrows, laughter and tears that make up this beautiful experience called life. I am privileged.

This weekend I travel to Boston to have a "reunion" with Rich, his wife Carolina and their daughter Gabriella. Rich, as you may remember is my dear friend who gave me one of his kidneys so that I might live. I look forward to this meeting and all the joy it brings to my heart. He is truly a brother to me in so many ways.

Thanksgiving is coming and I was on the telephone with my close friend Steve of Steve and Leslie whom I have spent the past two decades at Thanksgiving with except for last year for obvious reasons and we were discussing our "reunion" for Thanksgiving this year. The memories, what we are going to do, who will be there and being thankful for our years as friends and they too are like family to me. I know all of their immediate family members and had a pleasant "reunion" with one of his brother's and his wife while they were visiting San Francisco for the day. Although time may pass, our hearts remain close.

I have also heard of the passing of some friends in the past few months and the passing of relatives of friends; brothers, daughters, parents and how this was such a hard time for them. Also how they were remembering those who have passed on before them; reflecting, remembering, contemplating if you will who they were, who they are and for a moment they too had a "reunion" with those they love(d).

I will be facilitating a "Day of Remembrance" on October 30th and it is also entitled "So Great a Cloud of Witnesses Goes Before Us." As I prepare for this I am moved by the memories I have of those who have gone before me and that they too are alive but alive through that thin veil. I will be sharing more about this in a future blog and what that means to me, how real and how we so often only see the temporal but how in reality there is so much more, more than meets our eye but is seen within. I will invite those participating to write a letter to that person, what they would like to say, to catch up with them, anything they may have left unsaid. At lunch we will eat in silence partaking of the various foods that each person brings that the one they remembered used to like and imagining all of us with them or they with us at that "banqueting table." In the afternoon all will be given the opportunity to listen, to listen perhaps to the heart, to the stirrings and think "What might they reply to me?" and then write it. We will also do a litany for them remembering the little but yet not insignifficant things that brought we and them joy.....together. We will then place their names in a bowl with some incense and for a moment remember their sweet fragrance. Join with me if you can and if you physically can not then perhaps take a day and remember.....them.....and think about the "reunion" that we will someday have. Behind that thin veil, in that great cloud of witnesses.

All Souls and All Saints Day
October 31, November 1

Blessings to each of you,
Bill

Who is Knocking at Your Door?

Who is Knocking at Your Door?

Recently a friend of mine who had been discerning some things came to me after some reflection and said “ Darkness is trying to creep back into my life.” This struck me because he has been living in a way that has been one of renewal and freedom but yet “Darkness was trying to creep back into my life.” I could not help but to begin to ask the same question as my life has taken on a renewal and has had a sense of great freedom and joy even in some of the challenges that have come. Where has the “old self” the “unredeemed self” wanted to return? Who is knocking at my door or better yet my heart? I have begun to see life anew over this past year, especially the past few months. What a difference this has made in every area of my life, from my physical being and every day activity to my desires and thoughts. I have had a fresh outlook of what does it mean “to leave the old and take on the new and with it a deep inner peace and yet…..the old self some times wants to be acknowledged, wants to be recognized and wants to return! It feels lonely, forgotten and perhaps dead and so it tries to live again. If I say yes to it, although it might at first be subtle and seemingly fulfills my desires, the desires of the old it in fact upon arrival begins to suffocate the new with it sole intent to put out the flame of life, the life of the spirit that dwells within me and makes up my entire being; body, soul and spirit. By grace I choose to live but what happens when I allow “the darkness to creep back into my life?” I am tempted, I sometimes walk to the door and think about opening it, I even might peek a bit but then it strikes me…this is fleeting, this desires to take my very life and by the grace of our Divine Creator I stop! I remember, even but for a moment that returning and letting the darkness enter I begin to experience life itself draining from me but by the grace of our Divine Creator I stop, I remember…..this is fleeting, in the end this will take the very life, the very intimacy and gift our Divine Creator has bestowed upon me into darkness and just as a candle becomes dim and is snuffed out so it is with my new life. This is when I pray deeply within and sometimes out loud the oldest of Christian prayers “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner” and it is then that I know not only the rescuing hand of our Creator but unconditional love and mercy that “gives me the doorway out” the doorway that does not have darkness waiting to creep in but the doorway that bursts open with luminous light that bathes my very soul. Is it easy? Is it simple? The tension is some times intense and palpable but when I cry aloud that ancient prayer and know that I can not possibly do any of this myself with my “good intentions” my desire to enter into darkness comes cascading down and my desire to live in the light, newness and truth revivivifys my entire being, for this I am grateful beyond words.

Where does this take place in your life? When does darkness want to reenter and is knocking on your door? I invite you to reflect on this and where you see it and when you begin to sense it sometimes subtly and sometimes openly inviting itself in stop, cry out to our Creator and see that you are called to life, to walk “in our Creators marvelous light” and then be ever grateful that each moment, each day you are made new, formed more into the Creator’s likeness and image. What a wonderful thing to see, to see our Creators eyes in one another, in our humanity, in our divinity and in so doing experiencing the fullness of life in one another.

May I not ever forget to mention this is only done for me and for you by grace but also by the prayers we say for one another, for our gratitude for one another and by the hand that so generously gives to us unconditional love, acceptance and mercy.

Who is knocking at my door, your door, and the doors of our hearts? Beyond and through all things it is our Creator who stands at the door and knocks and has prepared a banqueting table for all of us to freely partake in, the festive table of intimacy with our Maker and through this, one another.

Blessings and peace to each of you,

Bill

"DO NOT FORGET FROM WHENCE YOU HAVE COME."

At the beginning of June I went to my kidney transplant team and when my physicians entered the door and saw me they, like my nephrologist said "You look as good in person as you do on paper." The kidney transplant coordinator further went on to say "You are the example we like to present to others when they are in the midst of their kidney disease and waiting for a transplant as to what hope they can have before them." In so doing they further asked me if I would go and visit the dialysis team that so wonderfully served me and took care of me during my dialysis treatments. I did, I went over to visit them and they too were amazed at what they saw. A man who was on the doorstep of death to a man full of life, health and joy. I could not help but to look around the room and see the patients who were 'hooked up" to the dialysis machines having both a sense of sorrow and joy. I was moved deeply. As I was turning away to leave I sensed this deep movement within and I stopped and paused and in so doing I distinctly heard this still small voice which so gently said "Do not forget from whence you came." I could not help but to be humbled, to express gratitude and be in awe, in awe of the Mystery.
As I have pondered this in my daily walking meditations I have already asked "Please Lord may I not become complacent, may I not forget where you have brought me from and may I not live as I have lived in the past. Living in a way that took life for granted, people, friends, family, my environment, the moment. May I instead live in a way that is intentional, purposeful but yet not holding onto but letting go of. My prayers have daily been:

May I O' Lord receive this new day,
live this new day,
be present this new day.

May it not be full of agendas
Full of expectations of others
of myself
so that they might be liberated
and I might be liberated.

May I not hold onto and grasp
but let go of and set free.

May I take each day, each moment
one at a time
and in so doing
allow it to unfold
as you will
and
may I
simply
be........open

Each day has brought opportunity and as the Irish author John O'Donahue has said "Blessed is the Space between us." So I try to be mindful as I interact with people throughout the day. Where is that blessed space in our conversation, in the silence, in the listening, in our activities? Where am I attentive, mindful? Where do I allow the Divine to reveal their presence, their essence, am I aware?

There is a deep sense of a deeper, new space in my life. A place that says yes, go to that place of mystery, that place where the deep mines of your being dwells, that place that carves out of darkness a light that is beyond anything I can ever imagine or understand. A space that when open gushes out the floods of life, the words of life, the Presence perhaps that does all of these things without words but simply.....is.

I know that every day I am given opportunities to walk not as before but now, today. Where fears once held me back to shed them, step forward; no longer be paralyzed but walk, run to that new place with open hands and heart. Each day I am given these opportunities, these gifts and so are you.

What a marvelous Creator we have, one who creates all things new, brings us closer to that mystery, the eternal that we live in every day but so often are unaware. May we be.....aware, may we know that our time here, now is a moment, a twinkling of an eye and may I, we make the most of it living in fullness, living in the present moment ever thankful knowing that this is our time, our time to present our gifts and lives one to another both in their brokenness, in their healing and in their fullness.

I will share more about this and how it has practically effected my life in these coming days. I am thankful for each of you and your prayers and I pray for you. Without those prayers I would not be where I am now and I would not be able to go where I am going. Let us continue to journey together.

My love and heart are with you. I leave you with this prayer, one that I write even now as I send this to you.

Bill

Deep within me is a stillness
A stillness that knows
You......live
A stillness that smiles
when I think of where you have brought me from
and where I am.....now

Gone each day are the chains that have bound
and imprisoned me
and in its place
are
the joys of liberty

Liberty to be me
whom you have formed
whom you have fashioned
after yourself

the True self
the authentic, genuine self

where

you

shine

as though through a glass

that is transparent

translucent

and

brings light

not only to myself

but

perhaps to those

who long for the same.