DEEPER
DOWN THINGS
Kilmarnock,
Va.
Robert
Trabold
Utter quiet just silent breeze
brushing my face. Blue Chesapeake
Bay water lies in silence –
sunshine.
Breeze flutters over it – but hardly
moving it. Late afternoon sunshine
diming adds to the peace.
Happy to be here touch of beauty
moment of silence – enchanted
world.
They wash over me.
Let me hold on to them
will always remember them.
Years of life
run by like breeze touching my
face.
I wonder where is it all going
my world – endless wars of my
country?
Here on the wharf, watching blue
water gives me hope.
Moments of beauty point to the
Beloved
will not let my hands go –nor our
world’s.
St. Paul says:
“For those of faith,
all things work for the good.”
-----------------------------
ADVENT – CHRISTMAS
TIME – 2015
Robert Trabold
As we approach the month of December, we enter into
the season of Advent and Christmas where we commemorate and remember the birth
of Jesus Christ on earth. The heavens
opened up and Jesus was born to bring us the Good News of how we are to live as
God’s children on earth. This time is also a busy one for us. The season brings many social activities with
our family and friends. We commemorate the birth of Jesus which brings us
together with other people. The month of December has also the down side of the
rampant commercialism which accompanies this holy time. Starting already early in November, the
stores and media pound us with advertisements on what to buy for ourselves, our
household, relatives and friends. These
are all over the place and we cannot escape them. They can distract us from the real and deep meaning
of Advent and the Christmas season. We
have to struggle on our part to keep in focus the spirituality of this season
which will help us not be dominated by the materialism and gift giving. The social activities of this season are
important but we have to put them in perspective so they do not overwhelm us.
The advent of Jesus into the world
should remind us that the central goal of our life is to put God at the center.
Jesus came to give us the Good News that God our Father loves us and wants us
to love Him in return. This can be more difficult than it sounds. Our human life on earth is complicated and we
can be torn in many directions. Some of these can be good, others bad for us.
During Advent, we have to clear the air and refocus our sights on Jesus and His
message. One of the things that can help us in this task is to be faithful to
our daily meditation of twenty minutes, twice a day. For a short while, we put
other things aside in our life and focus on the presence of the Lord at our
still point and center and on His path for us to follow.
In meditation and contemplative
prayer, we let go of our thoughts, desires, plans, images, etc. and we enter
into silence and focus on the presence of the Divine who is there. There is a
cleaning out of ourselves for a short while to be in the presence of someone
who is the origin of our life. In meditation, there is simplicity because we
quietly repeat our mantra; there is no fuss in this. This repetition of the
mantra helps us go beyond many words, images, thoughts to focus on the presence
of our Beloved. In this focusing on the Lord in silence and simplicity, we
receive the invitation of love. We
realize that the Lord loves us and want us to love in return. It is an invitation to orientate our life
around one who will fulfill us. Only God can do this. We will no longer be torn
in every direction but see the path to follow in life which will bring us a
peace which the world cannot give.
This is the reason why Jesus came
into the world in order to give us this invitation to enter into God’s path and
love. Our work then in Advent is to orientate ourselves to this call from the
Divine. We will participate in all the social activities of this season but
also keep in our sights the real meaning of Advent and the coming of Christ. We
will not let the materialism of our modern and urban world deceive us. We will
put our sights on the things which do not pass away. God offers us His/Her hand
with the
coming
of Jesus and we have to prepare ourselves to reach out and grasp it.
----------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment