Courage
Courage: 15 December 2020
The Magi began arriving this week on our felt Advent calendar with their gifts and camels and expectations. Every year I’m slightly annoyed by the fact that they show up before baby Jesus. Too bad I’m not one of those crafty moms; then I could whip up a 12-day Epiphany expansion pack for Advent calendars.
With Jupiter and Saturn in their closest conjunction since March 4, 1226, there will appear to be a Christmas Star this year, beginning on December 21st. Still, the Sages, for all their curiosity and calculations, can’t arrive before the baby.
But how about those wise men who had the courage and curiosity, the bravery and temerity to follow an unusual star for a couple of years to find out what it foretold. And how lucky they were to have so many things besides courage and curiosity. Like time. And freedom of movement. And wealth. And someone else attending to the families and communities and institutions they left behind for four years of wondering and wandering.
Mary, on the other hand, had none of the extras. Oh, she had curiosity, temerity and the courage to accept God’s call. But not wealth. And the timing wasn’t great—unwed, middle of winter, year of the census. Her movements were restricted to her family’s sphere. Plus that jaunt to Egypt to avoid Herod.
Mary lived the opposite of shelter-in-place.
Yet she accepted God’s call with a courageous YES. The news and the messenger that scared the shepherds Mary received with grace, humility and curiosity. She responded with the brave and beautiful, subversive and revolutionary Magnificat. She anticipated and supported God’s mission (through my body will come your Body) whole-heartedly. She pondered it all in her heart.
This Advent I’ve been trying to ponder more in my heart. I ponder, and wonder, and worry, and contemplate, consider, scheme, plan, and analyze all day every day. (You subscribers know of the rare, recent 15 minute Montreat exception.) But it’s all in my head. I feel pretty safe, pretty competent, in my head.
My head gets worried if I spend too much time in my heart. My heart is not nearly as analytical, but it is very astute. It is much more courageous.
The word courage is derived from the Old English and Old French word cor or heart. Courage is heart bravery. Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics, defines virtues as the moderation of extremes. Courage, therefore, is not the opposite of fear. Recklessness is the opposite of fear. Courage is the bravery to act despite one’s fear.
I find the courage to say yes to God’s call when I ponder in my heart rather than in my head. The mind mostly identifies itself with the ego—the person I tell the world I am. It acts defensively because it wants to preserve the idea of itself—and all my work constructing that façade. Pondering in my head gives me either/or answers, right or wrong, with me or against me. No room for nuance.
The heart is all about nuance. With God’s help I can be heart brave, because God knows the truth of me and loves me anyway. So I’ve been trying to ponder the hard stuff in my heart.
In this meditation, Fr. Richard Rohr writes about a meditation practice in the heart.
“Many have described prayer as bringing our thinking down into our heart. Next time a resentment, negativity, or irritation comes into your mind, for example, and you want to play it out or attach to it, consciously move that thought or person into your heart space. Dualistic commentaries are almost entirely lodged in your head. But within the heart, it’s much easier to surround thoughts and sensations with silence, with the warmth of your life-blood—which can feel like burning coals. In this place it is almost impossible to judge, create story lines, or remain antagonistic. You are in a place that does not create or feed on contraries but is the natural organ of life, embodiment, and love. Love lives and thrives in the heart space. It has kept me from wanting to hurt people who have hurt me. It keeps me every day from obsessive, repetitive, or compulsive head games. It can make the difference between being happy or being miserable and negative.
Could this be what we are really doing when we say we are praying for someone? Yes, we are holding them in our heart space. …The “sacred heart” is then your heart too, a heart on fire with love and compassion for the world.”
This is the sacred heart of Mary that says yes to God. God who blesses her with a son who blesses the world with his life’s blood.
Sing Gloria by John Bell of the Iona Community is one of my favorite Advent anthems. The second verse is:
“And, herders, leave your hesitation/
when summoned by the cosmic choir;/
the new-born Lamb, a greater Shepherd/
will set your fearful hearts on fire. ”
Mary let her heart blaze, throughout her pregnancy and throughout the too-brief life of her son. Her Magnificat shows her trust in the God that will make, has already made, all things new.
“he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”
Mary was courageous, heart brave. She knew there was no going back from that “Yes” to God. Because a yes to God almost always means changing something. What you do, where you live, who you love. The third verse of Sing Gloria warns the Magi to “be ready to revise your thinking/on what is right and who is great.” God is relentless life zephyring through your staid, controllable normal.
And what a zephyr 2020 has been. 2020’s change has been to get comfortable with staying the same. That might be even harder than decamping for four years on an adventure, or dropping your fishing nets and following a scruffy rabbi, or taking a knee for the cause of justice.
I’ve struggled with saying “Yes” in 2020 to the two careers I knew I never never wanted to pursue. Teaching and nursing. God bless all teachers and nurses!
Now here comes 2020 with life lessons in abundance, one of which is—do the things you don’t want to do. Do them with all the love and patience you can muster and forgive yourself when you mess up. Then get what sleep you can, wake up and do it again. Over and over. One of my favorite sending prayers includes, speak love with word and deed. Incarnate the One you serve. Your hand bestowing God’s love in a touch, your eyes flashing God’s love along with, perhaps, some stern instructions.
And even harder than that? Accept God’s love in words of my father, the eyes of my children and touch of my husband when I’ve exhausted myself trying to be love for them. It’s a tiny step from exhaustion to resentment, at least for me, and the courage to resist resentment comes from transferring the resentment from my head to my heart. Trying to be more like Mary.
That’s what I was pondering when this unlikely Advent song came to me. The expectant waiting of Advent feels especially expectant this year. May Mary’s courage be ours now in the new year.
“Listen as your day unfolds/
Challenge what the future holds/
Try and keep your head up to the sky/
Lovers, they may cause you tears/
Go ahead release your fears/
Stand up and be counted/
Don’t be ashamed to cry
You gotta be... /
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser/ You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger/
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together/
All I know, all I know, love will save the day”
(ps: the cover photo is Euonymus americanus , which I’ve always known as hearts-a-bustin)
