A Reflection for Advent

 Some of this may sound familiar; I've written about the root of pattern before. I hope as you read this, you hear it anew and imagine it in a new way.

            About fourteen years ago, I learned how to quilt. My mom is a quilter and I always swore I didn’t have the patience for it, but one day I wanted to make something and from that day on I was hooked. I do love to quilt. I enjoy the puzzle of putting fabric together and imagining how a pile of folded cloth can become something so completely different.

            I admit I do better with a pattern. I like having the structure of a pattern. I like that the pattern tells me what to do next. There’s some safety in that, I guess.

            Recently, I looked up the definition and etymology of “pattern.” It comes from a Latin word that if you are a Harry Potter fan, you will recognize: patronus. It means defender, advocate, model. In the Harry Potter world, the patronus is usually some kind of spirit animal. I wonder if my spirit animal might, in fact, be a spirit quilt.

            Yet, sometimes the pattern isn’t enough. The pattern offers a blueprint or a starting point. But occasionally there is a call to move beyond the pattern. I may need to add another border to make the quilt bigger. Or the quilt has to be smaller, so I sew one less row. Or I don’t like a particular fabric, so I switch it out.

            And now I’m thinking about Advent and the patterns of Advent. Advent is a series of rhythms moving us from one season of the church calendar to the next. In my faith tradition, Advent is a liminal space, a kind of “in between” time between Christmas – birth of Christ – and Christ the King – the last Sunday of the church year that imagines Christ’s second coming. Advent is about waiting and slowing down, about living in the now. There are patterns to Advent, but not every pattern works for me. Occasionally I have to change the pattern. A different kind of devotional here. A different way to think about the candle lights here. A prayer practice I’ve never tried before over there.

            And now I’m thinking about the underlying current in Advent, the one that always lies just beneath the surface. We read it in Jeremiah 33 when the prophet says the Righteous Branch will execute justice. We read it in Zephaniah 3 when the prophet tells the people God will rejoice over them and renew them with God’s love. And we read about in Luke when John the Baptist says it’s not enough to think your lineage will save you. Some work belongs to you and you alone. This is the underlying current of Advent: that Jesus calls us beyond the usual pattern to notice something different God is doing. Jesus calls us beyond the usual pattern to notice the new thing we are called to be a part of. In the work we do to live into a pattern of loving God and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves, we notice when the usual pattern isn’t enough.

            Patterns give us a place to begin. The rhythms of Advent give us a place to begin, but we cannot stay here forever. We are invited the make the pattern our own: to add the borders we need and remove the borders that add nothing to the kingdom. We switch out what does not serve us or the common good and we imagine what we might put in its place. In this way, we co-create a quilt made up of each of us bound together by a common love and sense of wonder.

 

Jan Richardson writes in her book “Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas”

 

“Forgive us, God

When we live our lives

Within the lines,

When we say

This is the shape of our

Work

This is the boundary of our

Habitation

These are the limits of our

Love

These are the lines of our

Vision

These, and none other.

Draw us beyond our patterns

Into yours;

Shifting, moving,

Curving, spiraling,

Many-colored, every-changing,

Stretching, pushing,

Challenging, renaming,

Unsettling, disturbing,

Casting forth,

And welcoming home.”