“I learn by going where I have to go.” Theodore Roethke
When was it ever a perfect time to prepare for
Advent?
The road to Bethlehem was long for Mary, looking for a
place to birth her child in the most ungracious of surroundings.
The journey of the
magi was long and arduous, with unscheduled interruptions, inclement weather, and even some doubts as to the final
outcome of following the star.
This year the road to Advent for me is fraught with grief
over the thousands who died in a killer storm that destroyed a region of the
Philippines, my home country. The
magnitude of this disaster is hard to comprehend. Why the Philippines? Because, according to an MIT meteorologist, the
country has the warmest deep ocean in the planet that spawns monster
storms. But why the poor?
Why were the impoverished
families of fisher folk who lived by the
sea swept away by the storm surge?
Perhaps Mary must have also asked why she had to take on
such a difficult role in the salvation story.
“And a sword will pierce your soul.”
( Luke 2:35 ) Perhaps the three
kings in search of the Christ child
must have sensed ,with
foreboding, Herod’s evil intent to
slaughter innocent babies in his lust for power. Perhaps killer storms leave people like me
reeling from the onslaught of nature “red in tooth and claw.” How does one find meaning in randomness?
This obviously is no Hallmark greeting card
reflection. In a season when merriment
is the norm, the Philippine disaster
goes against the grain of
falalalala. I did not plan on
this interruption. My holiday calendar ,
until a week ago when the storm struck, was already starting to fill up with Christmas
cheer.
Yet this catastrophic event is making me pay attention
this year, more than any other time. I am paying attention to Simone Weil’s statement : “Two things break the human heart – beauty
and affliction.” This week ,while
comforting a Filipino friend who had not heard from her family in the epicenter
of the storm and who did not know if they were still alive, I happened to look out of my kitchen window
as I held the phone to my ear and saw
the most breath-taking sunset in the
autumn sky. The tears came. How can such beauty coincide with such bad
news? Is this “the irrational season
“ that Madeleine L’Engle refers to?
In a deep way, I feel more humbled this Advent season,
perhaps because my heart has been broken.
I will still wrap presents, sing carols, look at Christmas
lights. But with a different heartbeat,
Because halfway across the world, in a cluster of islands,
a cyclone from hell has knocked me off my comfort zone, even threatened to unhinge my illusions of
safety.
But that’s not all bad.
In ways I had not planned for
myself or wished upon the people in my country of birth, this Advent is
teaching me to cling closer to God, to
Jesus --- the rock, the hiding place, the ultimate shelter, in times of
desolation and chaos.
In this Advent’s
difficult path towards God’s
blessing, like Mary and those who searched for the Christ child, “I
learn by going where I have to go.”
Submitted by Priscilla Lasmarias Kelso
