Annunciation in the stockroom

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid….” (Luke 1:26-30a)

I’ve seen her before. She cut her hair. Most of the pink ends are gone or stuffed in the khaki stocking cap pulled low near her ears, a few dirty blond strands trailing out.

“What can I get you?’ she asks, a cheery voice for the first in line. She pokes at the computer screen on the counter then spins right to pour a large bag of coffee beans in the grinder; turning heel, she heads to the storeroom to grab another.

Imagination takes over, blessedly, and a thought: It could have been her, back there in the stockroom as she went about her work, little suspecting a vision and a voice would interrupt all that is normal.

“Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you,” the vision speaks. And she is; watching her work it’s clear: somewhere, someone already let her know she is favored. Only now, more. Startled, mouth open, speechless, she takes in the vision wondering who or what has come to this ordinary place on a gloomy Wednesday to announce what every heavy heart most needs to hear, “Don’t be afraid.”

But there is plenty to fear as this young woman, Mary, in my coffee shop vision, hears about bearing a child who bears the heart of heaven’s Unspeakable Love, a child who will break her heart in his desperate struggle to win ours.

That’s how it all starts, this Christmas we crave. It begins in the soul-deep craving in the heart of God for us, in an unspeakable longing for us to know, to be encompassed, finally home, in this Love who sends angels to young women in stockrooms.

Love craves for the beloved, hoping and hungry to enfold the whole bleeding world and our aching hearts in endless mercy, all the while whispering, “Do not fear.”

It’s not a hard thing to know. Rare is the heart who has never wanted to whisper those same words to a frightened child, a beloved friend, a soul on its final journey.

Such is the ache in the heart of God as Gabriel is dispatched to a young woman minding her own business in an out of the way place, telling Mary she would bear sorrow and beauty greater than any heart has ever known.

“Let it be it as you say,” Mary answered that long ago day, as does this young woman, reappearing from the stockroom to serve one more soul on a gloomy Wednesday, before kneeling at the display case to restock sandwiches and pastries, fruit juice and bottles of water.

It’s all so beautiful, the wonder of the whole story—of God becoming flesh, of a girl who said yes, of the Love who wants me and everyone who has ever longed for Love’s nearness. The whole mystery is right there, kneeling by the display case, begging me to notice.

Be born in me.

David L. Miller

 

The hunger of our hearts

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ (Matthew 11:2-3)

Our desires lead us home provided we are willing to trace them to their root. What, after all, or before them all, do we truly want—that root desire we hardly notice except in seasons like this when we admit … at least to ourselves … that there is more happening in our vast inner spaces than we normally dare explore let alone reveal?

Desires simmers there, finding expression in a thousand supposed wants and needs marketers are sure to exploit, none of which finally satisfy when achieved.

Beneath and before them all burns a craving for something too elusive to name; the desire for I know not want, several authors have named it.

No name seems adequate. Home? Love? Peace? Oneness with that mysterious something or someone who resides in the heart’s inmost room? Or (however unfashionable) shall we just come out and say it, God? Yes, not as a distant being somewhere out there looking in at our mess but the living Presence of Love closer than our breath and stronger than our fear.

And so, John the Baptizer, in prison, sends messengers bearing the lump in his throat to Jesus to ask the essential question of our humanity. Are you the one we are looking for? Are you the one who bears heaven to earth to still our ancient longing?

Crowds had gone out to John in the desert, wondering the same thing, moved by the question that bubbles to the surface as we look at our lights and remember Christmases past, wondering, too, how many more we shall have.

Many we may hope. I certainly do. But mostly I hope to know the Love who takes shape in this baby, this child, this man, this soul, this Jesus who touched and healed, opened closed eyes and unstopped ears, who loved to the last when the great hatred of the world crushed him, eager to destroy everything he ever said and did.

It is for him that our human hearts most long. Knowing him is the root desire hidden beneath the thousands of wants and needs that clamor for our attention, crowd our schedules and drown out the inner voice of desire for the Love he is.

For he is heaven on earth, the Mystery for whom we hope. He comes, now as then, to awaken the beauty he is in the hunger of hearts.

David L. Miller

 

Feeling Christmas

 By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ (Luke 1:78-79)

Having loved a child, you never get beyond the longing to envelop them in your arms and love away their pain. Their age doesn’t matter, nor does yours. You hear struggle in their voice, and love’s longing springs to life, your heart aching to enfold them in a circle of love where burdens are shared and the load lightened.

It never goes away. The years do nothing to diminish the desire to bathe them in the love first awakened by their infant faces, those faces now lined with the anxious wear having lived, loved and lost.

Love’s longing is the truest, most noble and beautiful part of us, the most divine and the answer to my annual Christmas prayer, a prayer that has never gone unrequited.

Each year I pray to feel Christmas, ever hungry to be enveloped in the Love who comes to us, incarnate in the Lord Jesus Christ. I cannot abide the thought that Advent days would slip by without tears filling my eyes with the unspeakable beauty of Love’s sweet presence in the poverty of my heart, making me rich once more.

Some might argue this is a selfish prayer, self-indulgent and insensitive to the millions who will never enjoy the kind of life I take for granted. Or maybe it’s merely the yearning to escape the sad welter of the daily news where what bleeds … leads.

Perhaps, but I don’t think so. I think my prayer is as average as I am, normal, typical, the common longing of human hearts hungry for home, for the unfailing Love we each secretly crave.

So, I pray it ever year: Let me feel Christmas, Holy One; bathe me in the beauty of your heart. I hunger to feel what you feel for me and for the whole broken world, at least to what paltry extent that I can.

It’s an audacious petition. Who can feel what God feels, if it is even proper to attribute human emotions to the greatness of the Unimaginable One? But this year, again, I realize that the Holy One answered that prayer long ago in love’s longing for my own children and those others for whom I am moved to pray.

Love’s longing appears, even here, in this feeble heart of mine, as I think of my beloved ones, yearning to sweep each of them up and enfold them love’s healing circle. And each time it happens I feel Christmas once more. I feel what God feels, love’s holy longing, for me, for you, for this whole beloved world.

For the Holy One sees it all, all that we are, all this broken world with all its wounded souls and tortured places, longing to sweep us up in Love’s healing embrace.

Surely, we know the feeling.

David L. Miller