Through Stained Glass: Advent Word of the Day--Way

For an Advent practice I have decided to participate in a "word-a-day" exercise that welcomes a reflection based on a line of scripture. I will use each day's word, verse, or story, as a starting point for an image, a poem, a song, movie clip, or anything else Advent related. I invite you to play along!

Day 1:  Way

“Prepare the way of the Lord…” Mark 1.3

It isn’t always easy.

Nor is it always difficult.

But it is always before us, whether we know it or not.

Some days it is wide. Other days it is narrow.

Before doctrines and denominations Christianity was simply referred to as “The way.”

At the center of Jesus’ own teaching is the notion of a ‘way’ or a ‘path,’ which is where the early followers of Jesus got their name:  the Way.

 As much emphasis as we pleace on that which divide us in our denominations, Jesus was more about what unites us:  our shared humanity. In fact, this idea of Christianity being about ‘believing’ and that faith is about ‘belief’ are a modern development of the last few hundred years. Long before Christians worried about walking down Roman’s Road; well before Presbyterians pondered predestination; and even before Christians became ‘inquisitive’ with questions about salvation and eternity, the Way wanted to reside not in the head

Advent Suggestion

The best way to find yourself is to

lose yourself in the service of others.

~Mahatma Gandhi

but

in

the

heart.

As one Christian writer and scholar has noted, “In the Bible and the Christian tradition, the ‘heart’ is a metaphor for a deep level of the self, a level below our thinking, feeling, and willing, our intellect, emotions, and volitions. The heart is thus deeper than our ‘head,’ deeper than our conscious self and the ideas we have in the heads…. Faith is the way of the heart, not the way of the head.”

Sometimes we worry on the way as to whether or not we are smart enough, good enough, or simply enough.

What Advent reminds us, what the Way of Jesus reminds us, that our faith, your life, my story, is about beloving God and all that God beloves. Our life together is about beloving God and all that God beloves.

If we want to find our way, the Way, we must allow our hearts to not only love God but be loved by God.

If we are scared to do so, to open our hearts to the way of love, to the way of vulnerability, I offer these words of encouragement from poet and farmer Wendell Berry:

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

Prepare the way of God, for today begins the way of the heart…