Advent: A Holy Invitation

Advent: A Holy Invitation to Perceive

By Lindsay L. O’Connor

I am about to do a new thing;

now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?

-Isaiah 43:19

Three and a half weeks before my firstborn child was due to arrive, I spent the day on the couch. We were deep into the month of July in one of the hottest Texas summers on record. I had finished my last year of teaching, knowing I would not return in the fall, and had nothing to do but prepare for this baby.

Lazy, I thought. Why am I so lazy today? 

I couldn’t seem to make my body get up to get anything done. Little did I know, my body was doing plenty as I lounged on the couch that hot summer day. It was preparing to give birth that very night to our miracle baby, the one the doctor had said I had miscarried just over six months before.

The season of Advent invites us into the practice of hopeful expectation, which sounds lovely until we layer this onto the busy-ness, distraction, and sometimes even grief that may be present during the holiday season. Hopeful expectation requires a posture of quiet listening and opening to an awareness of the presence of the Holy, which is not separate from the secular but actually saturates the mundane if we will only perceive it. When we slow down, we make room for noticing, which paves the way for wonder, curiosity, creativity, and discernment. 

Hope can feel difficult to come by these days. However, it is not something we can conjure up on our own; it is something we receive when we are attentive to the Spirit because the Spirit is always breathing new life into the darkness. The world may seem to be languishing in darkness amidst unimaginable suffering, but the Creator is ever present, residing in the mystery of living, dying, and rising. When we tune into the movement of the Spirit, we begin to notice the subtle signs of a coming birth, and we receive the hope that accompanies new life. 

In July 2011, I was frustrated with my body’s refusal to cooperate with my desire to be productive, but I now see the irony of feeling unproductive when my body was quite literally producing new life. The process leading up to birth can include a period of a quiet that may look like a lack of productivity while something is brewing below the surface. 

We were created in the Divine image, and we are like our Maker when we create. Feeling overwhelmed, burned out, discouraged, or cynical can be a holy invitation to get quiet and still. A lack of energy and motivation for productivity might actually be a gentle invitation to surrender and notice what is forming below the surface, preceding the birth of something beautiful. If we will allow, God may even bestow upon us the honor of serving as the conduit for new life.

When we find ourselves lying on the couch—literally or metaphorically—and wondering why we are feeling so tired and unproductive, may we let ourselves get quiet and still. In the stillness, we become attentive as we watch for signs of coming birth pangs and prepare to behold the mystery of new life, for who knows what new thing the Spirit might be compelling us to perceive?

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