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(18th century Spanish compass courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
As a lover of the outdoors, I'm fond of "Four Directions" prayers--where I face each of the compass point and utter part of the prayer. I discovered some time after I was doing that, the Shoshone have been doing it for much longer than me.
After returning from an Advent Quiet Afternoon last weekend, I wrote this, and simply want to share it with you for your Advent prayer time.
Advent Prayer in Four Directions
(Note: Although this prayer is designed for a time when one is outdoors, facing each of the directions of the compass with each stanza, it certainly can be said indoors, facing the four directions. For the last stanza, you may face any direction you choose, or all of them!)
Come, Lord Jesus, from the North:
Come to me amidst the cold icy blasts and blizzards;
Come to me in the foggy dark grey cloud of unknowing;
Come to me in the pristine white snowflake;
Come to me in the guiding wink of the North Star.
Come, Lord Jesus, come!
Come, Lord Jesus, from the East:
Come to me as strangers came to you, bearing gifts;
Come to me with the new days and possibility of the dawn;
Come to me cloaked in the uncertainty of the shifting East wind;
Come to me in the dense habitation of the life I've led;
Come, Lord Jesus, come!
Come, Lord Jesus, from the South:
Come to me in the warm, gentle breezes;
Come to me when I am parched in the baking, dry, desert heat;
Come to me in the drenching, humid stickiness of my existence;
Come to me in the long, lazy evenings of summer that never seem to end.
Come, Lord Jesus, come!
Come, Lord Jesus, from the West:
Come to me in the prevailing winds, bringing what they may;
Come to me in the thunderstorm, with mighty lightning;
Come to me in the whirlwind's destructive power;
Come to me robed in the expanse of unexplored territory.
Come, Lord Jesus, come!
Come, Lord Jesus, from the vicinity of your choosing:
Come to me from the place you'd will and not from mine;
Come to me in my joy and in my sorrow;
Come to me in my peaceful serenity and my anxious strife;
Come to me in my shallow self and my deep holy longing.
Come, Lord Jesus, come!
(Pink Advent Candle courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, Sunday, December 11, 2011)
Readings for Sunday, December 11, 2011:
Psalm 63:1-8 (9-11)
Psalm 98 (morning)
Psalm 103 (evening)
Amos 9:11-15
2 Thessalonians 2:1-3, 13-17
John 5:30-47
As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.
Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction.
But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.
--2 Thessalonians 2:1-3, 13-17 (NRSV)
The Third Sunday of Advent is sometimes colloquially called "Stir-up Sunday," because of the collect. ("Stir up your power, O Lord...")
Here's my goofy little confession: When I hear that collect, I always think of James Bond, who wanted his martinis "shaken not stirred." I suppose James Bond would have preferred this to be "Shake up Sunday." (Interesting aside: Did you know why James Bond ordered his martinis that way? At the time Ian Fleming was writing the Bond novels, most vodka was made of potatoes rather than grain, and the potato-made vodka left an oily residue on the top of the martini if stirred. Shaking broke up the oily layer. But I digress.)
Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, however, admonishes us as a body of believers to avoid shaking things up. He seems to recognize the fragility of the church in Thessalonica. One of the important aspects to remember about this body was that a significant number of its members were converts from traditions other than Judaism. Its "Gentile-centricity" meant that aspects of Christianity rooted in Judaism could not be assumed in this church, and that significant teaching had to take place. This was definitely a body of believers that needed to be stirred--not shaken. They came from a variety of traditions. Yet Paul shows a great deal of affection for the Thessalonians, addressing them as brothers or sisters fourteen times in 1 Thessalonians, and twelve times in 2 Thessalonians. He uses endearing terms such as "beloved," to them. He displays parental affection, both fatherly and motherly. He describes his relationship to them as being like a "nurse tenderly caring for her own children." It's easy to imagine Paul seeing this body as a sensitive child, one which needed a little more watchful supervision from a quietly safe distance.
Fast forward to 2011. The Episcopal Church is at a place in its own life where most of its members have either come from another faith tradition, or no faith tradition. Many times, our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, talks about the importance of the "non-anxious presence" in our life together as Christians. We are more like the church in Thessalonica than we are different. Too many times in the history of the institutional church, "shaking up" was the modus operandi--but it's clear that as the census numbers of mainline churches decline, people are weary of being shaken up. The various permutations of the Great Awakening traded heavily on shaking up--particularly when it came to making people feel shaky about their salvation, their eternal destination, and their sinfulness. But the more I read about the places we are seeing signs of life and growth in mainline Christianity despite the decline in numbers, it's clear to me that it comes from ministries that stir rather than shake--ones who fold in the flavor of the communities in which they exist, along with the spice provided by empowered laypeople who understand their own fundamental priesthoods outlined in our Baptismal Covenant--along with clergy who are master chefs at mixing the ingredients.
James Bond's martini aside, let's ask the hard questions of ourselves this "Stir-up Sunday:" What needs stirring up in our faith communities? What ingredient are we as brothers and sisters in Christ? How do we plan to take our turn at the handle of the spoon?
(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, December 9, 2011)
Readings for Friday, December 9, 2011:
Psalm 31 (morning)
Psalm 35 (evening)
Haggai 1:1-15
Revelation 2:18-29
Matthew 23:27-39
One of the themes that jumped out for me in our set of readings today was "houses in disarray--" but I have to confess I probably have a personal reason for that. I have been undertaking a major remodeling in my home since April--so it should come as no surprise that I heard the phrase from Haggai, "Because my house lies in ruins, while all of you hurry off to your own houses," in a rather up close and personal way, not to mention the line in Matthew's Gospel, "See, your house is left to you, desolate." As I write this, I have roughly 2.5 rooms in my eight room house that I would even dare to call "liveable." The rest are either filled with boxes that I tried to label and now can no longer reach anyway, or gutted, awaiting my contractor's next move.
Now, most days I've survived this reasonably well--but there are days I've just been weary of it. I'm tired of all the dust and dog hair--there came a place where "cleaning" just became a pointless exercise. I'm tired of eating off of one set of dishes that I wash over and over in the sink, like it's the only dishes I have to my name. (Well, they ARE about the only ones I can find.) I'm tired of coming home to annoying surprises like the breakers flipping off or the furnace not working, and I'm tired of being unable to invite over anyone but my most intimate friends, who would not run screaming from the dirt and clutter and tell the entire town I'm one of those "hoarders" like they show on TV. Those wonderful plans in my head of this rather monastic, but hospitable home I envisioned last winter seem so far away at times, I can barely remember them.
This remodeling project has been a very vivid reminder that "getting my house in order" is really hard emotional work, even when I am not doing the actual physical work of it, and some days the best I can do is simply bear it and start over again tomorrow.
Today's readings also speak of a great deal of the angst involved in misfortune, grief, and loss. In Psalm 31, the Psalmist describes the angst of those times we feel abandoned and scandalized; in Psalm 35, that angst is transmitted into some heavy duty "smite my enemies" stuff that we can all identify with, but feel a little queasy that we can abandon our sense of political correctness so readily. Revelation 2 reminds us of our own codependencies and what we will sometimes tolerate to the point we have lost the navigational frames of reference in our own souls. Matthew's Gospel reminds us of the monuments we erect to self and ego, which in reality are merely whitewashed tombs, while the innermost core of ourselves goes hungry.
As much as the world focuses on the "happy" of the December holiday season, the icky truth is for many people, it is a time of despair and remembering loss--the popularity of "Blue Christmas" services attests to this. I think the hardest thing for me, when I have been in that dark place of loss and despair, has been to resist the pressure of the world for me to simply shut up and act happy, ignoring my own pain and angst. Likewise, when someone I love is in that place, I find it difficult to see them in that place and my mistaken tendency is to try to cheer them up or get them to ignore it, when in reality what they really need is to be in that place and exit it in their own time, and for me to merely sit with them quietly.
Yet, today, it's our Old Testament reading that shows the glimmer of hope, the light shining in the darkness. We seldom venture into the Book of Haggai, but it's an incredibly interesting little gem in the books of the Minor Prophets. Haggai dates from around 520 BCE, at a time the Jews had returned to their Holy Land from Babylonian exile. The temple was in shambles, and various other problems--lack of sense of identity, drought, and a poor local economy--had delayed the rebuilding of the Temple.
Haggai enjoyed an unusual position as a prophet--folks actually listened to him! As they began rebuilding the Temple, at first they only had his prophetic words by which to cling to hope. But as they began to work on the Temple, they began to see their fortunes change. The Twelve Step programs have a saying--"Fake it till you make it." With God's help, the Jewish people really did fake it till they made it. Somehow, they were able to see both their past glories and their dark days with a certain kind of clarity, as well as hope in the progress of rebuilding.
Putting our houses in order can never be an angst-free or despair-free proposition--nor will their rebuilding be perfect--but we can learn to appreciate the special clarity darkness provides as a backdrop for seeing even the tiniest glimmer of light.
(Lithograph of the 1883 eruption and explosion of Krakatoa (now Krakatau,), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
About a month ago, I had posted about my ongoing relationship with anger. This month, I'm dealing with anger's cousin--impatience. Of course, leave it to Advent--the season of expectant waiting--to have something in me bubble up and bother me. The worst part about it is, when Impatience pays me a visit, she often starts by reminding me--even congratulating me--for how long I have been patient. Then she starts using phrases like, "codependent," "chump," and "doormat."
I have been known to really rail at God after one of my visits from Impatience, "You know, God, I've been doing ok with this thing here, but are you like, really getting that I'm truly impatient about this situation that's been bugging me? I really have been patient--patient for longer than I'm usually able. I've been pretty good with it. But how much more of this can I take? I have not blown a gasket. Not yet, anyway. But you're pushing it, here. You're not answering. This is NOT FAIR."
I was recently expressing my impatience over this situation that is bugging me to my blog friend Elizabeth. What started as a vent ended up with her saying that she saw some form of liturgical parody in me brewing, and I had to laugh, because she had seen right through me.
She's right--one of the things I have started to do with Impatience is turn the tables on her. Make fun of her. Try to simply wave at her, make fun of myself, and move on.
Many of you who read my blog know I often express sentiments by re-writing bits of the Book of Common Prayer, the Psalter, and various canticles. I learned a long time ago that parody is the great equalizer.
So without further ado, I give you...
The Song of Impatience (with apologies to Psalm 13)
How long, O LORD?
will you forget me for ever? *
how long will you hide your face from me?
How long shall I have impatience in my mind,
and irritation in my heart, day after day? *
how long shall my impatience triumph over me?
Look upon me and answer me, O LORD my God (right now, if possible;) *
dampen the fire in my eyes, lest I spontaneously combust;
Lest my irritation say, "I have prevailed over you," *
and my temper rejoices that I have fallen.
But I put my trust in your mercy (reluctantly;) *
my heart is joyful because of your saving help.
I will sing to the LORD (rather grumpily at first), for he has dealt with me richly; *
I will praise the Name of the Lord Most High--
But I am singing, "Lord, give me patience*,
and give it to me now. right now, right now, right now."
Amen.
(Icon of St. Nicholas, 1294, Lipnya Church, Novgorod, Russia, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
(Originally written for Speaking to the Soul, December 6, 2011)
Readings for the feast day of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, December 6:
Psalm 145:8-13
Proverbs 19:17, 20-23
1 John 4:7-14
Mark 10:13-16
In reality, we know next to nothing about Nicholas. We know he was a bishop. We know he was tortured and imprisoned under the emperor Diocletian. We have modest evidence that he could have attended the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea in 325. That's pretty much it.
We do, however have intimate knowledge of the modern permutation of the legendary Nicholas, in the guise of St. Nick, aka Santa Claus.
Most of what we attribute to our modern Santa comes from legend involving Nicholas--things that endeared him to sailors, pawnbrokers, and most importantly, children. Many of the stories involving him are about giving money to those in need. The most spectacular legend about him (and my personal favorite) is the one where he raises from the dead three boys who had been killed and stuffed in a barrel.
We say we know who Nicholas was, but really, we know his larger-than-life, legendary shadow.
Our readings today focus on the disenfranchised--the poor and children--in both our Old Testament reading and from the Gospel.
We certainly know some legends about poor people, don't we?
Poor people are lazy and don't want to work.
Poor women are promiscuous and have lot of babies by different fathers.
Poor men are irresponsible and can't be depended upon.
Poor people by definition, do drugs, and drink a lot. They smoke a lot, too. They are poor because they spend the money they have on drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. They go to the ER and have drug-seeking behavior.
Poor people really aren't THAT poor, because in the U.S. they are often fat. They have cell phones. Some of them have bigger TV sets than mine. Some of them drive nicer cars than mine. They're not poor.
Poor people will always be poor. They don't want to help themselves.
There are two things I know for sure about legends. One is that somewhere in the legend is a kernel of truth. The other is, legends are easier to buy into when I have never met or interacted with the people of the legend.
That's the problem with legends. Sometimes there's a lot of baloney wrapped around that kernel of truth that obscures why the kernel of truth got there in the first place. Unraveling the baloney is tiring, a lot of work, and the amount of work involved is daunting enough to discourage us from ever accepting the possibility that there are other ingredients in this roll, and that there is a possibility that by changing some of the ingredients, the lives of individuals trapped in the legend can change for the better.
Now, as it worked out, the legend of St. Nicholas worked out to be one mostly used for good. It's good to have a legend where generally, it encourages us to be kind and generous to others, and it comes at a time of the year where I always hope the generosity of the season sticks with all of us.
But there's a problem with the St. Nicholas legend. The world of St. Nick's evolved character, Santa Claus, is also a world where all we have to do is make a list of our wants, be nice for a little while, leave out some cookies and milk, and we will get what we want. After all, we were "deserving" because we could manage to be nice for a little spell, right?
Happy legends are comfortable. They make us feel better. We don't have to move much outside ourselves to exist within them.
We can get that way a little bit about Legendary Jesus, too.
Legendary Jesus--rather white and fair for a Middle Eastern kinda guy, in a clean white robe, and with more teeth than a person of that era ought to have. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Loves the little children. All the children of the world. Oddly enough, it's those truck stop gift shop prints of "Jesus and the children" that distress me the worst. Oh, these days those kids come in various colors on that print, but it's what is NOT in the picture that bugs me.
There are no mentally challenged kids. There are no kids with physical deformities. There are no kids scarred by abuse, no kids dirty from neglect, no kids fearful of Jesus because a man who looked a little like him sexually abused them. There are no kids with bruises because the other kids bullied them. There are no kids wondering about their sexual orientation. There are no visibly malnourished kids.
The obscurity of Nicholas reminds us that there was probably much, much more to his life that was real, that would ask us to go deeper to love him the way we love Jolly Old St. Nick. In that, we should be reminded there is much to following Jesus that goes much deeper to feeling good as Christians about Legendary Jesus and calls us to get a little dirty searching for the truth of the message of Real Jesus.
(Photo of the new US 63 bypass in Kirksville from the dashboard of my truck)
(This post originally appeared in Daily Episcopalian, December 5, 2011)
A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
--Isaiah 40:3-5
Not long ago, one of the most exciting things for me in my rather sleepy rural northeast Missouri lifestyle was the opening of the new US Highway 63 bypass near Kirksville. As a child, one of my secret pleasures was getting to ride on a new road the day it was opened. It always seemed futuristic, full of opportunity and promise. New roads almost always cut through a rather sparsely inhabited area, and with no billboards up yet, it always had a rather pristine quality to it. It was like seeing an unlimited future of potential sprawled in front of me.
So it should not surprise anyone I thought about the new bypass a lot. Really, it was overdue for decades. Making a left turn on US 63 had become impossible in Kirksville at certain times of the day, and many stoplights on the road could easily be filled from traffic light to traffic light.
Unfortunately, it only took me about a day to get around how this new road was going to change things that had become my routine for eleven years. Every day, for eleven years, I drove to work by getting on US 63 and driving for about six miles, turned right on Potter St., turned left on Osteopathy St., and taking Osteopathy to the hospital complex. Every afternoon was the reverse--Osteopathy to Potter, to 63. Suddenly my routine was changed to US 63, including the new bypass, turn right at Route P, continuing on Route P (which changes names to Northtown Road,) and then turning left on Osteopathy.
I had no trouble making these changes going TO work--it was coming home FROM work that was the trouble. Every day, for weeks, instead of crossing Potter St. to get to Northtown Road, I would instinctively turn right onto Potter and then left on what is now the "old" 63, and without fail I would forget to turn right at Route P. I would get past the P turnoff, and invariably forget, and be heading north on "old" 63. Unfortunately, the northernmost access point to the bypass is not finished, and the "old" 63 temporarily dead-ends. So day after day I would realize I had gone too far, turned around, and headed back to get on the bypass the way I was supposed to. I was always thinking about some leftover from work, and miss my turn flat. I would then spend the rest of my trip home berating myself over my stupidity.
The Revised Common Lectionary readings for the second week in Advent often have the theme of "repentance." In Biblical Hebrew, the words used for repentance literally mean "to change" and "to feel sorrow"--in Biblical Greek, "to change one's consciousness." My nightly error became a regularly repeating reminder that changing one's consciousness is not as easy as one would expect.
Now, I like to think of myself as a fairly adaptable and flexible person, and quite frankly, a bit smarter than average. My chosen career rewards me for solving puzzles accurately and quickly (although not fast enough by some surgeons' standards, at times.) So this nightly gaffe became my latest exercise in sheer frustration. I would find myself cursing a blue streak at myself the moment I passed the P turnoff. Normally, my fifteen-to-twenty minute drive home is the treat of my day. It's a time I generally unwind and leave my work behind me and switch from the business of being the busy professional to the quirky hermit. Instead, I was ruining my evenings by fuming all the way home.
Then, one day, I remembered a frustration in my residency twenty years ago--learning to cut a frozen section. For the uninitiated, a frozen section is when the surgeon sends out a piece of fresh tissue from a surgical case and asks the pathologist, "What is it?" We freeze the tissue in a device called a cryostat, then cut the tissue in the cryostat on a device called a microtome, stain it, and render a diagnosis. The patient is asleep, and time matters. The answer may change the course of the surgery. In my residency, I remember how for ages I couldn't cut a slide to save my soul. I felt the weight of all the pressure of doing this in a timely fashion. Then one day, miraculously, I walked in and cut a frozen section like I had been doing it for decades. I simply had done it enough times that I could do it without thinking.
So, in like fashion, I quit putting pressure on myself. I decided that I'd simply laugh at my gaffe, turn around, and go home. Within a couple of days, my brain and body had made the switch. I was driving home the "new" way.
The problem with repentance is we have this tendency to think it's a one-time process, and that at the end of that one time we should have it all figured out, and we can move on. That's almost never the case. Our intent and our will is for it to be over and done with, and instead we find ourselves repeating the same misguided act or mentally dredging up what led us to repent in the first place...over and over...and over and over some more. We berate ourselves for our stupidity. We curse the darkness. We begin to place more and more pressure on ourselves to be "good," or tack an insanely short time frame goal for it to happen. Only until we accept our own humanity do we actually begin to repent, and only over time do we begin to take the new way home without thinking.
If only our Gospel accounts of John the Baptist had been written down--just once--with John saying, "Repent!...again...and again...and again some more...and don't plan on getting it right the first time." How much turmoil would we have saved from being schooled in this simple fact of the process of change?
Eucharistic Prayer C tells us that again and again God calls us to return. It only stands to reason that if we generally don't hear it the first time, we should not be surprised if we don't "get" it the first time when we respond to what we've heard--and the first part of "getting" it is being able to forgive ourselves and leave enough room to do it. If we do it enough times, something is bound to change. After all, we humans are creatures of habit.
When we prepare a highway for the Lord, we need to remember it wasn't built in a day--nor will we get used to it in a day.
("Zechariah Writes Down the Name of his Son," by Domenico Ghirlandaio, from the Icons and Imagery blog)
(This post originally appeared in Speaking to the Soul, Sunday, December 4, 2011)
Readings for Sunday, December 4, 2011:
Psalm 148, 149, 150 (Morning)
Psalm 114, 115 (Evening)
Amos 6:1-14
1 Thessalonians 5-11
Luke 1:57-68
Luke 1:57-68 (NRSV):
Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.” They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.” Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.
Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them."
One of the more interesting parts of running a hospital laboratory has to be the variety of names attached to the various specimens and samples. Sometimes I can roughly guess the age of the person by their name. It's a safe bet that someone named Pearl is likely to be Medicare-aged. The name Tab is a dead giveaway that the patient was probably born sometime in the late 50's or early 60's, and a person named Karma is apt to have been born around 1969. There are always exceptions to the rule, of course, but it's a fun work pastime.
Then there are those names that I can't help but think, "You named your kid THAT?" In my career, I've encountered a woman named Velveeta, a whole family where all the boys were named Otis, and enough unusual spellings of common names it sounds like a sci-fi convention.
The Bible, it seems, has an unusually high number of stories where the story revolves around something or someone being named--whether it's the initial naming, or people who get a "new" name once some dramatic thing has happened to them. Our Gospel reading is one of those stories. What strikes me in this story is that it is clear Elizabeth knows what the name of this child will be; yet well-meaning friends and relatives keep telling her otherwise.
It does seem a little odd that they want to name the child Zechariah--generally, modern Ashkenazic Jewish custom disapproves on naming children after living relatives--a long standing superstition suggests it will either invite ill health to the elder relative. At the very least, if the elder relative misbehaves, the child's name is stained by it. However, Sephardic Jews don't follow that custom, so the significance of this is uncertain. (Or is this part of the story signifying that when Zechariah could no longer speak to God in the temple, he was "dead" in some way?)
Once again, we are shown the power that exists in the act of naming. Nothing in life is more disquieting than uncertainty. But when we know the names of things, we begin to deal with them. People go in for biopsies and don't know "what's wrong with them." When I examine tissues and make a diagnosis--give it a name--even if the name is attached to a bad diagnosis, the person with the illness at least "knows what they have," and can begin to move to a place of completion with it.
Imagine Elizabeth's frustration in that she knows what this baby's name should be. She knows the "diagnosis," and everyone is telling her otherwise. How many times have we been stuck in situations where we have a name for what is going on, or we know what our feelings are about it, but everyone else tells us otherwise, or chooses to assign feelings to us, or project their own stuff on us?
The other striking thing in this story is that Zechariah is the only one who believes in what Elizabeth is saying, and even though he cannot speak, he writes "His name is John" in support of her position. One can imagine poor Zechariah, wildly gesticulating for someone to bring something for him to write with and upon, looking like he's having a seizure--even pounding the tablet with his finger for emphasis and glaring at everyone.
When Zechariah does this, a miracle occurs--his muteness is removed from him. It's a reminder that believing--and acting--on another's conviction has the power to free us from our own paralyses of speech.
As we ponder this story during Advent, in the light of our own stories, where are the places that we know the names of things but others keep telling us otherwise? Where are the places we need to believe in the convictions of those we love even if it seems we have been struck mute?
