Advent 2024: Waiting in the Dark

The Birth of Jesus Foretold Luke 1:26-35

²⁶ In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.” ²⁹ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. ³⁰ The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. ³¹ And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. ³² He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. ³³ He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” ³⁴ Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” ³⁵ The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 

Advent is traditionally a time of waiting, as Mary waited for her baby Jesus to be born.  For me, it is also a time of quiet reflection as my energy lessens as the darkness comes earlier in the day, and lasts longer.

This Advent season finds many of us tired, and fearful of the future.  For some of us, it feels as though we are waiting for the other shoe to drop, for more bad news that comes in a daily onslaught.  For those of us who care about our immigrant friends, it is heartbreaking to hear of their fear of being detained and deported, of families breaking apart, of jobs lost and poverty worsening, of children being abandoned and entire communities on high alert.

As President of Farm Worker Ministry Northwest, I serve on the Board of National Farm Worker Ministry.  We educate and organize the faith community and others of moral conscience to advocate and support farm workers as they seek to better their lives.  Sadly, farm workers face a multitude of intersecting evils including poverty wages, unsafe working conditions, racism, climate change exposure to heat and smoke, wage theft, exposure to pesticides, child labor, gender discrimination and sexual harassment, substandard housing—in addition to immigration problems.  For almost 90 years now, farm workers have been left out of the federal protections of the National Labor Relations Act which forbids employers from firing a worker for joining, organizing or supporting a labor union.  Very few farm workers belong to a labor union.  Some work on farms that have been certified through the Fair Food Program or the Equitable Food Initiative which gives farm workers safer and more equitable working conditions.  But the vast majority of farm workers work with no labor law protections.

Most farm workers today are immigrants from Mexico or other parts of Latin America, and at least half are undocumented.  Year after year federal legislation gets introduced to relieve some of the evils that farm workers face, but very little gets done.  And yet, these workers go to the fields and factories each day, doing jobs that no one else wants to do, working hard and toiling invisibly to give us our daily bread—truly essential workers.

We don’t know exactly what the future will bring, but we know that it will hard on our immigrant families.  We are waiting, fearful of the future, and like Mary we wonder “how can this be?”  But we also must remember the angel Gabriel telling Mary that “the Lord is with you.”  This is the time for us to come together in faith and hope and solidarity, letting all in our community know that they are not alone, and that we join them in their struggle.  This advent season is not the time for despair, but the time for preparation for the birth of something new-stronger communities which care about everyone, especially those who toil so hard for so little.

Let us make this Advent season a time of quiet reflection on our faith and our connection to God/Spirit/Love.  Let us pray for strength and guidance to do what we can for our neighbors.  And let us reach out in love and solidarity in ever-widening circles of care, right where we live.                                                                                                                                                             

Breath Of Heaven (Mary's Song)
Songwriters: Amy Grant / Christopher Eaton

I have travelled many moonless nights
Cold and weary with a baby inside
And I wonder what I've done
Holy Father, You have come
And chosen me now to carry Your Son

I am waiting in a silent prayer
I am frightened by the load I bear
In a world as cold as stone
Must I walk this path alone?
Be with me now
Be with me now

Breath of Heaven
Hold me together
Be forever near me
Breath of Heaven
Breath of Heaven
Lighten my darkness
Pour over me Your Holiness
For you are Holy
Breath of Heaven

Do You wonder as You watch my face?
If a wiser one should have had my place
But I offer all I am

For the mercy of Your plan
Help me be strong
Help me be
Help me

Breath of Heaven
Hold me together
Be forever near me
Breath of Heaven
Breath of Heaven
Lighten my darkness
Pour over me Your Holiness
For You are Holy

Breath of Heaven
Hold me together
Be forever near me
Breath of Heaven
Breath of Heaven
Lighten my darkness
Pour over me Your Holiness
For You are Holy

Breath of Heaven
Breath of Heaven
Breath of Heaven

Breath Of Heaven (Mary's Song) lyrics © Riverstone Music Inc., Clouseau Music, Be Essential Songs, Bethel Music Publishing, Brian And Jenn Publishing

The Rev. Connie Yost is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister.  She is President of Farm Worker Ministry Northwest, a member organization of National Farm Worker Ministry.  She supports the farm workers at Windmill Mushroom Farm in Sunnyside, Washington who have been trying to unionize with United Farm Workers for nearly three years while experiencing multiple employee firings, unjust work quotas, and management harassment.  Hear their story here.  She lives in Portland, Oregon.

                                                        

Copyright 2024 Constance B. Yost. All rights reserved.

A New Hope for A New Year

by The Rev. Connie Yost

 I am a bit late coming to this New Year 2024 blog post, but my thoughts about it have been welling up as we enter this election year.  I admit I approach 2024 with fear – fear that the onslaught of election news will wear me down, and a greater fear that a candidate will win the Presidential election who will further degrade not only our democracy but humanity itself.  I long for God in all of this, for those people who can lift up and further the attributes of my God – kindness, strength, hospitality, equality, creativity, beauty, truth, love.

Of all the religious holidays we celebrate, I have come to resonate most deeply with Epiphany. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Epiphany as “January 6 observed as a church festival in commemoration of the coming of the Magi as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles or in the Eastern Church in commemoration of the baptism of Christ.”  For Western Christians, this is the day that three wise men or Magi, guided by a star, discovered the baby Jesus, born in a barn to poor people who soon became refugees to protect Jesus from the murderous King Herod.

January 6 – Epiphany – is the day Christians celebrate the light in the darkness.  How very terrible that it is now inextricably bound up with the day a mob descended on the US Capitol with murderous intent to stop the certification of electoral college votes in the 2020 Presidential election.

And yet, because the vile act of January 6, 2021 happened on Epiphany, I find it even more important to remember the message of Epiphany.  The Magi were not Jews, they were Gentiles, and yet they traveled far to find a new revelation of God in the Jewish baby Jesus.  They bridged divides and hardships to join in this revelation, this new light in the world.

The word epiphany comes from the Greek epiphaneia, meaning “manifestation.”  The Merriam-Webster dictionary further defines the manifestation as:

1.  especially of a divine being

2.  a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something

3.  an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure

4.  an intuitive grasp of reality through something (such as an event) usually simple and striking

5.  a revealing scene or moment

Maya Angelou's defines Epiphany as “the occurrence when the mind, the body, the heart, and the soul focus together and see an old thing in a new way."

Epiphany brings me new hope because it affirms that there is always the possibility of something new happening in our thoughts, in our lives, and in the world.  We just need to pay attention.  We need a spiritual contemplative, meditative practice to help us be attentive.  We need our spiritual practice to ground us where our hope truly resides, in the “power of love and renewal that lives within the universe, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God.” (Sallie McFague).  Jesus as Prophet shows us that “God offers us quiet, contemplative eyes; God also calls us to prophetic and critical involvement in the pain and sufferings of our world – both at the same time.” (Richard Rohr)

For many Christians, Epiphany is not just one day, but the beginning of a season that lasts until the first day of Lent.  For me, the Epiphany season is one of new beginnings, new hope, bringing light to the word, and a time to focus on the attributes of my God in the world - kindness, strength, hospitality, equality, creativity, beauty, truth, love. 

Epiphany asks me these questions:  How am I doing as the manifestation of these attributes in my life?  How can I bring more of these things into my life?  How is my spiritual practice supporting me?  How attentive am I to Spirit’s message of love in the midst of my own pain and the sufferings of the world?  How can I bring the light of Epiphany into the world?

Copyright 2024 Constance B. Yost. All rights reserved.

Happy New Year 2021

Happy New Year 2021

I am not sure how happy this new year is for most of us.  For me, it started like so many of the days before it - gray, rainy and straining my ability to think up new things to do to keep myself from sinking into boredom and lethargy.

But I do feel hope in the new year.  There is a new federal administration coming  in a few weeks that won’t solve all our problems or do everything I want, but will definitely do better than what we have had.  With any luck the daily news won’t be full of a barrage of lies and attacks on our democracy by the very leaders who are supposed to be upholding and advancing our democratic principles.  Maybe some decency will even enter into the public discourse and we will offer meaningful, tangible support to all those who have been hurt by the pandemic and all those who were already hurting due to their immigration status and/or poverty wages.

That’s a lot to ask, it seems.  How can we be the richest country in the world yet have so many people living in intolerable circumstances?  Can it be that we collectively worship wealth more than equality?  Can it be that we care about justice only if it doesn’t cost us anything, or inconvenience us in any way, or limit our own ability to accumulate wealth?

The pandemic ended life as we knew it, and now that I have been lamenting this for over nine months, I am beginning to understand that there is a gift in this, waiting for us to claim it.

The Indian writer Arundhati Roy writes[i]:

What is this thing that has happened to us? It’s a virus, yes. In and of itself it holds no moral brief.  But it is definitely more than a virus. Some believe it’s God’s way of bringing us to our senses. Others that it’s a Chinese conspiracy to take over the world.

Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could.  Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to “normality,” trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew.  This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.

We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

Lessons from a Virus

 

Photo from the March 2020 newsletter of https://www.rightuseofpower.org/

 Like everyone else, I am trying to adjust to a new life back home here in Portland, Oregon, with orders from the governor to stay at home.  On the one hand it isn’t so different from the way I was living before since I work from home, live alone, am an introvert and love solitude.  Still, there are things that I love that I can’t do right now:  group walks and hikes, meeting friends for coffee/meals, attending worship and coffee hour, going to arts events, shopping at Macys, etc. etc.  Luckily we have technology that lets us see each other and keep in touch, and though it isn’t the same as being face to face, we can still stay connected and keep our work going.  Most painful for me is that all my trips to events that I was so looking forward to have been cancelled or postponed.  I may not get to see my adopted daughter, green sea turtle "coota" Glitter Mittens, get released back into the ocean in Georgia.  And it will be interesting to see how we do a massive national digital rally for the Poor People’s Campaign on June 20.

I have learned through my own life experience that even in a dark time, there are still gifts that are being offered to us.  One of the real benefits of this time for me has been all the spiritual teachers and healers and writers stepping forward to offer their podcasts and webinars and resources for free.  Now instead of walking with my group of friends, I walk alone listening to a podcast.  A friend sent me the newsletter of The Right Use of Power Institute, which I had never heard of, and found their articles on wrestling with this time of fear and not knowing very helpful.  (See the end of this post) 

Although my activism hasn’t slowed down at all with all the petitions being circulated now and the (even greater) needs of the farm and low-wage workers I advocate for, I feel a new spaciousness and commitment to nurturing my own spirit through daily spiritual practices such as walking, gardening, writing, gratitude, compassion, and making personal phone calls.  I urge you to do the same and offer this 7 Day Guide to Gratitude by Diana Butler Bass as a good antidote to everything that is happening.  (I as write this, a crow is gathering small branches off my neighbor's tree and a pair of mallard ducks have shown up in my yard (no body of water nearby!), reminding me that it is nesting time and life goes on.)

I am cautiously optimistic that we will come out of this stronger as a nation, that more people will embrace compassion as a way of acting in the world, and that we will enact policies on a permanent basis that support the well-being of people, especially poor people, and the planet over profit.  Check out this new video from author and activist Naomi Klein who explains that this time of “shock” can result in the impossible suddenly becoming possible.

As cocooning is forced on me, I take time to think of the ways in which I was living in a self-imposed exile.  A lovely song by Claude McKenzie “Assikuman-Tetapuakan” (The Metal Chair) is sung in Innu, and tells the story of a man who assesses his life.  He sits on a metal chair that represents his troubled memories.  He thinks of lost loved ones and understands that he must stop waiting for the return of his love.  He then looks out the window and perceives that the ice is melting.  He wants to run away and hide but he decides to continue to fight the opposing forces that confine him.  He will never sit down on this metal chair again.[1]

My prayer is that when this time of crisis is over, we will come out of our cocoons, throw out our metal chairs, and commit ourselves anew to the practice of love, compassion and nonviolence for all beings and the planet. 

Today

By Beah Richards  

Today is ours, let’s live it.

And love is strong, let’s give it.

A song can help, let’s sing it.

And peace is dear, let’s bring it.

The past is gone, don’t rue it.

Our work is here, let’s do it.

Our world is wrong, let’s right it.

The battle hard, let’s fight it.

The road is rough, let’s clear it.

The future vast, don’t fear it.

Is faith asleep? Let’s wake it.

Today is ours. Let’s take it!

---

[1] From Putumayo Presents, Native America, CD liner notes

 

Intimacy

My adopted daughter, Glitter Mittens, "coota" in Gullah language, at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, 2019

Being Open on the Day of Epiphany

January 6, 2020

Christians celebrate today, January 6, as the Feast of Epiphany, or The “Self-Manifestation” of God in which, on the twelfth day of Christmas, three wise men found the Christ child lying in a manger in Bethlehem.

I don’t think you have to be a Christian to appreciate the metaphor of the wise men, who hear a rumor of a savior and travel, guided by a star, to find the child in the most humble of circumstances.  Still, they recognized what they saw - a savior, a messiah - and offered their precious gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And as Matthew 2:12 says, they decided not to report back to the Roman King Herod, who had it in mind to destroy this “King of the Jews.”  “And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.”  

I can’t get over this humble Jesus no matter how far I stray from my Christian roots.  He is it for me.  From everything from his humble birth to his gruesome death and jubilant resurrection, I love him totally and completely.  He is teacher, rabbi; he is activist, gathering people together and calling out injustice; he is sufferer, withdrawing and praying; he is lover and healer of those who seek him out.  He is vulnerable and he is real, and he lives on and on and on in my heart.  He challenges all of us, but most especially men, I think, to break down the walls of our heart and enter into an intimacy, which Richard Rohr says is another word for trustful, tender, and risky self-disclosure.

That seems to be what is up for me now.  At 68, I can’t pretend to be anything other than what I am.  I certainly am not proud of all that I have done and been.  Our guide at the Gullah-Geechee Museum in Savannah reminded me so much of a lover I had back in the day, and though I didn’t admit it at the time, I now know that I treated him very badly.  He even said it once, that I was cruel.  That didn’t fit my self-image at the time so I discarded it, and focused instead on his shortcomings.  But I hope that I am now able to be vulnerable enough with myself to take a fearless inventory of my thoughts and behavior, and correct my course when I become judgmental, impatient or cruel.  I try not to be those things, but sometimes I am, and I pray that I have enough consciousness to stop myself before I do irrevocable damage to someone.

Richard Rohr says, “I believe vulnerable intimacy is the entrance into and the lynchpin between all human and divine love.  It does not matter which comes first; it is just important that we pass through this gate of fear and find what lives inside us—and on the other side of the gate.”  

Whether grasped by the love of Jesus, or someone on this human plane, we owe it to ourselves and each other to forge ahead through fear, and find what lies within the heart of love.   I am sure it is worth the risk and effort.

Copyright 2020 Constance B. Yost. All rights reserved.