We are the only Spiritual Beings who are allowed to experience stone, the hardening of earthly matter, the mineral kingdom. We may not always realize that this is a privilege. The mineral kingdom gives us our foundation, the ground we walk upon, and the bones with which we walk. We find strength and security in this. We stand firm in our individuality, firm in our convictions. We find the grounds for our points of view. We build foundations, walls, bridges, and towers.
But this hardening of the earth and also of the human heart is the reason for Christ’s appearance on the earthly stage. We human beings went too far. We were hardening faster than we were able to manage. The Risen One reprimanded the Disciples for one thing: Their “hardness of heart.” Where are we today? Have we gotten any better?
We hear in Luke 21 that the heavens and the earth will be shaken. That which we have stood upon for so long shall be no more! It will happen when we least expect it. We are meant to be shaken! We are meant to awaken! The call of Advent is one of holy unrest.
We have not been given so many gifts in order that we could sit back and bask in our own good fortune; to delight in our own cleverness.
We who are not yet. We who are not yet spirit-filled, in whom the Spirit does not yet fully dwell, have hardened to the point where we do not remember the true meaning of earth existence! We are here to learn to love!
Once we begin to awaken, stone turns inside out and gives us another mission. Think of the birds, and how they eat small bits of stone and transform them into a shell to protect what is growing there, or how teachers and parents provide a firm structure and foundation so that the child can emerge and thrive. See how water crystalizes to become snow in order to provide a protective mantle for the plants below.
What is it now that we need to protect? What is it that wants to be born? We need to protect our faith. We need to protect our integrity, our ideals, our sense of what is right so that we do not become cynical or despairing. We need to protect our children. We need to protect those who are more vulnerable, marginalized, forgotten, persecuted. We need to protect the earth and her creatures. We need to protect the holy name of God and the living Christ who walks among us.
There is a reversal!
We who are always asking for things, for blessing and grace and all manner of favors, can become the ones who bestow them! Or else what does it mean to “walk with Christ?” or to have “Christ in you?”
We are the bearers of all that happens spiritually on the earth. This is our assignment: To read the signs of nature and to respond to them, to bear witness to the spiritual world weaving and working through the world, and to be the carriers of God’s becoming.
This requires a quiet, unhurried mood during Advent.