Advent Journal

Like most other things I do, I keep Advent sporadically.

I pray daily, until I don't. I think about Advent more than I observe it, if you follow my meaning.

One theme of Advent with which I resonate fully is the here/not yet here nature of the season. We await Christ who, of course, has already come (millions upon millions of times, if what Jesus said about "Where two or three are gathered..." holds true). Christ is here, and yet not yet here-- the world we live in doesn't yet live into the promised reign of peace and justice. Of course, the resonance is with my own life, with my ability to live fully in my own skin. I find that there is an "already there" aspect to my comfort with my sexuality in the congregation. I find that references to sexual orientation come more naturally in my prayers, in my sermons. I do not sweat it as I used to, fretting and worrying it to death. I actually am praying when I pray in the pulpit, and if I feel drawn by the Spirit to speak of the healing we need, I simply pray it, and it's done. And no, of course, I don't mean that gayness needs to be healed, but rather the division of the world into those who are sexual suspects and everyone else.

But I am still waiting, of course, to be fully out. The time is not here yet, I know that. I spent much of this weekend with Beloved, staying with her in her home. It is very cold here, and the snow is on the ground at last. I had to bundle up each time I left her house, to go to church on Sunday morning, to go to other church obligations over the course of the weekend. Each time I returned, I had a profound sense of both gratitude for the home that awaits me there... the freedom to be fully present to the woman I love, the freedom to be who we are together... and loss that this freedom and honesty is circumscribed by location. We can be out here, but not there. We are free in one place, and not another. The sweetness of our time together has something to do with the long spaces between those days and nights, the weeks when we cannot be together, the time when who I am must be cloaked.

I know this: when I was with Beloved this weekend, and the snow was swirling outside the windows, and we were able to share a meal I had prepared, and we were able to truly be together: that was my Christmas. That was my moment of incarnation: living fully in my flesh the connection we feel in our souls. Living into the love that God has breathed into our lives. No other celebration is necessary. The waiting is over.