The shout of rampart guards surrounds us;
"Awake, Jerusalem, arise!"
Midnight's peace their cry has broken,
Their urgent summons clearly spoken;
"The time has come, O maidens wise!
Rise up and give us light; the Bridegroom is in sight.
Alleluia! Your lamps prepare and hasten there,
That you the wedding feast may share."
--Hymn #61, The Hymnal 1982, Episcopal Church
Following the election, a song that kept running through my head was Andre Thomas' arrangement, "Keep Your Lamps," a song of both spirituality in referencing Jesus' parable of the young maidens who were ready for the bridegroom because they didn't waste the oil in their lamps, and its hidden message to African slaves to also be ready for the day would be coming when they would no longer be forced into hard labor, raped, and beaten by their white slave holders. While the hymn I've quoted at the beginning of this entry has, in my opinion, a little less of the raw power of Thomas' anthem, it is also a powerful message of both burning light and being ready. Nothing seems more appropriate for these times ahead.
To be more blunt: it's time to wake up.
Nobody can sleep soundly when the lights are turned on high, and nobody can be drowsy when it is time to move into a place of action. For too long, in my opinion, various institutions of our country have been slapping the alarm clock's snooze button. Now we're waking into a nightmare, and the sleepyheads are now rubbing their eyes and saying, "Wha' happened?!"
Wha' happened? Well, my brothers and sisters of the Fourth Estate have come to believe that "fair and balanced" reporting means that you give the same weight to someone telling you outright fabrications as you do to someone who fudges the truth. My brothers and sisters in Christ have been more willing to vote for supposed "pocketbook issues" while totally overlooking their candidate's out loud sexist comments and close ties with racists, xenophobes, and homophobes that are not in sync with the Gospel. And my brothers and sisters on the more left-end of the political spectrum would rather hurl rocks at other progressive people for not being liberal enough and failing to be "utterly pure" in keeping the left-wing agenda to the point that they foolishly spilled the oil from their lamps for third party fringe lunatics who think anti-gay dictators are a-OK.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake UP!!!
In this season of Advent, a time normally marked by patience and waiting, I find myself not in that space of patience and waiting in the usual sense. Instead, I'm looking around, not with anxiety (that wave has passed), but with a sense of quiet urgency that those of us who have been awake for awhile now must connect with the newly-awakened and form the alliances necessary to retain and maintain a fragment of what our nation should be, and not lose sight of its promises to promote life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness...or more rightly Justice...for all people. We cannot allow this dark wave of authoritarianism to snuff out the light of the longest-running democracy. The only way I know to do this work is through promotion of Love. Love is stronger than hate. Love is more bold than fear. Love is the promise that comes to Christians through the life of Jesus Christ. And Christ did not hold back on touching people and reaching out to those disparate groups who were struggling to hold it together under the rule of the Romans. If I have patience and waiting in my bones for this season, it is to enter into moments of quieting the chatter in my head long enough to listen for those opportunities to connect with other people seeking Love and not hate or fear during this long season ahead of us.
Let's find each other because stronger together, we can light up this world that is gathering under a dark cloud.
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