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For many in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, it will be another Sunday, the last in July, but for a handful of German Saxon Lutherans, grief will supplant their centuries-old vision of the Sacred which they established in 1850; its name, Zion Lutheran Church in North City, is closing.
No longer will it be a dwelling place for God. No longer will congregants flock to Sunday services, attend the elementary school, gather for political discussions, and so much more, it being the hub of German culture.
With the prosperity of the city, all this changed. Decades of blight displaced the residents: Disintegrating hand-made brick homes were eventually torn down, the stripped lots choked with chicory tangles. Factory and ship-spawned soot also contributed to lung diseases and defaced limestone buildings. Survival prompted relocating to cleaner air. Yet, many congregants remained loyal to their church and attended Sunday services at Zion.
Years ago, attendance at their Midnight Mass drew my compassion for this impoverished Gothic church, its sixteen-bells carillon in the spire long silenced. Especially striking were the worn wooden kneelers, evidence of countless worshipers’ faith in God; tinsel-tired Christmas trees leaning against each other; pink walls clashing with the threadbare red carpet, the dank chill that no heating system could allay. Few worshiped with us that night in the candle-lit sanctuary.
Yet, my friend’s centenarian Mother still carries the stories of what happened there. Precious God remembers, too, with Kingdom blessings.
We now begin our reflection upon the seven Great O Antiphons of Advent that begin on December 17.
Note that each Antiphon opens with the exclamation of O! In its wake reverberate the explosion of discovery, the joy of wordlessness, and the silence of awe. Such may have been the experience of the composer of these ancient Antiphons while reflecting upon texts found in the book of Isaiah from which they were drawn.
O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other,
mightily and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.
The first O Antiphon addresses the longed-for Messiah as Wisdom, influenced by Isaiah 11:2-3; 28-29.
Such Wisdom is identified with Spirit or the Hebrew word, ruah, meaning breath that first hovered over primeval waters in the book of Genesis. Within this breath emanates all creation, then, as well as now; its intent: harmony, communion, and bountiful joy. It’s always been that way. But sin/separateness has corroded our spiritual faculties and exiled us into one wilderness after another where nothing lives.
Bereft of ultimate meaning, we’ve everything to learn. The Antiphon concludes with a cry for help, in the imperative voice: Come … teach … Only with willingness to accept ruah can begin the conversion of heart, critical to our evolving into a new creation. Ensuing dialogue with Him prompts the daily practice of Prudence or its modern equivalent, discernment.
That’s the rub: Discernment requires consciousness to use our Pause button when adhering to ruah’s direction, often contrary to our instinctual wants or demands, but we do it anyway. The desired change does occur.
Yearning, we all do it—whether for a new bicycle, for the phone to ring, for the healing of a break-up, or for restoration to health. Woven into this feeling is a pseudo hope, even perhaps a flight into fantasy or theft. How well I remember stealing the faux-gray suede wallet at a downtown store, related in an earlier blog.
But there’s a spiritual kind of yearning that empties the heart of the inessential, that demands reigning wayward instincts, that activates patience and discernment, and that reorients the psyche toward experiences of critical new learning.
Such leaves stretchmarks upon the psyche, hankers for the unknown that alone will satisfy, and thirsts for the unquenchable.
Old Testament texts abound with examples. Whenever yearning’s grip is too much, the waiting, too ambivalent, I turn to the psalms or the Book of Job for help: The Ancients had experienced this pull, as well, and recorded their experience.
Then you will call, and I will answer you, you will yearn for me the work of your hands, says Job to Yahweh (14:15). Such references His Unconditional love for us, and for those preparing for the physical death of their bodies, an extreme consolation.
In these Heart-whispering blogs, I’ve given way to the many faces of yearning, only to have waited out another lull with its subtle diminishment. And more purification and spiritual growth are still to come.
Heart Whisperings 