A Letter from Ashtyn Adams, Duke Divinity Intern
Dear Pilgrims,
It has been such a joy to be welcomed into your community and worship alongside you. I am grateful for these past opportunities to learn and explore my vocation, and for the laughs we’ve shared along the way. This past Sunday was my last for a few weeks as my fall semester comes to a close, but I look forward to reconnecting when my spring semester begins again in mid-January.
Since I’ll be missing Advent with you all, I wanted to share a few reflections on this coming season, which is the beginning of our Christian calendar. Advent lasts 20 to 28 days, depending on the year, but always ends on December 24th. It is a time marked by waiting and expectation. Many of us may want to skip right toward the triumph and celebration of Christmas, of God enfleshed and dwelling among us as a newborn baby, but as Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us, “Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”
This period of darkness is an invitation to embrace the hard things of life, and truly, these have been hard times. I know each of us has much to wait for in private: for reconciled relationships, for healing, for peace; but Advent also urges us to shirk our individualism and wait for the world: for racial justice in our country, for creation which we can hear groaning louder and louder each day, for an end to the violence raging abroad. We are to join the psalmist and the saints of Revelation, who cry out, “How long, O Lord?” Such individual and communal laments have the power to draw us towards the Holy, whose loving presence is always available to us, even as we live in the not-yet before Christ comes again to restore all things.
We may be surprised to discover how spiritually rich Advent can be if we truly lean into the darkness and walk through it together. Though this time of waiting for change and redress may seem long, perhaps at times unbearable, we press on in honest hope, trusting that the thirst we feel will be satisfied– often in very unexpected ways. We will celebrate that relief come Christmas. In the meantime, let us attend to the whisper of God in our lives. Henri Nouwen reminds us, “The Lord is coming, always coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment of your life. Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord.”
Though I’ll miss walking through Advent with you all in person, I will be holding you in my prayers from afar. May we meet God and each other with Advent eyes and ears this season.
Grace and peace,
Ashtyn