Where do such hopes and longings arise from? Are they simply "pie-in-the-sky" ideals, forever out of reach, or do they point to something more profound at the core of the human heart, spirit, and soul? I believe that the latter, is, of course, the case. At the heart of every person who has ever endeavored to live a truly and fully human life is a "surplus longing for life." Some have said that at the core of who we are lies an empty void that can only be filled by God. While this is certainly one way of describing the angst that we often feel when life doesn't quite measure up to our hopes and aspirations, another way is to say that at the core of our selves is a "surplus longing for life." Far from a mere "emptiness" or "void", this sacred "energy" in our heart is meant to always be unnerved by a longing that no amount of eating, drinking, drugging, debauching, or acquiring can slake. In fact, to try and slake this "surplus longing" by filling ourselves is to bring about it's vengeance. How can we possibly fill what is by definition an unyielding desire for fullness? How do we live with such an unnerving tension? I would suggest that we first acknowledge it and then, simply let it be. By doing so, this "surplus longing" yields a creative and powerful vision of what life can and should be, not only for ourselves, but for our entire world.
I would like to suggest that acknowledging the "surplus longing for life" and simply letting it be is precisely what the prophet Samuel and the Virgin Mary do in this past Sunday's readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent. After Samuel is told by King David that David plans to build a temple for God, Samuel is gripped by an intuition and vision that it isn't David who is to build a house, but God who will build a house for David, ensuring that David's reign will never end. This is the first, explicit oracle that points to the Messiah. In the Gospel, Mary is visited by the Angel Gabriel who tells her that she will "be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit" and will give birth to the Son of God. The readings make explicit what Samuel and Mary do in response to God's oracles; however, what we can assume is that these oracles came, in part, as a result of Samuel and Mary learning to accept and live with the "surplus longing" at the core of their persons. A famous theologian once said that, "every symphony must remain unfinished." What he meant by this is that the symphony that is our lives, and the symphony that is the world, no matter how beautiful, still inspires more than what we can realize this side of heaven. The point of the metaphor, the point of this weekends readings, and the point of the surplus longing for life that drives us is to simply play the tune of Christ as beautifully as we can and leave it to God to conduct it into the final symphony of salvation.
With the Christmas season in full-swing in the secular realm and record commercial sales being posted, it can be so very easy to overlook the fact that we are actually in the thick of the Advent season. The word itself is from the latin adventus, which means "coming". Wikipedia has it quite right by saying that the Advent Season is one of "expectant waiting." This implies an "active" mode of the hopeful anticipation of encounter rather than the more "passive" act of waiting to see what is wrapped under the Christmas tree. With regard to the waiting that is characteristic of the Advent Season, Henri Nouwen describes it in these words: "Waiting, as we see it in the people on the first pages of the Gospel, is waiting with a sense of promise: 'Zechariah...your wife Elizabeth is to bear you a son.'.... 'Mary,....Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son'. (Luke 1:13, 31). People who wait have received a promise that allows them to wait. They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started to grow. This is very important. We can only really wait if what we are waiting for has already begun in us. So waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. It is always a movement from something to something more."
I learned a profound lesson about the spirit of Advent Anticipation in meeting Mark. I met Mark on a recent trip to the VA Medical Center in St. Cloud, MN. I went there to attend the care conference of a client under guardianship. I arrived with the "lowest common denominator" expectation of simply attending the care conference and then meeting with three other clients in residence there. I didn't anticipate or expect anything special or out of the ordinary. I had been down this road several times already and must say that I had a bit of "tunnel vision" in focusing solely on my reason for being there (rather than God's reason for my being there!) When I walked into the room where the conference was going to be, I encountered a diminutive, slightly older than middle-aged man sitting by himself. He had thick glasses on that made his eyes as big as coffee saucers and was quietly and contentedly sipping coffee. I wondered what he was doing in the room all by himself. I introduced myself and told him my reason for being in the room. At that he said that he should probably leave. I told him he could stay since the conference wouldn't begin for about ten minutes.
At the invitation to stay we began to share a little bit about ourselves. I found out from him that, in addition to being a veteran, he had earned his PhD in history. He also had a number of children and a loving wife with whom he had recently spent the Thanksgiving holiday. After sharing my theological educational and vocational background, we began talking about faith. He surprised me by saying that it was his conviction that we didn't end up in the same room as a happenstance, but, rather, that God gave us this time, and this space, to share with one another in order to encounter the living God who delights in surprising us at a moment's notice. I found in Mark what Advent Anticipation is all about. Here was a man who was not at all alone in the early morning light of the conference room. Rather, he was there with the seed of God growing within him, being nurtured by his recent experience of Thanksgiving and his total life experience. Mark was kind enough to share that seed with me and to remind me of the divine seed that I hope is growing within me and that will grow within all of us this Advent Season.
