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| The second Advent Candle is lit |
Today was the second Sunday in Advent and so two candles are now lit on the Advent Crown at the 1,000 year church. The light is increasing in the midst of winter dark.
Last week I explored Hope. This week's theme is Peace. I must admit that, only a few days away from a General Election here in the UK, I am not feeling very peaceful and haven't got a thought in my head about what I might write. But I will trust.
On the first Sunday in Advent I wrote about an alternative set of themes for the weeks of Advent followed by contemplative Carmelite nuns. The theme of their first week was 'waiting', and for this second week of Advent, 'accepting'. It may be that in holding peace in one hand and acceptance in the other we will find a gentle path through the days to come, whatever they might hold.
As we are following the older, wilder, trackway of Celtic Advent it may be that we will find wisdom and comfort in the old saints. It comes to me that this would be the perfect week to write about St Pega of the Fens and St Caemgen, or Kevin, of the Open Hand. And we will sink into poetry, carrying with us the shining thread of hope already spun. And, next Sunday, the third candle will be lit, of that at least we can be sure.
Often at protest rallies a cry goes up, "No justice, no peace!", and it can feel that those two things are interwoven, that without the former we can never achieve the latter. I have been inspired by the people of the Grenfell silent walk, who shout only for "justice!" for the victims and families of the horrific Grenfell fire. At the start of the walks we shouted for both but slowly they separated; peace in one hand, acceptance in the other. In this case acceptance that the path to justice is long in the midst of this, it matters to remember that to find peace in a world which seeks to unground us is also Resistance.
In 1968, in response to the Vietnam War, Anerican novelist, poet, and environmental activist, Wendell Berry said;
"We seek to preserve peace by fighting a war, or to advance freedom by subsidizing dictatorships, or to 'win the hearts and minds of the people' by poisoning their crops and burning their villages and confining them to concentration camps; we seek to uphold the 'truth' of our cause with lies, or to answer conscientious dissent with threats and slurs and intimidations....I have come to the realization that I can no longer imagine a war that I would believe to be either useful or necessary. I would be against any war."
Nothing has changed.
And so today I will end with one of Wendell Berry's own poems which always brings me a sense of great peace; 'The Peace of Wild Things'.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great
heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
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| St Blaise holy well |
References:
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/peace-wild-things-0/
https://eu.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry
Writer Sarah Bessey is exploring the Advent themes of the Carmelite nuns on her blog at ~
https://linktr.ee/sarahbessey
that poem has been a touchstone for me for many years. peace is many things, which makes it hard to achieve, hard to hold onto (both personally and culturally)... yet all the example we need is all around us in nature. the more we re-embed ourselves in nature, the more we embody peace.
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