Dear Lord and Father-Peace

The week of Advent 3 is upon us and if your house is like most, the frantic pace is picking up. It is even (maybe especially) true at churches as choirs and clergy and other workers prepare feverishly for the special services of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. As our thoughts and prayers linger with the families in Newtown, CT, we pray for peace and healing.

This is the time when it is so hard to hear the Spirit of God calling us to find peace. The hymn we’ve been meditating on has led us through Advent with a call to forgive and follow, to wait for the promise of the season. Dear Lord and Father, comes to an end with a call to peace and listening for the ‘still, small voice’ that calls us to calm.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.

The first week of Advent we looked at the need to turn back to God in this time of preparation and waiting. Last week, we saw that the waiting and preparation is not about doing things, but about allowing the Holy ideas to gestate so we can hear God call to us.

This week, Whittier calls us into the peace of God that happens when we allow God to “take from our souls the strain and stress…[and] breathe through the heats of our desire.” With 2 weeks til Christmas,and hearts heavy with grief, it may be hard to slow down enough to find “the beauty of Thy peace”.

To paraphrase the last verse, for the season:

Quiet the frantic search for gifts
So we may hear Thy Call.
Set aside sales, wrapping, ads,
And worship Thee alone.

What if, instead of picking up the pace as Christmas approaches, we slowed down and listened to the words of the hymn we have been mediating on during Advent? Here’s the Westminster Abbey choir singing the hymn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faNij71hh7o-
I don’t know if these thoughts have helped any of you have a calmer Advent, but I needed to hear the message myself. Isn’t that often the way it is, when you set out to prepare a talk or write a book or blog?God graciously opens our hearts to hear what we need to hear in the words we prepare to share!
 
Next week is the end of Advent and Christmas Eve is just around the corner!