Attending to Hope
Table Talk
Setting the Table
You are welcome here. Come just as you are, bringing whatever is on your heart today. Take a few moments and allow yourself to just be. Take a couple deep breaths, grab yourself a cup of coffee, light a candle, do something that brings you comfort. Allow yourself to be present in this moment.
Consider that to offer hope for something, you must also direct some of your attention toward it.
Look well to the growing edge… This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of the child – life’s most dramatic answer to death – this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge!
— Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart
Gravity is grace.
All that has come to us
has come as the river comes,
given in passing away.
And if our wickedness
destroys the watershed,
dissolves the beautiful field,
then I must grieve and learn
that I possess by loss
the earth I live upon
and stand in and am. The dark
and then the light will have it.
I am newborn of pain
to love the new-shaped shore
where young cottonwoods
take hold and thrive in the wound…
— Wendell Berry, “The Gift of Gravity”
Luke 21:25-28, 36
"There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near. . . . Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Food for Thought
Welcome to Advent, the season of waiting. Unlike our culture’s rush to celebrate Christmas immediately after All Hallows’ Eve, Advent invites us to honor the waiting — the not-yets of life. We wait for test results or biopsy results, for grief to lessen, for healing in our bodies and in the world, for people to care more deeply for one another. We wait for meaningful action on ecological crises, for change that better supports the most vulnerable, for the courage to confront our fears, and for divisions and hatreds long entrenched to be rooted out of our hearts and communities. We wait for justice, civility, love, and hope.
In many churches, Christmas carols and the story of Jesus’s birth are not sung or told until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. This intentional waiting through Advent serves as a reminder that all is not yet as it should be. There is much we hope to celebrate that has not yet been realized. Just as Mary waited for the birth of her child, we, too, endure waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promises in our time. We wait for the inbreaking of God’s love in the world and for Christ’s presence to be manifest in our hearts.
But Advent waiting is not passive. It is a time of noticing, of paying attention, of staying awake and alert to what is precious and necessary before us. My dad has always tried to instill in me the value of paying attention. When I was married, when I had my first child, and at various other intervals of life, he has reminded me: “Pay attention; it all goes by so fast.” In one sense, this admonition is about cherishing each stage of my children’s lives, because the moments don’t last forever. But in another sense, it is also about paying attention to this wonderfully complex, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes breathtaking life itself, because nothing lasts forever. We don’t get back what passes us by.
In the grand scheme of things, we are but a fleeting moment. Yet, in this moment, right now, the wonders and beauty of creation, the intricacies and miracles of who we are and all we are tethered to — this world, one another — are worth our attention.
Attention is more than seeing something and knowing it exists. The call to attend is a call to noticing, to honoring, to tending, to hoping for what we are holding. So often, we neglect our call to attend to the pain, beauty, and potential of the world around us. We become distracted by the noise and busyness of life, and in doing so, we miss the holy. But if we are to truly stand before the sacred, to receive Christ, we must pay attention to what is before us. God’s inbreaking is happening all around us, in one another and in the world. If we fail to pay attention, we will surely miss it.
In this Advent season, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, Love incarnate, I hope and wait. I hope that we, as individuals and as a community, will cultivate the kind of attention that allows us to see the world for the precious treasure it is. Not a treasure to be hoarded, wasted, or exploited, but to be honored and cherished. It is a treasure that reflects God’s image in each person, where creatures and ecosystems are woven together in interdependence and mutuality, where miracles are painted across the horizon every day, and where life-giving waters reflect the intricacies and patterns of God’s creative goodness.
As we wait together, let us hold the world and one another with the tenderness and reverence we deserve. May we be awake to the sacredness of this moment, this season, and this life. May we cultivate within our own hearts the kind of wonder that leaves us open to the good in every precious miracle we encounter. May we be attentive to the beauty and pain of the world, loving it for all that it is — both broken and redeemed.
Name your hopes for the world – write them down if you would like, or draw a rendering of them. What elements of the world would benefit from the hopes you have named? How can you increase your attention to those things and their well-being in this Advent season? Are there things of this world your hopes would exclude, or that you do not feel you have the ability, energy, or will to tend? Offer a prayer that God would meet those things that are broken or hurting, and in need of love and hope that you are incapable of offering at this time.
The holidays are upon us and maybe you are finding yourself slightly nervous. It can be hard to know how to navigate or approach all that might divide us if brought up in conversation. To help our readers navigate this season, our team created a short resource to provide you with Five Things to Remember When Setting a Welcome Table for the Holidays! We hope it will help you set a welcoming space before your guests even arrive!
For a printable version of today's reflection Click Here!
Blessing
Holy One,
Bless our journey toward welcoming you into our world and into our hearts. May we garner our attention to your presence in all that is before us. Help us to love one another more fully and to care for all of creation more deeply, not out of selfish motivations, but out of a desire and hope to tend to the holy in all that is. Forever we hope in you.
Amen.
A little Table Talk for your table...
What does hope look like to you?
What does it mean to pay attention? To what would you like to pay more attention in your life, in your world? What around you needs tending and care?
What is one way you have cared for your world in the past? How can you care for your world a little more in this time of waiting?
Try taking it to the Kids Table...
Ask your kiddo if they like to wait for things. What do they enjoy waiting for? What is it difficult to wait for?
Talk to your child about hope. What does it look like to hope for something? What do we do when we hope for things? How do we express our hopes?
What does it mean to pay attention? Talk about the relationship between attention and care. While we hope for our world, we can tend to that which is in need of love and attention. What do they see that needs love and care around them?
Meet This Week’s Writer!
Rev. Daryn Stylianopoulos is originally from North Carolina, but has called Boston, MA home for nearly twenty years. She is a graduate of Wake Forest University and Boston University School of Theology and serves as a Baptist pastor in the Boston area. Daryn is an advocate for the marginalized and works against injustices in her community. She believes in creatively cultivating a spirit of cohesion, welcome, and healing in the world. A lover of art, music, gardening, and, most of all, family, she often looks to these for inspiration in her work and ministry.
To hear more from Rev. Daryn throughout the week, follow along on our Instagram!