Hasten
Your labor is not in vain.
I did some scratch research this morning after slowly smoking a pipe (“Evening Pipe” tobacco, in case you’re interested) and watching the sun come up over the mountains. I weaved through this little city that looks like it was build for milling or factory work. Rows and rows of nearly identical block houses, with little districts of bricks and other ones of clapboard. A pleasant several kept their Christmas lights on all night: it is important to save the planet in all the ways and not just some of them.
I passed a Christmas tree light up in the morning pre-dawn light and watched smokestacks pour clouds into the air. Not all of those smokestacks are firing anymore: it is important to save the planet in all the ways and not just some of them.
I’m drinking over-roasted coffee in an upgraded industrial warehouse or something. They’ve decorated like all the places do now. Dark green-gray walls and bare red brick straight out of an Eddie Bauer catalog. An inordinate number of plans. Retro botany prints on the walls, the old-style Christmas string lights. An occasional golden frame and a mid-century modern chair. My rear hurts, but the windows are those big, paneled ones that look out at everything, even mobile home parks and old mechanic shop and a couple tall foothills out the direction of Charlottesville and a cell tower and the streaks in the sky from airplanes. It is what Ben Folds has called a “glary, random day.”
Snow is on the way. Early next week. They don’t dread it here like where I’m from. It’s part of the pattern of the season. It is the seasoning: salt from the last round is still splintered at the edges of parking lots and street curbs.
Warm up when you can. Nestle in when it’s time. Hurry to rest.
So I hastily researched the word, “hasten.” The English and their Northern European friends trace the word back to something that means “hurry” or "to cause something to happen faster.” The Basques of Spain and France have an identical word but a definition that I find much more helpful: to hasten is to move with urgency.
I like that. I’m a sometime theatre director. One of my mentors in graduate school used to say that good acting is urgent acting. “Raise the stakes,” she’d say. “Act like you’re at the point of a knife.” Move with urgency, people. If you hurry, you might get hurt. Don’t hurry. Just move with urgency. And a bit of intent.
Get the bread and milk already. And then hurry home. But then, rest and watch the urgent snow fall.
The pregnancy of the season is an urgent one. It is at the point of a knife, that much is apparent he says as he drives around his city and turns down NPR every now and again. It was a the point of a knife for Mary, too, like so many mothers we’re seeing right now, working with urgency at the point of a missile or a rifle. Your labor is not in vain.
It is important to save the planet in all the ways and not just some of them.
Meditation
Picture yourself in a cozy cafe, the world bustling outside. Through large windows, life unfolds in all its diversity. The impending snow, each flake falling with purpose, brings a sense of urgency yet calm. This scene captures the essence of Advent: a time where urgency doesn't mean to rush, but to be fully present, making each moment count.
Examen
Recall a recent moment when you felt rushed. How did it differ from feeling a sense of purposeful urgency?
Reflect on the quiet urgency of Mary's journey and the story of all mothers around the world right now. The ones at borders. The ones in Israel and Palestine. The ones on the steps of Supreme Courts. How does this resonate with your own experiences during this time of expectant waiting?
Let the falling snow be our guide, teaching us to move with purpose even as we await the future with patience. Let our urgent mothers be our guide, teaching us to move with insistence and clarity even as the world careens, at times, out of control.