Long Obediences
LETTER BY BRIAN MORYKON
At ninety and ninety-two, Jean Nevills’s dad and mom can still be found plucking mandolin and guitar on the porch of the house she grew up in.
I asked Jean to write about God’s presence in everyday life, also known as the Incarnational Tradition. When Jean thought about who incarnates — literally, enfleshes — the light of Christ, her parents were the first people that came to mind.
Her essay opens with a picture of them that deeply touches my heart. Perhaps this is because the older I get, the less I’m impressed by strong starts and the more I’m impressed by long obediences and strong finishes. I found myself praying, “Help me be like that when I’m ninety.”
What makes for a long obedience is a bunch of daily obediences one after the other, like stones laid for a walking path. Our job is to stay attentive to the Architect who rather suddenly can disrupt our idea of how the path should look.
When Mary was found pregnant, Joseph’s path certainly got disrupted. In this week’s Advent meditation, Mimi Dixon points out that “Joseph experienced the death of his future with Mary. He never saw it coming.” Yet he obeyed, laid the stones of his life in a different direction, and became a participant in God’s redemption plan.
May it be so with us; not because we should obey but because we can. Obedience is an opportunity offered to us by God so that our capacity for joy may be increased, so that in losing our life we may find it. Through obedience — and through awareness, as Jean talked about in this week’s podcast—our everyday mundane moments can be filled with the presence of God.
One final word …
Because of loss or pain, Christmastime for some is more bitter than sweet. Wherever you are on that spectrum, our prayer is that you know Christ is present to you. He sees what’s going on. He isn’t aloof. He is here in joy and in sorrow. He has felt what you feel. He put on human flesh and experienced human hurt because he intends to redeem it. No tear will be wasted.
From all the Staff and Ministry Team here at Renovaré, may you know the nearness of Christ this Christmas,
Brian Morykon
Director of Communications
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