Advent: Presence

The difficulty in connecting with the Transcendent is that it is, well, transcendent. How can the mundane understand the sublime? It’s like a butterfly experiencing the flame, or a slug experiencing flight. The Tao that can be perceived is not the eternal Tao.

And yet Advent marks the waiting for a time when the Tao made itself known, and  the Transcendent drew close. By walking in its path, by moving our feet in the same way its footsteps once fell, we close the distance between one another and find ourselves drawn into the presence that draws nearer to us. 

Writing for me can be a powerful if solitary way to experience that presence. But I love music also. Sacred music, secular, high or low, those distinctions often matter little. 

The other night my daughter and I were in the car, and one of us started to sing. The other joined in. Voices melded in harmonies all the lovelier for their imperfections. Breathing synched up. Heartbeats fell in step with one another. Spirits soared. 

In drawing close to one another through the shared experience of a song, we allowed ourselves to be drawn into the presence of something much older, much wiser and much truer than ourselves individually or even corporately. 

When we do this purposefully, we call it worship; and the Transcendent makes itself known in our    midst.


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Advent: Open

There’s a certain comfort in closed doors. If the way is barred, you never need to worry what’s on the other side. It’s blocked off and inaccessible. Going that way is not an option. 

But when it’s open? There’s the rub. An open path may lead to adventure, or it may yield nothing more exciting than a cardboard box. Knowledge, fortune, opportunity, loss, destruction and dragons may all lie ahead when the path is open, but you’ll never know until you explore. 

Fortune favors the bold.

Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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