Tuned, and ready to receive...

My Advent started off with a bang, with the O Antiphons: who wouldn't be moved by the poetry of Malcolm Guite? Doesn't this poem perfectly describe the state of mind with which we begin this season in search of the Light?

O Radix

All of us sprung from one deep-hidden seed,
Rose from a root invisible to all.
We knew the virtues once of every weed,
But, severed from the roots of ritual,
We surf the surface of a wide-screen world
And find no virtue in the virtual.
We shrivel on the edges of a wood
Whose heart we once inhabited in love,
Now we have need of you, forgotten Root
The stock and stem of every living thing
Whom once we worshiped in the sacred grove,
For now is winter, now is withering
Unless we let you root us deep within,
Under the ground of being, graft us in.

But I feel like I've been sitting "shriveled on the edges of a wood" for the last few days, so it was with extraordinary joy that I encountered these words from Richard Rohr's Naked Now this morning:

"Prayer is actually setting out a tuning fork. All you can really do in the spiritual life is get tuned to receive the always present message. Once you are tuned, you will receive, and it has nothing to do with worthiness or the group you belong to, but only inner resonance and a capacity for mutuality. The Sender is absolutely and always present and broadcasting; the only change is with the receiver station...

Most simply put, prayer is something that happens to you, much more than anything you privately do...God stops being an object of attention... and becomes at some level your own "I am."

...You are already a child of God, equipped with everything you need to begin resonating with the divine. That does not mean you are morally or psychologically perfect. Not at all. But you will now have the freedom to see such failings in yourself, to grow and to love better because of them."

That's really what I needed to hear -- ALL I needed to hear -- to begin moving back into that rooted, grounded space where I can begin again to resonate with the Divine; to know again that God -- and you -- and I are truly One.

And not a moment too soon, for Christmas is just around the corner!