Participation.
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
and in His name all oppression shall cease.~ Placide Cappeau, O Holy Night, 1847
advent, 4
This Advent we’ve been exploring what it really means to “come home” for Christmas. What is home, and how do we find it? How does Christ welcome us into our spiritual home this season? As markers toward home, we have considered some essentials: finding our people and finding our place. In today’s final Advent post, we look at a third essential. Once we come into proximity with people and place, then we can begin to actually participate within that communal organism.
This is where being, belonging, and becoming all merge in healthy community. Don’t you long for that?
The idea of active participation speaks to our third core human need for strength and agency. All good doing flows out of good being, out of finding our fit… And then as we do actually find our fit, we are wired to bring forward our unique gifts in the service of the whole. Not to perform in the sense of earning or validating our worth, but to participate in the missional dance of our tribe. To shine with your God-seeded glory and to contribute to the cumulative Light of creation.
Is this happening? Are you ready for this to happen?
Go ahead: name your truest gifts. What is it inside you that presses to come out and be seen or felt or experienced? If you struggle to articulate this (and many of us do), here are a few more questions to help flush your divine purpose to the surface…
Think of a time in your life when you felt most fully alive. What were you doing?
What is it that you do where you lose all track of time and actually feel refreshed from the labor?
If there were just one problem in the world you could fix (or that makes you angry), what would that be?
Where does your passion, aptitude, and joy intersect?
Does this exercise help you name one or two activities that might just be God’s great gift to the world incarnated in you? As this sense of purpose takes shape, it leads us back to the people and place where you belong—because of the many ways in which you may participate in this community, it must include an avenue for bringing forth this truest part of you. Then, and only then, will you be home.
As we reflect upon Advent for the next few days, ponder how Christ is being born, not just into the world two thousand years ago, but born in and through you in this “one wild and precious life” you’ve been given.
growing your soul
Long lay the world in sin and error pining, Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
serving our world
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!
takeaway
Only you can do what only you can do.