Preparing for Peace:The Spirit of Advent
December 3, 2006
Margaret A. Hart
First Universalist Church of Central Square, NY

I would like to begin with these words from Victor V. Goff:
As we enter the season of goodwill, may we not be bitter and may we not indulge in the rushing card-for-card and gift-for-gift teeter-totter, that makes us bitter. May we rather give as we feel and can afford and let the milling crowd swarm past us and not sweep us off our feet. Neither do we wish to envy others their splash of generosity and their need to display their popularity through parading the number and the cost of their remembrances. We would save ourselves from overtaxed energies and social engagements outside the home, that we may better keep our best personality for our famly. We also pause to reserve time for the deeper celebration of “peace on earth.” First things first may mean for us a strong effort to balance the personal and the social efforts for peace on earth. Great issues are being decided in December as well as in other months. We would not escape from the hunger and ill will that abound, just because we have a chance to follow the glitter. Instead, we would plan to share with those who cannot give in return, and give our children a greater gift than any that can be bought--- a better chance for a peaceful world. (p. 104 in Celebrating Christmas: An Anthology, ed. Carl Seaburg)
It’s been a very busy time for me, as I imagine it has been for many of you. Although I had an idea of what I wanted to talk with you about today, I didn’t actually sit down to start writing the sermon until Thursday evening, and that was instead of going to watch my son’s basketball game. In a way, the choice was made for me, as I wasn’t walking well enough to go to the game, so stayed home to rest and write. Sometimes that happens.... we have plans as to how we are going to spend our time, and then something happens to change our plans. Although I still make plans, and I recommend that practice, I have found that life goes a lot easier when I can be flexible enough to change my plans when things come up.
This is the season of Advent, a season of anticipation and preparation for something new. It is the preparation for the coming of the Messiah, or in Christian circles, the coming of the baby Jesus. When we anticipate the birth of a baby, we don’t know how that child will grow up, or if that child will grow up. We may have all kinds of hopes and expectations. Some of them will come to pass, and fortunately, some of them will not. If life and growth were bounded by the limitations of our imaginations, we might be in trouble! But they aren’t. So, we hope, and dream, and adapt to life as it actually unfolds.
This summer I did quite a bit of reading about Pilgrimages. I found that the common theme among pilgrimages, as contrasted with other more regular travel , was the idea of intentionallity and spiritual purpose. When we set out on a journey, we usually have an idea about where we hope to end up, and some idea of when we hope to arrive. But when we choose to embark on a pilgrimage, we typically have a spiritual reason for doing so, and we go to a place which we consider to be a sacred site. Actually, any site can be considered to be sacred, and any journey can be a spiritual one. It all depends upon our inner attitude and our preparation. I remember a story which my meditation teacher, Swami Muktananda, told about an older couple who wanted to go on a spiritual pilgrimage, but they were too frail to travel. Their teacher, a holy person of great understanding, sat quietly in one place and told them to walk slowly around him three times. They did so, and in that way their desire to go on pilgrimage was satisfied. In the same vein, Thich Nhat Hanh, a great Vietamese Buddhist monk, said: The path around our home is also the ground of awakening. And, as Phil Cousineau wrote in his book, The Art of Pilgrimage: The challenge is to learn how to carry over the quality of the journey into your everyday life.
Stories of pilgrimages reflect the importance of being clear in one’s purpose, in one’s intentions. I entitled this morning’s sermon “Preparing for Peace: The Spirit of Advent.” I did so because I think that peace is really what Christmas is all about... what Jesus is all about. The angels are said to have declared at his birth: “Peace on earth, good will toward all.” I think that is the main idea behind Christmas... that we are intended to celebrate peace on earth and good will toward all.
So, what has happened? Why is there so much divisiveness between people of different religious paths? Even between people who practice various different types of Christianity? Why is there such animosity and killing in the world, sometimes even in the name of a religion? Why is there such lack of compassion and personal interest in the suffering of vast parts of humanity? How is it that some people are starving while others are suffering from obesity? And why are people being slain or maimed without anyone stopping it? I read an article recently by Bob Herbert in the New York Times which talked about how “Americans are shopping while Iraq burns.” It said in part:
There is something terribly wrong with this juxtaposition of gleeful Americans with fistfuls of dollars storming the department store barricades and the slaughter by the thousands of innocent Iraqui civilians, including old people, children and babies. The war was started by the U.S., but most Americans feel absolutely no sense of personal responsibility for it. (11/27/06)
Why is it that we don’t feel responsibility for war, starvation, torture, and other inhuman atrocities, some of which even occur in our name, but all of which occur on “our watch”? Maybe the atrocities seem far away, or maybe they appear to be so big that we don’t see how we can affect them. But it has been said that if anyone suffers, we all suffer; as long as there is anyone who is in bondage, none of us is truly free. The seventh principle of Unitarian Universalism says that We covenant to affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. We also covenant to affirm and promote Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations, and The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. As Unitarian Universalists, we have a strong commitment to work for peace and justice. I know that many of us are doing whatever we feel we can to work for peace. But there is always more.
I think the challenge this Advent is for us to consider how we can more deeply prepare for peace. In my understanding, peace needs to begin with us. As Albert Schweitzer wrote in Pilgrimage to Humanity:
But the miracle must occur in us before it occurs in the world. We dare not hope that by our efforts we can create the conditions of the kingdom in the world. We must certainly work for it. But there can be no divine kingdom in the world, if there is not one first of all in our hearts. The beginning of the kingdom is to be found in our determination to bring our every thought and deed under the dominion of the kingdom. Nothing will come to pass without inwardness. The spirit of God will only contend against the spirit of the world when it has triumphed over that spirit in our hearts.(p. 80)
As we approach the Christmas season, I have been reading The Gospel of John in the Light of Indian Mysticism, by Dr. Ravi Ravindra. It is fascinating to look at this Biblical text through the eyes of an Eastern Indian who brings to his interpretation his famliarity with various world religions. (pp.91-93) Dr. Ravindra points out that:
Jesus Christ did not fit the expectations of the people who had a particular image and idea of what the Messiah should be like, what his origins would be, and what functions he would perform.... These images, ideas, and expectations constitute the idols that human beings worship and which block them from seeing the plain truth staring them in the face. This idolatry is what prevents a vision of the unexpected; it stops a radically fresh insight into the unknown and places a mental straitjacket on what can be seen and known. What is needed is an emptying of the self-- becoming poor in spirit-- a state of active unknowing, so that what is usually inaudible can be heard. Only then what is customarily unseen may be seen. This is why a person prays to God, as did Meister Eckhart, to ask to be rid of the idea of God, because anyone who takes hold of God in any form takes hold of a creation of his or her own mind and not of God, who is ultimately beyond any idea or image that we can have.

Dr. Ravindra goes on to relate a story:
There is a story of a man with a deep faith in God. In one of the periodic turnings of the wheel of fortune, his village was ravaged by a great flood, and his house was washed away. While clinging to a tree branch in the middle of the torrent, he held fast to his faith and prayed to God. He was certain that God would listen to him and save him. A boat came by, and the person in the boat asked him to get aboard. He refused, saying he would wait because he had no doubt that God would save him. Twice again someone in a boat offered to help; but he refused and waited for God to save him. Slowly the floodwaters rose, and he drowned. When he appeared in heaven he demanded to know why his faith was not heeded, and why God had not come to save him from the flood. God replied, “You fool! Thrice I came with a rescue boat, but you refused to be saved!”
Dr. Ravindra writes:
The people around Jesus Christ continued to wait for the Messiah to come because he did not fit their image of the Messiah. They knew his origins: He was the son of Mary and the carpenter Joseph; they knew his brothers and sisters; they knew that when the Messiah comes no one is supposed to know his origins; and they knew that the Messiah could not come from Galilee. With all this knowledge, they understood very little and saw even less. They could not believe because they could not see. And they could not see because they kept clinging to what they knew and made no room for any surprise or wonder, which is so often an accompaniment of real insight.

There may not be much we can do about events which are happening far away, but we can do something about how we are in this time and place. We can consciously practice being peaceful and still in the present moment. We can try to set aside our surface knowledge, and look with the eye of the heart, expecting to see the unexpected, and reveling in the wonders around us. We can choose to let our thoughts and words be positive, and our actions helpful and uplifing. We can challenge injustice and cruelty when we see it occurring. We can write letters of advocacy to people in positions of power and authority. We can visit or write notes of hope to people who are suffering and in despair. We can approach Advent as the beginning of an adventure- a time of anticipation, preparation, intentionality, and pilgrimage into the unknown, the Eternal Now. In our own lives and times, we can become the peace we wish to create. May it be so.