Releasing Your Wild Soul

My mind is rolling down a path of “connecting words” this morning… come along.   Advent comes from the Latin word adventus which means “coming or arrival.”    Say that word out loud… “Ad vent us.”  What do you hear?   I’m hearing the English word “adventure.”   With a little digging, I find that Advent and “adventure” come from the same Latin root word.  Originally the word “adventure” meant “a thing about to happen, or to reach or arrive at.”   Through the years some new meanings were attached to “adventure,” like “exciting incident, remarkable occurrence in life, the account of marvelous things.”   You know where I’m going with this. (thanks for indulging me this morning…) Advent is an adventure.  I think it’s time to help  Advent evolve and explore its “wild soul.”  

To find our wild (Advent) soul today, let’s begin with a poem by John O’Donohue called “A Prayer for Your Wild Soul”

‘A PRAYER FOR YOUR WILD SOUL
Give yourself time to make a prayer that will become the prayer of your soul. Listen to the voices of longing in your soul. Listen to your hungers. Give attention to the unexpected that lives around the rim of your life. Listen to your memory and to the inrush of your future, to the voices of those near you and those you have lost. Out of all of that attention to your soul, make a prayer that is big enough for your wild soul, yet tender enough for your shy and awkward vulnerability; that has enough healing to gain the ointment of divine forgiveness for your wounds; enough truth and vigour to challenge your blindness and complacency; enough graciousness and vision to mirror your immortal beauty. Write a prayer that is worthy of the destiny to which you have been called.”

And that’s our assignment for today:  write an Advent prayer “worthy of the destiny to which you have been called.” 

Grace and Peace at Advent

Pastor Myra