UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST in Simi Valley
FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT - December 1, 2002
Anne G. Cohen

Isaiah 64:1-9
Mark 13:24-37

Muddy Hands and Darkening Skies

It was Fall, in a California sort of way, late in November.  The afternoon was blustery and cold, trees swaying, then twisting suddenly in a hundred directions - dark clouds scudding across the sky and piling up over the mountains.  A North wind out of Alaska was finding its way South through every crack in every window of the house.  My mother put on an old, heavy sweater and stepped out of the back door.  She walked quickly down the driveway, her arms wrapped around herself against the wind - dry, withered leaves whirling around her feet and blowing across the back yard.

The door to the garage was already open and leaves scuttled in and around the crock that stood on the floor.  My mother bent and took the heavy lid off with one hand and, with the other, scooped out a mound of wet clay.  Replacing the lid on the crock, she straightened and turned to an electric potting wheel that sat facing out the door into the darkening afternoon.

After plugging the machine into the outlet, she sat down, placed the clay at the center of the wheel and pressed the speed control lever with her foot.  She wet her hands in a bowl of water and leaned over the wheel as the clay turned in her hands.  Muddy water oozed between her fingers and across the backs of her hands as my mother applied pressure with her shoulders and arms - and the clay began to take shape.

From her muddy hands would come a serving bowl - or a wine goblet - or a vase for flowers.  In her muddy hands a lump of clay would be transformed and gain a shape and a purpose.  From her muddy hands something would be created that would grace the life of our family and the home we shared.

Whatever it was that she created that dark afternoon, it was not really useful - it was fragile and easily destroyed - it was not fully able to function for its destined purpose - UNTIL it was glazed and properly fired.

At night I would watch from my bedroom window as the wind blew across the blackness and the shadow of my mother moved around the hot kiln beside the garage - checking temperatures and adjusting the knobs.  I could see yellow and white hot fire glowing at the vents - giving way to orange and red as temperatures changed.  I could hear the roar of the gas jets and flames, almost feel the warmth of the oven on my face - before another gust of wind made me shudder and close the window.

I knew that on the third morning, even in a cold rain, the pots would emerge in my mother's hands - glazes like glass or gently polished stone, their shapes hardened for their purpose.

I lay awake in the darkness, still shaking from a dream, the wind tossing the Chinese Elm tree in all directions, the tiny, dead leaves tapping and tracing my windows with the sound of a delicate bracelet on a table top, a slippered foot changing position on the rug.

I lay awake retracing the dream - a dream in which I had awakened from a dream and been drawn to the window.  It was a dark, crystal clear night - perhaps one or two hours past midnight.  The crescent moon was large and extremely bright - hanging high above the mountains - lighting up the back yard.

With no warning, the moon silently exploded - shattering into a million pieces of light that glittered against the utter blackness of the Universe.  As those shimmering stars began to enter the atmosphere, they thundered - ripping open the sky and speeding like white meteors toward the earth, toward my backyard, toward my life.

I was strangely unafraid, thrilled by the spectacular peculiarity of what was happening.  I tried to wake up the rest of my family so that they could see it too.  Only my father came to the window to watch with me - as light tore itself apart in the sky above us.

I woke up with my heart pounding and lay awake in the darkness as the Chinese Elm whipped in the wind, slapping my windows.  In the light of revelation, I made a decision about the direction of my life.

Autumn arrives every year - filled with fading promise and dread.  Yes, night comes every day with similar attributes.  Yet night is more obvious and predictable, more regular and familiar, more manageable in its brevity, more easily endured by well-planned periods of unconsciousness.

But Autumn, Fall, the slow disappearance of light and heat, the hibernation of intelligent plant and animal life forms, the imperceptible evaporation of hope and the sudden appearance of fear, like tumors in my soul - these things - even after 47 years - these things still catch me off-guard. The encroaching darkness sucks at my feet and, with strange alacrity, knocks me off balance.  And I reach in slow motion for something, anything planted, stable, unmoving - to hang onto.

It is this knowledge that keeps me from moving to Alaska.  The Winter darkness - equal to that within my heart - would be my undoing.  In Alaska, Nature wins every contest - physical or psychological.  In Alaska, during the Summer, the 20 daily hours of sunlight produce the most enormous, the most brightly colored flowers and vegetables I have ever seen in my life.  But, in the Winter, the 20 hours of darkness kills everything that is not looking, everything that is over-confident, every living creature that has forgotten that they cannot approach God - that God must come to them.

Only in Winter, in the interminable darkness, does Aurora Borealis appear - shimmering colored lights that shatter the frozen northern sky and, with silent thunder, set fire to the soul.  In Alaska, the scriptures are still being written.  In Alaska God's name is still cried aloud with the raw certainty of its power to save - to save even the soul from desolation and the cold, killing wind of
despair.

In Alaska, Advent is no game - no retail bonanza - no prelude to excess.  In Alaska, Advent is the last chance to reach for God's hand on the long slide toward certain death.  Advent is the final preparation for the end - not knowing for certain whether there will be another beginning.  Advent in Alaska is the sound of caribou floundering in the snow, the sound of wolves crying in the night, wind howling through the trees and whispered prayers in the embers of a few brave fires.

Advent in Alaska is when hope is impossible and faith is imperative - and Christmas is never taken for granted.

Autumn in Southern California, even in its mild imitation of seasonal shift, brings with it Northern Winds - withered leaves scudding quickly before it in all directions.  And on those winds come the cries and the whispers of Winter in Alaska and the deep need for God. With those winds comes the clutching reach of the heart for something stable and secure, reaching out to the darkening skies for strong, muddy hands and the warmth of powerful arms, calling out the name of One who will surely shatter the dark night with light, solidify us with beauty and purpose in the tranforming heat of divine fire, and save us from empty aimlessness and this cold, killing fear.

I lay asleep one November night - and in my dream I stood in a forest of tall, thin trees - aspen, pine.  The first branches began far above my head and my view through the forest was uncluttered and clean.  It was early evening and, as I stood looking through the trees, I saw fire moving rapidly in the distance.

Unfrightened and fascinated, I watched as the flames came across my field of vision - from left to right.  I realized that they were horses - galloping through the darkening night.  The horses were not ON fire - their manes and tails WERE fire.  And as they ran, the trees caught fire but were not consumed.  As the trees burned and the horses ran, I didn't know whether to summon help for trees I could not save - or attempt to stop these unstoppable horses who seemed completely unaware of the effect they were having as they passed through the trees and into the night.

In my dream, I stepped forward and watched as the forest burned brightly out of control, as the flaming horses ran past me and on out of sight.  In my dream I waited for this spectacular and peculiar event to make sense, I waited for the flames to reach my heart with a sense of transforming purpose.  Dead leaves spiraled up on the hot wind into the darkening sky -
to be embraced and set on fire by the descending Light of Revelation...