"I'm up in the woods, I'm down on my mind
I'm building a sill to slow down the time
I'm up in the woods, I'm down on my mind
I'm building a sill to slow down the time"
—Bon Iver, from “Woods”

"All of us are much larger than the good or bad stories we tell about ourselves. Don’t get caught in “my” story, my hurts, my agenda. It’s too small. It’s not the whole you, not the Great You. It’s not the great river. It’s not where life is really going to happen. No wonder the Spirit is described as “flowing water” and as “a spring inside you” (John 4:10-14) or, as it states at the end of the Bible, as a “river of life” (Revelation 22:1-2). Your life is not really about “you.” It is part of a much larger stream called God. ...

"I believe that faith might be precisely that ability to trust the river, to trust the flow and the Lover. It is a process that we don’t have to create, coerce, or improve. We simply need to allow it to flow. That takes immense confidence in God, especially when we’re hurting. Usually, I can feel myself get panicky. I want to make things right, and right now! I lose my ability to be present, and I go up into my head and start obsessing. I try to push or even create the river—the river that is already flowing through me.

"Faith does not need to push the river precisely because it is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing; we are in it. The river is God’s providential love—so do not be afraid. "
—Richard Rohr ("Don't Push The River" meditation)

Earlier essays on Advent:

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Cathleen Falsani: This Numinous World

Lux In Tenebris Lucet: Wednesday, December 14