hungry hearts

My man, Springsteen, once sang, "Everybody's got a hungry heart..." and that sounds like the cry of Advent to me. Over a rockin' retro sound with saxophone and full back-up chorus, his first truly BIG hit goes on to remind us that: "Everybody needs a place to rest, everybody wants to have a home, don't make no difference what nobody says, ain't nobody like to be alone!"

As I pause to consider both the texts for this first Sunday in Advent and the experience of my people in worship today, this sounds like the wail - or moan - or lament of Advent to me in spades! And it isn't restricted to those who walk in the way of Jesus either, is it? How many folks do you know who are crying out in one way or another: where are you, God? Peterson's reworking of Psalm 80 gets it right:

Listen, Shepherd, Israel's Shepherd— get all your Joseph sheep together.
Throw beams of light from your dazzling throne
So Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh
can see where they're going.

Get out of bed—you've slept long enough!
Come on the run before it's too late. God, come back!
Smile your blessing smile:
That will be our salvation.

God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
how long will you smolder like a sleeping volcano
while your people call for fire and brimstone?
You put us on a diet of tears,
bucket after bucket of salty tears to drink.
You make us look ridiculous to our friends;
our enemies poke fun day after day.

God-of-the-Angel-Armies, come back!
Smile your blessing smile:
That will be our salvation.

I love Springsteen's Advent lament, but it is really much more blues than wildass song of joy and the fact that I've been singing it and dancing to it for 28 years and only really grasped that now...

Well, let's just say that I am one of those who are REALLY grateful that God is gracious and patient. Maybe that's why I cherish and hate the craziness of this season so much. A poem by Dan Brown called me to stop and take stock:

I'm striding down the avenue,
And rapidly at that,
When my progress runs me up against
An intersection at

The crux of which, depending from
A stanchion overhead,
An all-commanding traffic light
Presents two disks of red:

One to the way that crosses, one
To the way that favors me;
A situation sure to change
Momentarily.

Very little time.
But time
Enough for one of those
Windows of an instant with
The power to disclose

Something at my core of cores
(Hence normally unseen)
In my assuming mine's the way
That's not to get the green.

Here's to listening - really listening - to what is being shared this season - especially from those hungry hearts all around us - because it feels like we're knockin' on heaven's door.