Advent Beatitudes

Blessed are those who enter Advent with too much familiarity,
Who know their deep cave and all its features intimately;
Who aren't excited that one day a ray of light will rip a tear across the opaque fabric of time... because for some, the forced night has been decades too long.

That kind of hope takes too much energy. Too much time. Too much space.

Blessed are those who walk in darkness most of the time and never experience marvelous light,

Only dim flickers and alarming, slow-popping sparks that breed fear, but start no fires.

Blessed are the ones who aren't jealous of those who do walk the path and find hope scattered around the way, who will be bathed in light.

Blessed are those who pretend that being rescued is the aspiration, when they more honestly want to be seen.

They hope there will be a resolution to their voluminous despair.

Blessed are the battered, the weary, the lonely.

Blessed are the ones who endure promises even the one who made them didn't believe.

Blessed are ones who wait in vain,

The ones who travel toward safety and find pure hell;

The ones who are told their darkness is evil when their eyes are watching God.

Blessed are those who feel powerless, while using their bit of strength to love the gaslighters, narcissists and liars around them.

Blessed are those who make home for so many, knowing there will not be one for them unless they fashion it themselves.

Blessed are the ones who wish just one person would cherish them,

Who look in the universe for their star timidly,  believing every one of those glittering, celestial bodies belong to others.

Advent is yours. It's the liminal space all life needs.  It's not the usual breath; it's the long sigh. Not what you see, but the blink that restores the eye.

This moment, do with it what you need to get through the night. Let it do to you what it shall to birth you, and make you whole.

May you find hope.

May you find peace.

May you find joy.

May you find love.

Always.