Everybody's Gotta Hungry Hark!!!!

Merry Christmas!

A few years ago I got to spend nearly two weeks during Lent in Arizona on retreat. I arrived in Phoenix in the late morning on a Wednesday. I rented a Dodge Neon and drove to Scottsdale and bought a ticket for Sunday's Cubs' Spring Training game against the A's. I then drove north to the Grand Canyon. As a 15 year old I'd been there before. The first visit was so impressive that I can still close my eyes and see the muddy Colorado River "ess"ing through the bottom 2 miles below, the far rim several miles north, the canyon mesas, pinnacles, and walls, and the vibrant hues of orange, red, yellow, tan, brown, and a few tufts of green. I got there in time to catch the last glimpses of sunlight fade across the massive gorge. Then I got a good idea. I would go to the lodge, get a room, dinner, and drink. Then I'd set my alarm for well before sunrise and go to the the first lookout to the east, watch the sunrise on the canyon, hike the rim for fifteen miles or so, and end my day at a lookout point to the west of the lodge, and then take a shuttle bus back to my car and then drive to Sedona the next night.

All those things occurred except the getting a room part. The lodge was booked. In other words, "there was no room in the inn." I didn't have to spend the night with the canyon mules though. I spent a few short hours sleeping in a cold rented Dodge Neon's reclining front seat. My research told me that it was going to be hot in Arizona in early April. And it was (during the daytime and at lower elevations). But night time in the higher elevations at the Grand Canyon was freezing or below. I did not have the clothes that it took to stay warm that evening. I ran the car heater for 45 minute periods, woke up to turn the car off so I wouldn't get asphyxiated, slept for 45 minutes w/out heat, and repeated the cycle until it was time to go watch the daylight come to the Canyon.

Also part of the reason I couldn't sleep was the anticipation of watching sunrise come over the Canyon. Have you ever stayed up all night just to experience the dawn – the gradual dimming of the stars as light gently pushes back the darkness revealing the now? Somehow all is refreshed, brilliant – light has come. My experience was just that. When I walked to the rim, it was completely dark. No moon, just cold, black, and stars. I could tell that I was at the Grand Canyon, but I could not tell how grand it was. Then the eastern sky s began to lighten, and silhouettes of the canyons forms started to make themselves known. The colors started to appear. Light made everything new and vivid. Light sanctified the Grand Canyon, making it new.

Christmas is just this – Light blessing the now. Christmas is not the end of the Advent waiting and journeying. It is the dawn of Advent. It is Light blessing and sanctifying the journey, the waiting itself.

Who waits for whom? Who blesses whom? Parents, siblings, buddies and lovers pensively wait for those who are engaged in ministry, mission and service to come home. Parents eager with anticipation wait for the infant soon to be born. Parents, friends and strangers compassionately journey with the lost and forsaken. Longingly families and friends wait for the estranged. The outcast in yearning wait for welcome. The hungry in trust wait for the cook. The homeless in hope wait for the host. The jobless in faith wait for the employers. The imprisoned desiring freedom wait for the visitor. And children everywhere joyfully wait for the anticipated delight.

May God give you the gift of hunger for the Light of the World.

paz,
Fr. Chuck