The favor of your response is requested ...please choose:

can't - already betrothed
nope - clothes dirty and shabby
unable - no room on the schedule
must decline - too old
no - possibly you've sent this to wrong person
sorry - don't think I'd fit in
hmmmm - interesting idea

I've always wondered if other women said no before Mary said yes. I've also wondered how many fishermen looked at Jesus requesting they leave their boats to follow him, and  instead shook their heads and walked back to their work.

I've wondered if the rich young man who sadly walked away when Jesus told him what was needed in order to enter the Kingdom, ever came back and said he was ready. I've wondered about people standing on the edge of the crowds where Jesus was teaching; those who really wanted to enter into the dialogue but instead remained on the fringe and then went home because they just couldn't picture themselves living a new kind of life.

We adults who have lived a few decades know absolutely that love is dangerous. Love brings new life. New life is wild and untamed. Say yes to love with your heart, and your life is changed.  Bring a new baby into your life - human or Spirit variety - and your carefully constructed routines (of mind and body) will be thrown into disarray.

Disarray.  I know first hand the disarray of love and new life. Recently I began attending daily Mass.  I won't go into the whole long story as to how I actually walked through the door of the little adoration chapel but I can share that if you acquire the habit of having coffee each morning with God, you are making yourself available to all kinds of wild ideas.

My first response to the invitation from God to expand my life with a different (new) experience of love by going to Mass was incredulity 'you have got to be kidding me! I'm perfectly happy with us having coffee each morning as the sun rises.'  To shorten the story here I will just say that if you read the possible responses to an RSVP at the beginning of this post you will know the journey I traveled.  Yep, I know each response personally as I've said each response.

However, I did keep showing up each day for coffee and conversation; sometimes referred to as prayer, and so did the Spirit and love of God.  And I kept being nudged down the road of responding until one morning I said, 'hmmmmmm - might be an interesting experience' and I felt the shell of defenses crack open. This, 'hmmmm' seedling of new life grew silently until one day I got dressed and said, 'okay, I'll give your idea a try.'  Which is my beginning step toward; 'let it be done unto me according to Thy will.'

Turns out that despite my incredulity,misgivings and downright stubbornness of trying to cling to old ideas, the experience of spending thirty minutes each morning in Mass has brought new life to my being in ways I could never have foreseen.  Which of course, is exactly how the gift of love behaves: wild spirals of untamed energy of Life.

I'll close with the words of Madeline L'Engle which I shared in the first Advent post: "This is the season where love blooms bright and wild.  Had Mary been full of reason, there'd have been no room for the child." Letting go of our old ideas and making room for love is what the journey of Advent is all about.