4th Advent: DREAM, but dream well!

The Joy of Christmas---is it approaching, theoretically.
Advent time, I think, is an opportunity through scripture and prayer, to reflect on the Joy of Christmas.
Advent is to anticipate joy; to look within to how we need to change so as to experience the Joy.
What part of our lives do we need the grace of God?
This final week we have this wonderful Gospel about Joseph.
Joseph, a man of dreams.  How he must have imagined his life:  getting married to Mary, having children and raising a family.  A beautiful dream.
Then that got changed.
God asked for a new dream from Joseph, and Joseph, the saint, accepted the new dream.
He let his own go, his own vision of his life, his own plans to accept another.
That is Trust and that is Humility!  Trust and humility leads to Joy.
In a recent interview with Krista Tippett, famed Chorale Director Alice Parker remarked about how we humans, as individuals, tend to place ourselves at the center of the universe.  We imagine ourselves in charge of all.  Masters of our domain.
Yet, clearly, this is not reality.
Harmony, as she reflected, was to accept our place in the universe.  It is to recognize that we are not masters of the universe.  We are creatures.
I think that is exactly a Gospel truth, and part of the Good News of Jesus Christ, and a way to experience Joy.
See, it is wonderful to have dreams, to have goals. This is part of our creative nature as humans, it comes from God.
How many of wished to be firemen, nurses, doctors.  How many of wish for families, for love, retiring in a certain way.  How many of wish to get into a certain college, play a sport, even simply to get away to relax!
Dreams are great.
What becomes the problem, and what keeps us from joy, is when we hold onto the dreams so tightly.  We must have them.  The dreams define our choices.
The dreams/goals/plans begin to define us and who we are.  So we think we must protect them at all costs.  We fail to trust.
And when things don’t go our way, according to our plans….
Well, ever been around a child when they don’t get what they want…
Tantrums in adults are just as ugly if not worse.  Our tantrums, aside from yelling and screaming, often involve drugs, alcohol, pornography, bad relationships, and many other forms of passive aggression.  The anger just fills our lives!
We lose integrity because our moral code becomes about the goal, the dream, and we lose sight of the larger picture.  We cheat, we steal, we manipulate.
It can manifest through depression.  It can manifest in micromanaging and other fear based behaviors.  It can blind us to the needs of others:  their pain, their hurt.
All of which keeps us from being alive!  
I hear so much of this in the confessionals.  It is so sad.  
I wonder if our young persons who are harming themselves if it is because they are so pressured to complete these goal (or the goals of their parents) and they do not know how to accept failure.
Joy is to know that God is alive in amazing ways, beyond what we can see.  So that our personal failures are not the end, but another opportunity to begin.
Joy is to know that there is a purpose to this Universe, this creation, and God created us to be a part of this great plan. It means we see ourselves as part of the big picture...and not the dictator of.
Joy is to know that I am not in charge, nor any of us.  
So we can relax a bit, be in the moment, be with the person who is with us.  We can pay attention to life, the world around us.
Jesus revealed this spectacularly.  
The Birth is the Son of God’s giving of self to be human, so that we humans can know of the Father’s plan and love.
Jesus, by creating the disciples, showed how we are invited to participate in real and concrete ways, as a community.  We are invited to live and work in God’s great plan.
The Cross and Resurrection revealed that giving of ourselves brings us to true life.  That also apparent failures are actually new life.
All of which we celebrate and make real in the Eucharist.  All of which, I hope, we celebrate with some measure of Joy.

Joy is with God, and Joy comes from God; how are we accepting it?

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