An Advent Cocoon

As Advent and the Christmas season approaches, I can’t help but think of Christ’s model of surrender—The Pachal Mystery—suffering, dying and being resurrected to new life. Surrender is a central theme for Christians—the turning point to transformation. It’s unfortunate that there aren’t more teachers who help us learn how to surrender. Great sermons can be delivered about surrender but who will show us how?

It’s not easy for us humans to let go. In fact constricting and defending, closing off and pushing forward fortifies our ego. Jesus’ message stands in opposition to the ego; inviting us to “lose our life” in order to “find it;” and to “be last,” to be “be first.” Letting go of our polished, put-together adult selves and becoming like children is the way to the Kingdom. How exactly do we live these seeming contradictions? If these are markers on the road of redemption then how can we learn to walk it?

Writing about the effects of contemplation, Franciscan monk, Richard Rohr says, “We know we did not do anything nearly as much as we know we were done unto.”

The transformational road of Christ requires surrender, so that the work can be done to us. And the conversion of Jesus isn’t a one-stop, one-time-fix-it-all as we imagined it to be when we “invited Jesus into our heart;” it’s a road, a way. If you’re not convinced, just take a moment to reflect on the Christians before us who were either implicit or explicit in acts of genocide of Native Americans and enslavement of Africans. I wonder what egregious acts we’re guilty of today? Are we as converted as we like to think we are? Learning how to surrender to the mysterious work of Christ in our soul is our only hope.

Although many of us pride ourselves in claiming to not be about “works salvation” our lives betray us. We are working so hard to be saved! We make sure we believe the “right” things and “do the right” things to somehow find favor in God’s eyes. If we’re honest, we live as though we hold the keys to our salvation, not God. Surrender rarely shows up in our life as a spiritual practice.

Christian contemplative disciplines like centering prayer, lectio divina, breath prayer and prayer of examen teach us to surrender—a different kind of “teaching” from hearing or reading about surrender. As we give ourselves to the very prayer discipline, surrender is engrained in our body, mind, heart and will. Over time, the exercise of surrender through methods like these allows for the Holy Spirit to weave a cocoon of sorts around us that we settle into by faith. Once we emerge from seasons of profound surrender, we may not recognize ourselves. Like a caterpillar in a cocoon, we step out of our tomb-like incubator and discover we no longer look like we used to; we have become something different. We’ve been transformed and we realize that this was done unto us—it was not something we could have done to or for ourselves.

Likewise, contemplative disciplines create a garden in our soul. In due season the garden produces fruit like love, joy, peace, long-suffering or endurance, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control—evidence of transformation. Thus our actions are more purified, more conscious, more beneficial. This is contemplative activism its best.

Other practices can nurture this conscious surrender and subsequent transformation. I’ve found yoga to be incredibly helpful. When breath is united with movement, the mind learns to let go of ruminating on the past or planning for the future and settles into the present moment. As each asana or posture is practiced mindfully, consciously, there is an invitation to surrender to what is—to the limitations of a tight muscle or to its remarkable release; to the challenge of a particular asana or to the surprise of the body’s ability. Overtime, we develop an ability to listen to the wisdom of the body and heart that speaks to us as much as our mind, if we have ears to hear. Yoga can train our ears to listen as body, mind and heart harmonize through breath and movement—making room for the Holy Spirit to do unto us what we cannot do for ourselves.

How are you nurturing a posture of surrender in your relationship with God? May this Advent and Christmas season open up the way of transformation in ever deepening levels.