All the themes and readings of the liturgy compose us in a world of waiting, of serene expectation and hope for the dawning of a new time, a time of renewal and rebirth played out in a poetics of anticipation – anticipation for a child, a wonder-child, fresh from the womb of divinity: the Christ Child.

Lately I have been in a steady conversation with that mysterious Child ever gestating in the great round womb of the universe as its deepest subjectivity and newness, as its eternal beginning. And since we are creatures in whom divinity is being born again and again in countless ways, I wonder about that Child gestating in us.

The other day, to begin the Advent practice of getting little and uncluttered and quiet, I made my way into The Oratory where there is only a prayer chair and huge image of The Little Flower, Therese of the Child Jesus. What better spiritual guide through this season than the one who experimented her whole brief life with a way of spiritual childhood? But knowing Therese, I understood that this kind of childhood was the realization of an old soul, a wise and seasoned being who had discovered some soul-truth by way of growing younger and younger day by day till she had found her way back to the womb of God.

Is it possible to live in the womb of God as divinity’s own pure potential – to come to sense and feel oneself as kin to that Christ Child originally revealed in Jesus, “the first-born of a New Creation?” And what would it mean to live as one perpetually being born in the “renewal of one’s mind,” one’s heart and habits – without memory or forethought to obscure the graceful possibility of the present moment? What would it be like to just be there with beginners mind each instant, letting dissolve by inattention the old-self-ways that distract us from the annunciations and immaculate conceptions that mean to bring The Christ Child to birth. Again. Here and now. In us…?

This is what I am wondering this Advent – such a great time for wondering. What are you wondering?

* Mythos Gate by Ann Deignan: further information on the Books Page

Though there were few of his own books on the shelves of his study, A Vow of Conversation was the one I reached for and kept handy as I rehearsed how profoundly Merton had influenced my way of being in the world. He had – since my encounter with his writings as a high school student – inspired nearly every significant turn I would take, and had informed my deepest commitments. Those days there in his small cinderblock house were for me a way of touching something of his quiet presence, offering thanks for the way the words he had written from his cultivated silence, had become lucid wisdom for me and for many – even as they continue to resound for generations still on their way.

At the end of my days there, I asked two of Merton’s good friends to come and witness a promise that wanted to be spoken in that place. It was a desire to be more conformed to the way of being that the founder of my community, the Congregation of Notre Dame, lived her life. Marguerite Bourgeoys, in imitation of Mary of the Visitation, wanted her sisters and associates to be women and men of dialogue: “conversant avec la prochain.” In a sense she wanted us to live that transformative practice of deep conversation – which Merton so faithfully embodied – in all its aspects: in our prayer, in our relationships, in our missions and ministries of world healing and building.

So in Merton’s tiny chapel, I shyly and clumsily murmured words I can hardly remember now. But I know it was to echo a similar desire to experiment with my own vow of conversation – of open, respectful, curious dialogue with my neighbor in whatever form – from divinity to the elements – and see what wisdom would arise from such sustained encounter. This page is a way of sharing where some of those conversations have led me and to invite you to your own practice of conversation that promises conversion in the wisdom of voices sounding all around. KD 10.25.09