Meditations During Advent: Advent as Gestation

If you bring forth what is within you,

what is within you will save you.

If you don’t bring forth what is within you,

what is within you will kill you.

 

The Gospel of Thomas

 

There is a moment carrying a child that the first movements are felt. It is usually a very subtle sensation—a flutter, like the womb has made wings. The feeling is so subtle that sometimes the first movements are not noticed at all. Sometimes the movements are missed because the day is full, full to overflowing, and the movements go unrecognized. Sometimes the movements are dismissed as a muscle twitch or some tickle in the gut. But sometimes, in a room with the door closed and the lights down, lying very still, the movements can be felt for what they are: a new reality announcing itself from within.

 

Sometimes what is in us, makes a louder declaration of its presence. When I was pregnant with my first child, I had a recurring dream that a furry little creature, some sort of monkey, came out of my navel, looked up at me and waved, before crawling back inside. The dream both delighted me and terrified me.

 

The holy child in us, wants to be recognized. (In my case, a holy monkey.)

 

Meister Eckhart says: We are all meant to be mothers of God—all meant to bear Christ in the world. Being mother of God is not an instantaneous event, it is a becoming, always gestating Christ in us by our spiritual practice. A friend said to me this week: The first 40 years of parenting is really hard. We do not become a Christian; we are always becoming Christian—always gestating the divine within. There is a Reality within that performs somersaults to get our attention, that shows itself in our dreams.

 

Eckhart says by this holy work we are not transformed, we are superformed—made into the very Reality we gestate with us. As we seek the Christ, we become the Christ. We mother ourselves into spiritual wholeness. Advent is the season we are meant to commit ourselves as mothers to our own souls—the possibility is both delightful and terrifying.

 

We can bring forth what is within us. Or not.

 

- The Rev. Judith Whelchel