How Well Are We Preparing A Path For Others?
Like perhaps many of you, I remember well the first time I heard “Prepare Ye (The Way of the Lord),” the exuberant opening song of the musical Godspell. I walked around for hours afterward humming the tune.
I think of that jubilant scene every year when we again read the Scripture passages during the Second Week of Advent that gave rise to the song. The prophet Isaiah foretells of a voice that will cry in the desert, “Prepare the way … Make straight in the wasteland a way for our God.”
In the gospel of Mark, the voice of John the Baptist tells of “one mightier than I who is coming after me.”
Because of the pandemic, I’m not running off these days to holiday parties or shopping in stores for gifts. I have more time to sit with these Advent readings and reflect on them. The words seem even more resonant because we are living through a kind of desert experience. We can only hope to see a straight path ahead out of the wasteland of isolation and fear we are living through.
Isaiah’s words also cause me to remember that we are all called to prepare the path for those who come after us. How well am I preparing a way for others?
This week, I participated in a conversation about the future of Benedictine Oblates — people like myself who are lay associates of monasteries. Oblates strive to practice the monastic values of listening, community, simplicity, hospitality, work and prayer within the context of our secular lives.
For the first time in history, there are now more lay associates than monks and religious sisters living within monasteries.
How ready are we to become among the principal bearers of Benedictine values in a world that desperately needs those values? How willing are today’s monks and sisters to prepare us for that task, which means envisioning their roles in a new way as well as the institutions and traditions to which they are accustomed?
As one Oblate observed, “There is a grieving that has to happen as we move from what we know into new ways to be Benedictine … Many are not ready for that step. The idea that the monastic life may not continue as we know it causes us much pain.”
It is an often arduous journey to both prepare and be prepared.
Closer to home, I’ve been thinking about “preparing the way” for children. I rarely had time to speak with the children in my neighborhood before the pandemic started. Now that I’m working from home, I see them more often. I especially enjoy chatting with my neighbor’s daughter who strolls the neighborhood’s sidewalks carrying a wooden walking stick as if she was setting out on a hike in the wilderness.
My young friend often comes outside to play after dinner, just as the moon and stars are popping out. I hope she will remember the times we spent trying to spot Jupiter and Saturn and discussing the phases of the moon. Maybe the memory of those moments will “make straight a path” for a lifetime appreciation of our wonder-filled universe.
Reflecting on John the Baptist’s story, my friend Sister Jennifer Halling of Mount St. Scholastica Monastery in Kansas sent out a poem this weekend by Jan Richardson. Titled “Prepare,” it says in part:
Prepare
Strange how one word
will so hollow you out.
But this word
has been in the wilderness
for months.
Years.
This word is what remained
after everything else
was worn away
by sand and stone.
It is what withstood
the glaring of sun by day,
the weeping loneliness of
the moon at night …
Prepare, prepare.
It may feel like
the word is leveling you
Emptying you
as it asks you
to give up
what you have known.
There is a saying I love attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach the gospel always. Use words if necessary.” Our actions ultimately tell the story of our lives.
“Behold, I am sending a messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way,” Isaiah writes. What is the message we send by our actions? How are our lives preparing the way for others coming after us — others who well might be “mightier” than ourselves?
