Today’s gospel gives us a vivid picture of someone who might be considered a stark, raving madman. John the Baptist is seen wandering the desert wrapped in animal skins and eating bugs for dinner. And the things he says! He calls the Pharisees and Sadducees a “bunch of snakes” and tells them not to even pretend that they belong to Abraham’s family. He talks of axes chopping down trees at their roots, of baptizing with fire and of storing wheat and burning husks.
Yet, somehow, in the midst of all of his raving, I find that I can connect with John the Baptist. I like his raving because it is born from a deep passion about what he is saying. In this reading he isn’t giving me “Advent” words like patience, quiet and anticipation. He is urgent and intense because he wants to get across his message. He doesn’t have time to waste.
He speaks of Jesus as a farmer with a threshing fork in his hand, tossing wheat and husks up into the wind. Only the real substance, the wheat, will fall back to be stored. The husks are useless and will be blown away. What is he saying to us in this challenging and frenzied message? What is there in my life that is like the wheat and husks? How much time do I waste on ‘husks’ that are useless and take up storage space in my life? Can this Advent be a time to really look at what is important in my life and what isn’t?
Can I give up my struggle to stop being the perfect Christmas wife and mother? Can I let go of my illusions of Donna Reed and Martha Stewart and accept the fact that my strengths are not in these high-profile and showy areas? Can I admit that there isn’t room in my life for these kinds of husks?
What about John’s passion for his message? Where is the place that I find that passion in my own life? It’s almost a paradox: not until I find the quiet and retreat from the frenzy do I find the deep, fiery passion for God in my life re-ignited. When I place myself in God’s arms, flawed and tired, but beloved and blessed by God, that’s when I know I’m home. That’s the moment I know what I was created for and I want to yell out with John, “Get the road ready for the Lord!”
Maureen McCann Waldron
The most important part of my life is my family – Jim my husband of 47 years and our two children. Our daughter Katy, a banker here in Omaha, and her husband John, have three wonderful children: Charlotte, Daniel and Elizabeth Grace. Our son Jack and his wife, Ellie, have added to our joy with their sons, Peter and Joseph.
I think family life is an incredible way to find God, even in (or maybe I should say, especially in) the most frustrating or mundane moments.
I am a native of the East Coast after graduating in 1971 from Archbishop John Carroll High School in suburban Philadelphia. I graduated from Creighton University in 1975 with a degree in Journalism and spent most of the next 20 years in corporate public relations in Omaha. I returned to Creighton in the 1990s and completed a master’s degree in Christian Spirituality in 1998.
As our children were growing up, my favorite times were always family dinners at home when the four of us would talk about our days. But now that our kids are gone from home, my husband and I have rediscovered how nice it is to have a quiet dinner together. I also have a special place in my heart for family vacations when the kids were little and four of us were away from home together. It’s a joy to be with my growing family.
Writing a Daily Reflection is always a graced moment, because only with God’s help could I ever write one. I know my own life is hectic, disjointed and imperfect and I know most of us have lives like that. I usually write from that point of view and I always seem to find some sentence, some word in the readings that speaks right to me, in all of my imperfection. I hope that whatever I write is in some way supportive of others.
It’s an incredibly humbling experience to hear from someone who was touched by something I wrote. Whether the note is from someone across campus or across the world, it makes me realize how connected we are all in our longing to grow closer to God.
