By Andrea Lingle

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…

In the beginning.

The beginning is a starting place. It is the sunrise over a day that has not yet seen the rust and wear of the afternoon. It is a new chance to live. It is a place to choose, once again, who you will be. Whom you will serve. Whom you will allow to be your teacher.

Before everything got started.

In the beginnings of things, surely life was not so complicated, so exhausted, so formed. Everything had not already been said. There were so many ways that this thing could go. We were not all sweating under the weight of expectation. There was a freshness to the moment. The promised land was full of milk and honey.

In the attentive pause before the first note is played.

All eyes, all hearts, all hopes are focused on what could be. In the great expanse of what might be, creation and Creator alike are joined in the greatest wonder of all. The beginning. And then.

With the collective breath.

The stage is set.

And just before the Divine voice spoke, the creation tumbled, joyfully, in the chaos of an initial oneness. At the inception of the creative impulse, there was darkness, and there was no dualism, just unity, in the darkness.

The darkness of a womb.

In the beginning was the Word (John 1), fellowship (1 John 1), and Love (1 John 4), all in the darkness of a womb. And a womb is a place of work. Creation is active. It is not enough to love our neighbor if we do not embrace our neighbor’s sorrow. For “this is love, that we walk according to [God’s] commandments.” This is not a matter of easy words stitched to a pillow: this is opening the door, braving the cold, inhabiting the work of creation.

This Advent, may we begin our journey toward the Incarnation in the darkness of the womb.