Hunting and Hunted

Advent: Hunting and Hunted

Why is it that I seem to flourish during Advent?

“It’s because he gets to go deer hunting,” you are thinking, and that is partly true.

Yet there is more to Advent, even for someone who cherishes the rituals of deer camp only a

little less than those of the church year. As the weather grows more harsh, something in the heart

of the world seems to soften. As the leaves wither and dry, something in the trees comes alive, as

if listening. As the first snows soften the landscape, something warms the spirit, just as a

woodstove warms a frigid room.

“There he goes, back to deer camp again,” you may be thinking. But it was in Advent, 1958,

that I first attended a silent Retreat, and first allowed myself to become submerged in the flow of

divine reality around me. It snowed heavily during those three days, wrapping the Retreat

Center in a shroud of silence. For the first time, I found myself spending long periods of time

sitting quietly in church with no service in progress, no organized activity at all, only the tangible

sense of a silent and living presence.

If you think that was odd behavior for a sixteen-year old, remember that I was used to sitting

for hours in the woods listening for the sound of a deer’s approach. Listening for God isn’t that

much different, except that you don’t wear blaze orange and you don’t have the intention of

shooting God if given the opportunity.

But in Advent we are “hunting” for God, and, amazingly, God comes “hunting” for us. So the

hunter becomes the hunted, stalked by a ghostly presence. Yet this powerful being is the most

gentle of predators, the kindest of adversaries. To be swallowed by God is the happiest of fates.

To be ambushed by God is to cast out all fear. To be preyed upon by God is the epitome of

prayer. To die with God is to be reborn with Christ at Bethlehem, in Michigan, or in Paradise.

These may not be your Advent thoughts, nor were they mine in the winter of 1958. But every

Advent has its own surprises, its own brand of silence. All we have to do is listen.