During Advent, restless faith and\nreluctant discipleship notwithstanding, I read Matthew 1:18 through Matthew\n2:12, the tax collecting apostle\u2019s account of Jesus\u2019 birth. Other stories\u2014The\nGift of the Magi<\/em> by O. Henry, about personal sacrifice for those we love; The\nFir Tree <\/em>by H. C. Andersen, encouraging embrace of the present over focus\non the future; The Night Before Christmas <\/em>by C. Moore, regarding\nchild-like hope; and A Christmas Carol<\/em> by C. Dickens, about suffocating\nbitterness turning into freeing love\u2014all play a role in my annual Advent\nreading list. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But this year the Thanksgiving eve\ndream and Rick\u2019s words from the movie have haunted me, and as I sniffled and\ncoughed, sought belly-ache relief, I wondered if there could be an\ninterpretation of the dream that I was missing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The morning of the first Sunday of\nAdvent arrived. Pre-dawn chills failed to keep me between the sheets as I felt\ncompelled to search for new Advent reading. Scanning the bookshelf in front of\nmy desk my eyes lit upon the book I\u2019d been promising to reread for a dozen\nyears, Graham Greene\u2019s masterpiece, The Power and the Glory.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, suddenly my dream made sense. Rick Blaine\u2019s reference to gin joints resonated with my library of books, among which was one that had been \u201cseeking\u201d me and from which I\u2019d hidden for twelve years\u2014the story of the whiskey priest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why now?<\/em> I questioned. The answer, I knew,\nlay hidden in the narrative of the hunted priest who steadfastly pursues his\nsacramental duties as a fully fallible human being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The questioning turned to apathetic\nreading as I struggled through part one of the novel, frequently dozing-off,\nhaving to reread glazed-over paragraphs while wondering if there might not have\nbeen good reason why I hadn\u2019t revisited Greene\u2019s classic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stories about a curmudgeonly old\nemployer, Santa preparing to descend a chimney, a misguided fir tree, and\nchildren exchanging gifts took on renewed interest. My friend and editor, Herta,\nencouraged me: \u201cOh no, don\u2019t stop, it\u2019s a wonderful story, an engrossing\nclassic. Keep at it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At some point, and it matters not\nwhen or at what scene in the hunted priest\u2019s travels and travails, I became his\ncompanion, an uncertain, questioning human being attempting to find and embrace\na spiritual Mystery, truth beyond gratitude for nature\u2019s granting my birth, and\nowing nature my immanent death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That first Advent week involved not\nonly parceling-out over the counter meds for congestion, a runny nose, elderberry\nlozenges for unexpected spates of coughing, but also one in which I didn\u2019t want\nmy fictitious companion\u2019s journey to end, and so I rationed daily readings\nbased on his days of travel and sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the whiskey priest\u2019s story ended\nin his death, an inevitable outcome, his commitment to the God of his calling\nstayed with me. Though he had broken the vow of celibacy by having a mistress\nand fathering a daughter, and consistently flouted the laws of the land he\nremained, to his last breath, a searching follower of God\u2019s son, the babe born\nof a virgin. When his prayers seemed hollow, he found grace and God\u2019s presence\nin the eucharist, the bread and wine bringing his faith alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His story, read this early Advent\nperiod, gives me hope as I fumble my way physically and spiritually into\nanother season of Advent. Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: \u201cThe coming of\nGod [Advent] is truly not only glad tidings, but first frightening news for\nanyone who has a conscience\u2026 [Jesus will] confront you in every person that you\nmeet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reuniting with the whiskey priest\nagain, but [really] for the first time, attests to me of the truth in\nBonhoeffer\u2019s words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And now, as I shuffle among Christmas stories, the comfortable and familiar ones I\u2019ve grown fond of revisiting each year I do so with the memory of the mule-riding, fallible yet tenaciously spiritual whiskey priest at my side. And I am more assured than ever that there are no normal people, and I am in good company as time goes by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n *image courtesy of saintedwardparish.org<\/em> <\/p>\n There are no such things as normal people. So I am in good company. Which brings me to the celebration of my seventy-fourth Advent. During the first ten, I had guileless innocence for a companion, but the last sixty-four have been fraught with varying degrees of problematical belief in the Virgin Birth, and doubt and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[644],"tags":[180,188,617,614,189,616,615,618],"class_list":["post-1169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith-and-hope","tag-advent","tag-christmas","tag-dietrich-bonhoeffer","tag-graham-greene","tag-jesus","tag-rick-blaine","tag-the-power-and-the-glory","tag-whiskey-priest"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Facebook\"](\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yourreluctantdisciple.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F1169&t=Advent%20and%20the%20Power%20and%20the%20Glory&s=100&p[url]=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yourreluctantdisciple.com%2Findex.php%3Frest_route%3D%252Fwp%252Fv2%252Fposts%252F1169&p[images][0]=https%3A%2F%2Fi0.wp.com%2Fwww.yourreluctantdisciple.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F12%2Fimage.png%3Ffit%3D460%252C460%26ssl%3D1&p[title]=Advent%20and%20the%20Power%20and%20the%20Glory\" "\\"Share")
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