Practicing Radical Advent: Purposeful Waiting in Seasons of Change (Laurie Brink, OP) - Review
Life is full of changes. I am not
the same person as I was fifty years ago when I was starting my freshman year
of college. Change is inevitable, so how do we respond to it? In answer to that
question, it might be helpful to have someone offer us wisdom for the journey. It
might also be beneficial to have a method of waiting as we move through periods
of transition. The good news is that there is a method that might prove
valuable that is offered to us by Sister Laurie Brink, OP, which she calls
"radical advent." Drawing from the opening season of the liturgical
year, this method involves active waiting for God to act, so that while recognizing
that God is the one who invites, we have the opportunity to respond to that
invitation.
The pathway for navigating the
seasons of change that we all go through is described by Laurie Brink, OP, in Practicing
Radical Advent: Purposeful Waiting in Seasons of Change. Brink, who is a
Dominican nun, Professor of New Testament Studies, and director of the
certificate in biblical spirituality at the Catholic Theological Union, like
many of us, is "not good at waiting." Not one who enjoys wasting
time, Brink found the COVID-19 pandemic to be especially vexing. However, although
we are now several years past the pandemic, we still find ourselves
"looking for normal across a landscape devoid of landmarks" (p. 1).
So how do we move forward trusting that God is truly present with us in our
times of transition? As we ponder these kinds of questions, Brink offers us some
wisdom, utilizing the lectio divina formula to explore the biblical
story as a source of wisdom.
As noted above, this is a book
about active waiting, something we may find unsettling. With that in mind,
Brink offers us her version of "Radical Advent." As anyone who has
gone through the liturgical season of Advent knows, there is a tendency to so
focus on getting to Christmas that one rushes through the season and misses the
message of Advent. So, in Practicing Radical Advent, Brink invites us to
participate in "holy waiting, infused with God's presence in
everything." This kind of waiting is serious, active, and productive. Therefore,
"Radical advent is a holy experience in which we actively embrace our
waiting, make new plans or refine earlier ones, and recognize that this is a
time-limited experience" (p. 5).
Brink’s book is structured around a
series of steppingstones, drawn from scripture, that allow us to navigate our
seasons of change. Drawing on a modified form of lectio divina, after
introducing the biblical story and its implications, she invites the reader to
walk through four steps: Read, Reflect, Respond, and Return. After first introducing
us to the premise of the book and the methodology employed, Brink begins leading
us on the journey forward through times of change.
Brink titles the first chapter "Responding
to the Invitation." The point here is that transitions will begin with an
invitation to something or someplace new. She invites us to ponder the stories
of two biblical figures who responded to God's invitation, one of whom did so very
reluctantly. These figures are Abram, who packs up and heads off to an unknown
land, along with Jonah, who resists the invitation and heads off in the
opposite direction. After introducing these two stories, she brings it forward
in a section titled "Living the Word," something she does in each
chapter, where she offers contemporary examples of people in her own religious
community who responded to God's invitation. This is followed by a reflection
on the stories and the invitation, inviting us to consider how we respond to
God's invitation.
In Chapter 2, "Choosing to Go
Forward," Brink draws on the story of Naomi and Ruth, intermixing their
stories with the story of a friend who lost her husband and struggled to figure
out how to move forward. Here we attend to the story of a lost home and travel
to a new land. While Boaz will rescue the women, the focus of the story is on
the hesed, or loving kindness, that exists between the women as they move
through a serious time of transition. Brink points out that despite the title
of the biblical book, Naomi is actually the central character in the story,
such that Ruth’s presence serves as the reminder that she is not alone. The
same is true for Marge, as she discovers the support of friends and colleagues
as she transitions through a season of grief.
From the story of Ruth and Naomi
and the thread of hesed that runs through the story, we turn to Peter in
Chapter 3. Titled "Discerning a New Vocation," which Brink prefaces
with her experience of discerning her vocation as a Dominican, she invites us
into the story of the calling of Peter, who discerns a vocation after Jesus
uses his boat as a platform for speaking. Here Brink reminds us of a particular
pattern known as a "call story," which we see with Peter but also
many other biblical characters, such as Moses. This pattern involves a divine
encounter, followed by an invitation, and then resistance, which leads to
reassurance and commission. Though Peter resists, he eventually responds
positively to the invitation. Brink points out that when God calls us, God can
see our potential as well as our limitations. Thus, God asks us to see
ourselves as God sees us so that we might respond.
Transitions and times of change
often involve crossing boundaries, such as the boundaries we see crossed in the
Gospel of John with Jesus' encounter with a woman at a well in Samaria. There
are several barriers crossed here, but Jesus reaches across them anyway. A
piece that Brink notes is that male-female encounters at wells in the biblical
story often involve marriage, though not in this case. So, here, despite the
differences, Jesus and the Samaritan woman bridge those differences so she can
be a witness to her community.
Chapter 5, titled "Counting
the Costs," takes us into the story of the Transfiguration and the
Beatitudes, along with the story of a former slave who sought to become a
Catholic Priest but was turned down multiple times, though eventually he was
ordained as the first black priest in New York. She writes that
"Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus isn't asking his listeners to
stop being human or in relationships. He's challenging them to think about how
they live, why they do what they do" (p. 86).
We move to the next steppingstone
on the journey in Chapter 6, "Recognizing the Destination." The
biblical story here involves the journey to Jerusalem, which was a difficult
time for the disciples as they struggled to understand what Jesus was saying
about his future. At the same time, Jesus was instructing them on discipleship,
which involved self-denial, taking up the cross, losing their life, and
forfeiting the world to find life. The message here is that not only is Jesus
the suffering servant, but that following Jesus involves suffering with him.
The question is whether the disciples can see what was taking place.
The next step involves
"Becoming Reconciled" (Chapter 7). Here Brink draws on stories of
reconciliation, including Paul's own journey to reconciliation as he moves from
being a persecutor to an apostle; a transition that starts with the aftermath
of his participation in the execution of Stephen and moves to his ministry. I
appreciate her drawing on 2 Corinthians 5, which is one of the passages that I
draw upon in my own life and ministry. She writes that "In Christian
reconciliation, repentance and forgiveness do not precede reconciliation but
emerge from it" (p. 110). So, the question is: how do we move through the
process of reconciliation?
The final chapter is titled
"Changing Expectations" (Chapter 8). Considering this is a
conversation about active waiting in times of transition, the question of
expectations is important. Brink writes that "Our willingness to revise
our expectations opens us up to new and sometimes unimaginable." She
reminds us that flexibility regarding our expectations can be very helpful as
we transition through times of change. Here the key story is that of Mary of
Magdala, a woman whose life was transformed through her encounter with Jesus.
This includes her encounter with the risen Jesus. Her expectation of finding a
tomb where she could mourn her beloved teacher was turned upside down when she
discovered the empty tomb. She became the Easter Apostle after she let go of
her expectation of finding the body of Jesus and encountered the risen Christ.
Brink writes that "Had Mary clung to her original expectations and remained
looking for a body she would never find, she would have missed this divine
encounter and missed the commission to become the Apostle of Easter" (p.
126).
In her conclusion to Practicing
Radical Advent, Brink takes us back through the steppingstones that run from
an invitation to step out on the journey to changing expectations. While
waiting may be difficult and even unpopular, when we engage in the process of
radical advent, we discover that good things can happen even when we don't
recognize them. Therefore, as we await the reign of God by Practicing
Radical Advent, Laurie Brink reminds us that we have work to do. With that
in mind, she also offers us helpful wisdom as we continue the process of
navigating seasons of change. After all, change is inevitable, whether we like
it or not.
Copies of Laurie Brink, OP Practicing Radical Advent can be purchased at your favorite retailer, including my Amazon affiliate and my Bookshop.org affiliate.
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