Inside Out: Advent Week One
Do you ever feel like you’re inside out? Or like the world is?
This Advent, I’d like to explore the theme of “light in the midst of darkness.” So I begin with this old poem and will continue next week with a reflection on the last two lines. Then … well, we’ll just see what happens after that. (Because right now, I have no idea what I’m going to write!)
Inside Out
or A Soul’s Preparation
I would like
to have grown
from the inside out,
To know myself,
with eyes closed,
before I explored
the external world
of color, shape, and sound;
To learn, internally,
to hold and release
my anger and grief
before my fists were formed.
As a baby, I instinctively
clutched
the brightly colored toys,
and my hands learned
to handle.
I would rather have learned
to stack my joys
into a castle precarious,
beautiful,
and when it falls,
to laugh and rebuild.
It seems to me
that we have all grown from
the outside in,
and our construction
has suffered from it.
For think how easy it is to see a light
in the midst of darkness,
And yet how difficult to see a hope
in the midst of despair.
© 2021 Christina Chase
original poem © 1996
Feature Photo by La-Rel Easter on Unsplash
Christina Chase View All
Although crippled by disease, I'm fully alive in love. I write about the terrible beauty and sacred wonder of life, while living with physical disability and severe dependency. A revert to the Catholic faith through atheism, I'm not afraid to ask life's big questions. I explore what it means to be fully human through my weekly blog and have written a book: It's Good to Be Here, published by Sophia Institute Press.
Christina Chase 
Dear Christina,
Thank you for this poem. I attach a recent âvillanelleâ I have written, because in the final stanza I allude to my own âdespairâ that Our Lady rescued me from, on the Feast of her Immaculate Conception in 1984.
I would like to ask your prayers for two important things: I hope to do an all-night vigil at our church in preparation for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception next Wednesday. Please pray that it will be fruitful and that God will answer my prayers for the spiritual ârebirthâ of our parish/parish church. The other prayer request is that parishioners at our church will go to Confession this coming Sunday, the 2nd Sunday in Advent, when our pp is making it available. I asked him to do this but he is very pessimistic that people will come. He tells me it is âa dying Sacramentâ. I canât bear the thought that this may be true â although the UK is largely a spiritual desert these days, I feel we must light candles in the darkness. If people come to Confession, he will make the Sacrament more available; if they donât, I fear he wonât.
I donât write book reviews any more (remember, I blogged about your book and interviewed you, for the Catholic Herald some time ago.)
God bless, and Advent prayers, from Francis
LikeLike
I have prayed for your intention, Francis, that people will take advantage of the Sacrament of Concession today, and experience the healing joy of it! I need to avail myself more often of this sacrament. Sacraments can’t die, of course! But we definitely can become blind and lose sight of what’s important and valuable. Your parish and parishioners are in my prayers, as are you and your family.
Pax Christi
Christina
LikeLike