As we move into the Advent season leading up to Christmas, I thought it would be poignant to muse over the preparatory attributes that mark each of the four weeks of Advent.  The first attribute is hope.  Just saying this word lightens my heart and speaks to me of the promise and healing associated with Jesus’s arrival.  I think it is a good practice to make more room in our hearts and lives for Jesus leading up to Christmas and hope seems to be a good place to start.  But what is hope in a biblical sense, I think it is way more than “I hope I get a fill in the blank for Christmas” or “I hope it is a white Christmas”.  Looking at Romans 5:5 hope becomes clearer and God centered:   and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.  To be hopeful is to face the future with a personal knowledge of God’s love which is deepened through Jesus and the Holy Spirit who lives within all of us.  This knowledge is a quality of faith that ensures we are not forgotten or put to shame in challenging times as well as in times of abundance.

In my mind, this is the message that Jesus most wanted to impart, Emanuel, God with us.  You see, we are not separate from God.  Jesus truly wanted us to walk with him and to put on all of of his characteristics including hope.  He truly wanted us to be in relationship with Him.  God started this relationship and Jesus beckons us to continue it.  This union, this relationship with God and Jesus can be tainted by a doctrine that was most likely started with good intentions, but has left many a seeker feeling not good enough.  This is the doctrine of original sin begun not in the Bible, certainly not by Jesus but by St. Augustine who lived in the early 400’s AD.  This theory is based on the idea that we are all born sinful based on the decisions of Adam and Eve in the garden.

I feel the idea of original sin is contradictory to so much of what Jesus taught and embodied.  This theory implies that we are inherently broken and need salvation to fix us.  To be completely honest this idea has drawn me closer to God on my yoga mat and further away from the pulpit.  I grew tired of the multitude of sermon’s related to brokenness.   I love and worship a God who sees me as whole and I hope you do too.   I believe Jesus is the light of world and that he did not come to earth to help us deal with our sins.  He came to fill us with hope so that we might find right relationship with him including a sense of wholeness within ourselves and each other.

Original blessing was suggested by Pelagius another philosopher from the fourth century.  He felt that beginning with the negative, original sin, would damage rather than aid spiritual development.  I wholeheartedly agree, it has been suggested that much of the self-help movement has been fueled by the idea of original sin and helping the sinful come to terms with their broken unworthiness.  I quote Richard Rohr here, as you may know, my favorite modern-day mystic when he says “Beginning with the positive instead of a problem is the healthiest and most hopeful way to find wholeness. “

This idea of positivity and its flip side negativity got me reflecting about one of the many tools from yoga philosophy that guides the practitioner towards wholeness.  This tool or practice is called bhavana. Patanjali, the author of the Yoga Sutra describes the term pratipaksha-bhavana as a technique for dealing with negativity or stressful thoughts.    When negative thoughts crowd the mind, we are asked to conjure up the opposite.  This isn’t meant to be a practice that dismisses and covers up emotions but to work more with the mind.  We can all relate to those pesky negative thoughts.  Some of these thoughts are almost cultural such as thoughts of ourselves as sinners or unworthy of God’s love.

I was interested to see what the thesaurus would say is the antonym to hope.   The top five were despair, doubt, angst, fearfulness, and worry.  The advent season is the perfect time to look at the quality of your thoughts.  Do they tend to be negative?  If so, no judgment simply begin practicing bhavana and rewiring your mind to more hopeful thoughts.  It can be challenging but this is why we call it practice.  St. Frances outlines this path of bhavana so poignantly in his famous prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Sometimes an honest look at our frequent thoughts, a willingness to be vulnerable and to move into the world with an open heart is all that is required to take a step towards God and to move closer to wholeness.   In all this, we do not lie down in submission.  We still stand strong in our convictions and know that God gives us the strength to withstand all things, to truly hope, and true hope is not a whimsical expression, it is a stance of strength and faith. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. – Hebrews 10:39. This verse!  Gives me so much hope for myself personally and for all of humanity.  God does not create victims; he literally gives us the power to preserve our souls. We do this simply by choosing him and with our humble but sufficient attempts to embody what Jesus taught.  Take faith my friends and bring in biblical hope.   As we begin the Christmas season can we consider where we are placing our attention?  Our fears?  If they are present, lay them down at the feet of the one that restores and empowers all things and he will gladly help you transform your fears into hope.

Here is a yoga video I made today to reinforce this teaching.