CPR 

Ahh yes! Here we have another buzz word. The mandatory nature of the CPR courses ensures that those who work with children and young people among other professions, do these course annually. I remember 2 breaths and 30 compression and DRS ABCD; all of this to resuscitate an unconscious person and bring them back to life.

I can’t help but relate this to my life and relationships that I have had. How often have I tried to do CPR on old dead relationships? Oh so many times as I have tried to revive old friendships or relationships that were gone and buried. Our refusal to “bury the dead” places, memories and relationships is a sign of our inability to accept loss and move on.

Have you had similar experiences? Have you endlessly tried to revive relationships or friendships that you know deep down in your heart and mind are in need to be declared dead? How often have you hung on to an ailing relationship, old memories or went back to an old boy/girl friend, you know are not good for you? Or even kept in touch with an old “best friend” or high school mate to fill an emptiness, when you tried so many times before and when you know it was a one-way relationship that was never going to survive the test of time. What about long lost cousins that have moved on?

A long time ago when I worked in Real Estate, I was reminded a clear shortcoming I had in the sales game. I was great at making conversations, great at attracting costumers, knew my stuff but not sharp enough at closing sales. I know I am not. I don’t need a psychological employment screening test to tell me that. I sense not all people are. And this quality means that we struggle to close the old, to do a post-mortem, to write a death certificate, to grief, accept our losses and move on.

Oh how I know that so well!!! Woohoooo!!! It is freeing to see your self as you are, at least for a minute. But where to from here? I guess one needs to move on, one needs to accept the new status quo. Interestingly “acceptance” is the advanced stage in the grieving process.

One needs to focus on the present and not be afraid to wait in emptiness until a new relationship, new hope, new joy or new birth comes to life. This is what Christmas is all about. Christmas is a sign that Spring is just around the corner, that new life awaits all. Life is difficult, complex and maybe many times unfair, but life is also filled with hope. Simply, to use a maternal metaphor, in life we are always “excpecting”.

May I get poetic! Sorrow and suffering always carry the seed of new life. Suffering is always pregnant with hope precisely because death always is pregnant with Life. This is our hope as people of the Spirit followers of the Risen Christ, children of the Father.

Christmas is here! Not as some opportunity to exchange gifts and feel we need a holiday, which is legitimate and needed, but also a waiting naked in the wind for the birth of something new. To live in “advent” means to wait for the “coming”. And waiting is so challenging.
This means that the things we hope may not come as we expect them or when we expect them. This means that as one waits, one needs to be happy to be empty and not fill this emptiness with a going back in time. It’s a patient “trust in the slow work of God” as Chardin says. A trust that God always fulfills God’s promise. A trust that Mary learnt as she too was literally “expecting”.

As we await Christmas to come, may we ask for the strength from the Spirit to wait and repeat with hearts filled with hope, the prayer of the early Church: Maranatha! Come Lord!