Drew Jackson reads our second poem for Advent from his book "God Speaks Through Wombs: Poems on God's Unexpected Coming." This poem, Leap! centers on Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.
Listen to the poem three times. In the first listening, simply be present to the words without analyzing or striving. Just receive it. In the second, pay attention to what rises in you, what you feel in your emotions, your body, etc. In the third, reflect on these questions: What is leaping within you right now that God is inviting you to pay attention to? What dream has God placed within you are you longing to see born?
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” (Luke 1:39-45)
