In Advent, Christian people are supposed to watch before dawn, wait through the night, looking out into the heavens across the universe. Believers are to contemplate their lives as a version of the loneliness of the watchman in the tower, eyes on the horizon, longing for the first sign of light, when the promise will be fulfilled.
I remember coming back from a Weston Priory, a Benedictine monastery in Vermont, during college. I was living off-campus, in a two story house, second floor, with four friends. Merrie, Gabrielle, Ken, and Steve. After the monastery, I’d get up every morning way early (for me) and climb up to the roof, and sit with my back against the warm bricks of the chimney, looking out east over New Haven toward the ocean, and sing their song, "Calm is the Night, O Lord, as we wait for you. All the Stars are Laughing at our Wonder. Wait not in vain for the sun shall come. You will know within you His every stirring presence."
In secular Advent, how could we lift up an equally compelling and rich theme, perhaps the theme of watching and waiting for the enormous machine of the orbiting earth to circle the sun, whirling in and out of it’s light, until it reaches the extreme, in another week, of our northern darkness. We wait with the sleeping bear stirring, we wait with the Amazon burning, we wait with the coral reefs slowly melting, we wait and watch with the lovely beloved earth in all it’s diversity holding us by the hand as we walk into uncharted dangers and unending beauty.
In this time of waiting for a return of sanity, a recovery of a deep human love for the earth, a love greater than comfort, convenience, desire and greed, Matteo took me to the San Francisco Zoo.
The zoo is all the way on the other side of San Francisco from downtown, by the ocean. We took the stairs down into the world under Market Street, into the tunnels of the public transportation system. We took this streetcar called the L-Line across the peninsula, popped up in the streets halfway there, into the sun licking the dirty windows of our streetcar, and walked into the world of wondrous out-of-context critters.
A pair of giraffes stood on the savanna just inside the front gate, but the grizzlies were our immediate goal, reading the map, pushing the umbrella stroller, because they were scheduled for a feed shortly, at 10:30 am. We found a blonde griz sister licking honey off some branches, and her sibling was sidling around and tasting a tree. We pressed our noses into the glass and watched. They ambled about, and headed toward a pool, a little foamy, which had fish in it. Maybe only two fish, because the bears seemed to be in a routine, each splashing around only as much as it required to corner a single fish, mouth it, and get it out for a leisurely nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw breakfast. All the children and their mommies and daddies watched, in awe.
The polar bears were considerably more sedate, two pairs in two settings. Teo loved the parrots in the Amazon house, the tarantulas in the insect house, and was struck that there were quite a few Kangas but no Roos. And the Kangas weren’t standing, they were lounging, not something you see much in the Pooh books. The koalas were either stuffed and posed in a tree, or sleeping, behind their glass. The huge Pachyderm pavilion was bereft of elephants for some reason. The penguins announced themselves by a rank fishy smell. The mama lion lay on a high rock right next to our viewing window, licking her paws clean, and rolling over. The tigers were pacing, pacing, back and forth, waiting for some action. It was exhilarating to watch, wishing for them a different fate: may you take a big stalk somewhere wild, fill your belly, take a long sleep, and spend the afternoon marking territory in the search for a mate, Tyger Tyger, burning bright. 
Take us with you into the forests of the night.
The seagulls – entirely free and natural – terrorized people at lunch, coming closer and closer to people’s french fries and burger buns until they freaked out, leapt up, and abandoned the field to the winged marauders, who then fought among themselves for priority, squawking loudly while flipping food everywhere.
After lunch Matteo walked among the sheep and goats of the children’s zoo, first scared, and then a little too jerky direct when he decided he wanted to get in a patty-pat. What he liked the most was the kiddy wheelbarrow with the dirt in it, and when that was commandeered by others, the kiddy rake, with which, at great length, he made his mark in the dirt.
Isn’t it interesting we’d think we were worshiping God inside a dark building with pretty glass, burning candles, and the strange smoky smell of incense, the echo of distant voices singing something ethereal, but not in the zoo. The zoo, where are the wondrous tongued and snouted anteater, the ship sized hippopotamus, the armored rhinoceros, the snakes, the spiders, the animal mommies and their dear children, the human mommies and their dear children. A lovely community, a rich experience of some of the whole earth’s holy and sacred diversity in one place, breathing and bleating and hungering and living out lives that are gifts.
Living out our giftedness, together, we come to the end of another epic traverse around our mother, our creator, our sun.
I remember coming back from a Weston Priory, a Benedictine monastery in Vermont, during college. I was living off-campus, in a two story house, second floor, with four friends. Merrie, Gabrielle, Ken, and Steve. After the monastery, I’d get up every morning way early (for me) and climb up to the roof, and sit with my back against the warm bricks of the chimney, looking out east over New Haven toward the ocean, and sing their song, "Calm is the Night, O Lord, as we wait for you. All the Stars are Laughing at our Wonder. Wait not in vain for the sun shall come. You will know within you His every stirring presence."
In secular Advent, how could we lift up an equally compelling and rich theme, perhaps the theme of watching and waiting for the enormous machine of the orbiting earth to circle the sun, whirling in and out of it’s light, until it reaches the extreme, in another week, of our northern darkness. We wait with the sleeping bear stirring, we wait with the Amazon burning, we wait with the coral reefs slowly melting, we wait and watch with the lovely beloved earth in all it’s diversity holding us by the hand as we walk into uncharted dangers and unending beauty.
In this time of waiting for a return of sanity, a recovery of a deep human love for the earth, a love greater than comfort, convenience, desire and greed, Matteo took me to the San Francisco Zoo.
The zoo is all the way on the other side of San Francisco from downtown, by the ocean. We took the stairs down into the world under Market Street, into the tunnels of the public transportation system. We took this streetcar called the L-Line across the peninsula, popped up in the streets halfway there, into the sun licking the dirty windows of our streetcar, and walked into the world of wondrous out-of-context critters.
A pair of giraffes stood on the savanna just inside the front gate, but the grizzlies were our immediate goal, reading the map, pushing the umbrella stroller, because they were scheduled for a feed shortly, at 10:30 am. We found a blonde griz sister licking honey off some branches, and her sibling was sidling around and tasting a tree. We pressed our noses into the glass and watched. They ambled about, and headed toward a pool, a little foamy, which had fish in it. Maybe only two fish, because the bears seemed to be in a routine, each splashing around only as much as it required to corner a single fish, mouth it, and get it out for a leisurely nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw breakfast. All the children and their mommies and daddies watched, in awe.
The polar bears were considerably more sedate, two pairs in two settings. Teo loved the parrots in the Amazon house, the tarantulas in the insect house, and was struck that there were quite a few Kangas but no Roos. And the Kangas weren’t standing, they were lounging, not something you see much in the Pooh books. The koalas were either stuffed and posed in a tree, or sleeping, behind their glass. The huge Pachyderm pavilion was bereft of elephants for some reason. The penguins announced themselves by a rank fishy smell. The mama lion lay on a high rock right next to our viewing window, licking her paws clean, and rolling over. The tigers were pacing, pacing, back and forth, waiting for some action. It was exhilarating to watch, wishing for them a different fate: may you take a big stalk somewhere wild, fill your belly, take a long sleep, and spend the afternoon marking territory in the search for a mate, Tyger Tyger, burning bright. 
Take us with you into the forests of the night.The seagulls – entirely free and natural – terrorized people at lunch, coming closer and closer to people’s french fries and burger buns until they freaked out, leapt up, and abandoned the field to the winged marauders, who then fought among themselves for priority, squawking loudly while flipping food everywhere.
After lunch Matteo walked among the sheep and goats of the children’s zoo, first scared, and then a little too jerky direct when he decided he wanted to get in a patty-pat. What he liked the most was the kiddy wheelbarrow with the dirt in it, and when that was commandeered by others, the kiddy rake, with which, at great length, he made his mark in the dirt.
Isn’t it interesting we’d think we were worshiping God inside a dark building with pretty glass, burning candles, and the strange smoky smell of incense, the echo of distant voices singing something ethereal, but not in the zoo. The zoo, where are the wondrous tongued and snouted anteater, the ship sized hippopotamus, the armored rhinoceros, the snakes, the spiders, the animal mommies and their dear children, the human mommies and their dear children. A lovely community, a rich experience of some of the whole earth’s holy and sacred diversity in one place, breathing and bleating and hungering and living out lives that are gifts.
Living out our giftedness, together, we come to the end of another epic traverse around our mother, our creator, our sun.
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