Speaking of Advent, I'm a bit peeved at the weather right now. My parents are complaining about weather in the 20s; here it's been in the 50s. I could wear shorts, if I felt like it! It's rained enough in the last few days to give us plenty of snow; but, being in the 40s and 50s all it can do is rain. I'm always reminded of my love for snow during Advent and Christmastide, and while I know it's totally a culturally conditioned love, I always remember the line from one of the poets we read in my Australian Literature class: "I say that what is forever fair / is never fair."
Two nights ago I walked through the 40 degree rain to go to the Divinity School Advent Service and party. Waiting for the service to begin I was absolutely shocked when Miroslav Volf slid into my row and sat next to me. For the next few minutes he asked me why I didn't have shoes on, and listened with apparent interest as I explained a few of the reasons I am seldom seen shod.
It stands to reason that if one of the most important (?), well-known theologians in America is curious why I never wear shoes, a lot of other people are as well (although I have to say, most people at the Div school simply notice it; very few actually ask. One friend listened with great interest when his twin 4-year old daughters asked, but had never "had the courage" to do it himself.) Well, without further adieu:
Reason #1: It's more comfortable!
So this isn't terribly exciting, but it would register as something of a surprise if you knew me in my childhood. Not only would I refuse to do anything (outdoors) barefoot, but I had to have my shoes tied on as tightly as possible. I refused to ever buy velcro shoes (and, let's face it, that's not a bad thing!) because they didn't fit my feet tightly enough, I didn't feel like they were on properly.
It wasn't really until I spent a semester abroad in Australia that I stopped wearing shoes; and I can't really say that there was any significant moment in time when that happened. I remember getting off the plane in August in the early spring, some 45 degrees or so, and not feeling any need to change out of my shorts and sandals. Eventually I quit wearing the sandals, and found out just how different Australia is from the US: Only once in the final six weeks was I ever asked to put on my shoes. The kindly verger at St. Paul's cathedral asked me to put my shoes on the afternoon I stopped in to do some homework in the sanctuary. But banks, restaurants, concert venues, trains... you name it, I did it barefoot, and no one ever batted an eye.
Not only is it more comfortable, I've been able to reflect upon a couple of unique advantages it offers me. The first is that I'm never worried about spending a day in sopping wet socks and shoes. I can run through the rain and make it to class somewhat colder than some of my peers, but my feet will dry within a matter of just a few minutes. I hate the damp, mildewy feeling you get when your socks just won't dry out in your shoes.
The second is that I acclimate to changing weather a little quicker than most people I know. I haven't really felt the chill of winter yet; I've only worn a coat twice! Being connected to the ground all the time, I'm constantly internalizing and adjusting to the temperature of the ground, rather than being insulated by layers of rubber and cloth. The slow shift brought by autumn's chilly death is something I knowingly participate in day by day, rather than week by week.
Reason #2: Connection to the Earth
You get a bit of this above, but ever since last fall, I have grown in awareness and appreciation for my connection to the ground on which I walk. That semester I was in an amazing class called "Reading Poetry Theologically." It was the most honest, non-pretentious, passionate and caring group of students I have gotten to share a class with, and our professor was so generous and wise that we all campaigned like mad to get the school to bring him back for another class. He's teaching "Imagining the Apocalypse" next spring and I'm not sure if I'll be able to take it because I have pesky graduation requirements to finish up, but I'll definitely devour the syllabus in my first few months after I'm free from school.
The second week of class we (re-)read this gem by G.M. Hopkins:
God's Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
When we got around to discussing the final lines of the octet, I was overwhelmed with the physical memory of one of the most amazing sensations I have ever felt. Driving home two summers ago from a friend's wedding, my friend Micah and I stopped in Connecticut to spend the night at his grandparents house. We'd been in the car, a/c blasting, for several hours without stopping. We pulled up the twisted gravel driveway to a beautiful ranch style house his grandfather had built himself. As I stepped out of the car onto the uneven gravel baked warm by the August sun, my chilled feet were overloaded, trying to separate soothing warmth from sharp stone from too cold air in the car. The mixed sensations shot up and down my legs and I stood still for a few minutes, just feeling. I can feel, being unshod, I insisted in our class discussion.
I also talked about how the way I am connected to these kinds of sensory experiences affects even just the way I walk across campus. I see other people rushing around, heads down, feet pounding the pavement in their hurried rush to and fro. I note in comparison that I tend to walk - given my own pace - much more like the senior folk I see around, taking my time in something more of an amublatory pace than a purposed one. I have grown to love to notice the way light falls on the grass or how the squirrels fight in the trees while I walk rather than plugging into an iPod and resenting the walk itself. I'm connected to the world around me, literally, because I just can't pound my way across the earth with no awareness of where I'm at or how my feet land.
Reason #3: Who am I...
"Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight - why the bush does not burn up.
When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!"
And Moses said, "Here I am."
"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground."
Ever since I went shoeless, people have always asked if this story is the reason. It wasn't, really, in the beginning. But as time marches on and I unshod feel it passing, I meditate more and more on this question: Who am I to decide what is holy ground and what is not? Who am I to assume that just because I don't see the fire or hear the voice calling my name that the world isn't about to explode with God's grandeur? Why would I ever think I could decide that I'm not about to hear a word of God's revelation from the person in front of me? Why should any step I take be anything less than worship? If the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, isn't all of it holy? Shouldn't I always live in awe and fear and joy?
I hope I am able to take every step with the sense of wonder, of curiosity, of joy that C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton write about. I hope I am always awake (Hey! There's an Advent theme to this post after all!) to the possibility that God is speaking to me, even if my ears aren't listening for that kind of silence. I hope that taking off my shoes is a reminder that I could very well be on holy ground and God could very well be just out of sight, waiting to see if I will come over and look.
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