Advent appropriately begins with rain today and darkness in the gospel of Mark passage from the lectionary this Sunday. If any time Auntie Mame was ever right. it is now. ‘We need a little Christmas, right this very minute.”
Horrors in Mubai, India, stock market tanking, friends and family in hospitals, some with out hope. My friend, david m. bailey, singer/songwriter had his cancer return. Our children struggle with being lost. So where do we turn? This quote from John Stendahl, seemed to say it all for me. I stand with Hope, I watch for the dawn, and I pray for God’s return to our world.
“I will not choose indifference or resignation. I want to be among those who watch and hope, even when the hope feels like despair. It is after all the company in which God chose to be enfleshed, in Jesus, praying to the still unanswering sky.
And perhaps God did then stir in the heavens, unseen above Golgotha. Perhaps those heavens opened for shepherds to hear a song of peace one night, and later on so that the Holy Spirit could attend a baptism at the Jordan River. And perhaps they will at last open for everyone, that every eye may see.
And then sometimes, some blessed times, we have had worked in us such Advent alchemy that our own hearts stir to feel the stirring of God. Not yet so powerful, not yet quite visible, but more, we think, than just imagined. While the sky still appears opaque and silent, seeds quicken in the dark soil. A child stirs in the womb.”
John Stendahl
