“Sometimes we have difficulty believing we will see anything new. After all, we know the story. We’ve heard it year after year. What could we possibly see or hear that we have not seen or heard before?” ~Mary Lou Redding, While We Wait: Living the Questions of Advent

Advent…..the beginning. Yesterday was the beginning of the new church year, the first Sunday in Advent. Christian churches everywhere began their walk into a new year. During this short season that leads us toward the celebration of Christmas, we use words like ‘anticipation’, ‘expectation’, ‘waiting’, ‘watching’ to describe the spirit of these days. We watch and wait for the birth of the Christ in our midst. We anticipate a time when God’s presence among us will be visible, palpable, a time when the human family will live in the full light of the Holy. Like the gospel writers who told committed this story to print, we each have our own ways of how we believe this manifestation will come to be.

As I look out my office window right now, the skies are gray and snow and rain are spitting against the glass. The large oak tree which keeps me company daily, its strong presence a constant source of inspiration, is dripping in the starkness of the day. Advent comes to those of us in this part of the country during the darkest, often most somber part of the year. And yet this season holds within it the warmth and light of all that can be born from just such bleakness. Candles will be lit. Food will be shared. Gifts will be given. Hopes will be shared. Stories will light up the eyes of children, the heart of memory of those who are older. Sacred texts will tell of a surprising God who shows up in the most unexpected places.

Our work during this time is to follow the command of Matthew: “Keep awake, for you do not know on what day your God is coming.” Our work becomes the practice of being present for all the ways in which the Holy comes to us, not only in December days,but each day. Even in the madness that can become what we call Christmas, our work is to be always watchful for the goodness, the love, the kindness, the joy, that creeps into the most mundane and marvelous experiences that come our way. How will we see God….even in places we don’t want to believe possible? Like the mall. Or the traffic. Or Christmas music that is played over and over again. Or the newscast that tells of war in far off lands. Or the young man who holds the sign at the corner stoplight. Or the politician whose ideas drive us to distraction.

For in truth, God’s presence moves through all this and more. As people who watch and wait for the coming of Christ, how can we open our hearts to welcome the Child that lives in each of those we meet, in all the places where Breath moves? How can we make time and space for welcoming the Christ child that waits to be born us us?

Advent…..beginning…..what is beginning in you on this bleak, dark day?