Advent

Advent always begins with a reading that sounds like Chicken Little and "the sky is falling."  But it is truly a season of hope and encouragement.  The falling sky is a prelude to a new heavens and a new earth.  I do long for fulfillment of all that I hear God promise us--peace, life, joy, holiness.  But then I spend a lot of my daily life asking "why?"  Why isn't it all here as I envision it?  This advent I want to stop asking "why?" and start resting in a trusting attitude.  After all, the rest of today's readings also talked about God being our justice.  I want to trust that God's justise, which I am too limited to completely comprehend, is at work.  And then it is my role to be patient, hopefilled and about the task of making the world "good news" to the best of my ability.

Big Moments

Thanksgiving tales around the table remind us of our ancestry.  We recall all the larger than life people who have in some way passed genes or personality traits on to us.  Of course, the tales are like sagas which get bigger and bigger and more bizarre or more heroic as the years pass.

However, they do hold some truth and offer some help for us in looking at who we are.  What are the stories from your family that you can identify as describing something essential about yourself?  This might be a good piece of your discernment.  Who are you?  At the same time we are not determined by our ancestry.  We may find that we are quite different from the people in the stories we are hearing.  Who are you?  Where has God been in this process of you becoming who you are?  What do you want to claim from the past and what is uniquely new in the center of your heart?  God is giving you your past and forming something new in you right now.

Some opportunities for discernment exercises at this time of year.  Be grateful for all that has gone before and all that is in you.