Advent Prayer

God of the watching ones,
give us Your benediction.

God of the waiting ones,
give us your good word for our souls.

God of the watching ones
the slow and the suffering ones
give us Your benediction,
Your good word for our souls
that we might rest.

God of the watching ones,
the waiting ones,
the slow and the suffering ones,

and the angels in heaven,

and the child in the womb,

give us your benediction,
your good word for our souls,
that we might rest and rise
in the kindness of your company.

Worship in Beauty of Holiness - and vice versa? . . .

Beauty is related to holiness. "Beauty is our sensory access to holiness. God reveals himself, that is, God's life in creation and in Christ, in ways that we can see and hear and touch and taste - in place and person."

- Eugene Peterson

To Be With Friends . . .

My dear grandson, Nathan, has learned some of the songs of the Season, and the following makes perfect sense - to him, given that he'll be four in a week and has not yet seen that many and that much of the passing and rhythm of the years. The conclusion of his happy song makes me smile - and stirs my hopes:

We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas
And a Happy Near You !

Love Blooms Bright . . .

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There'd been no room for the child

- Madeleine L'Engle

Hope

I like the fact that Christians 'keep score' and 'tell time' in another way besides the usual bottom line(s) of life and the mere chronology of the passing hours and days. The Advent Calendar, part of 'the Christian Year' draws us into a time of yearning, longing, waiting - for the Fulfilment of the Promise that is Good News for this world. It's come and is yet coming just as Christ has already appeared (say, about 2,000 years ago) but also will come again at the end of the Age - to bring in the fulness of all that we have yet had only rumours and mere glimpses - some of us, anyway . . . And still it's as if the whole house was in darkness, waiting for someone to turn on the lights - or Someone to enter Who is Light Himself !