Advent Thoughts

...it is precisely this experience of simultaneous leave-taking and homecoming that lies at the heart of Advent. As we travel toward Christmas, these weeks draw us into the stories of those who let God lead them beyond the lives they had known... Even as they allowed God to stretch them beyond the landscape they had known, each of these folks moved further into God's longing for their lives. As they welcomed Jesus--this wild and wondrous Word made flesh--they found their own welcome that took them deeper into the heart of God. This leaving-and-homecoming brings a tension that is not always easy to hold. Yet this is the price--and the gift--of incarnation: that as we open ourselves to the Christ who still comes among us, as we offer our own daring yes to him, as we turn our faces starward, as we leave our familiar landscape in this season of waiting and anticipation, we will find ourselves walking toward the One who has been waiting for us all along. -Jan Richardson www.janrichardson.com