Image by Chris Lim (used by permission via Creative Commons).

The darkness closes in. Sadness, grief, loss, or some unspeakable sense of emptiness paralyzes. Each step feels like walking against the tide, pressing against of wall of nothingness. It seems easier to close the blinds. Turn over in bed. Lay in the dark. Continue reading

Image by Manchester Fire (used by permission via Creative Commons).

Sun and moon turned dark. Stars falling from skies. Smoke and fire in the sky. Everything is quaking.

Welcome to Advent…The beginning of the end of all things.

Advent breaks into our world like a thunderclap or a meteor crashing down from the skies and reverberating across the land. Who can sleep when the world is tumbling into cataclysm?

Advent comes like a crisis, like a wildfire, like an explosion that shatters our comfortable worlds.

The culture is filling the air with songs of holly and jolly, with heart-warming commercials of gifts given and relationships forged afresh.

The Scripture readings at the start of Advent focus on families falling apart, nations battling nations, children rising against parents. The texts look a bit closer to our present reality. In Mark 13, all that is holy has been desecrated and made desolate. The places of refuge are crumbling war zones where security is nowhere to be found. Continue reading