Posted on November 19, 2013
ad·vent
ˈadˌvent/
noun
1. the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event.
synonyms: arrival, appearance, emergence, materialization, occurrence, dawn, birth, rise
Advent comes upon me suddenly every year, and I feel unprepared to provide a soulful Christmas preparation that is not solely baking and hunting for the best Christmas gifts. We end up doing some meaningful things, but I always feel a little harried.
Posted on November 06, 2013
A Reflection on All Saints
Here we are at All Saints, a wonderful day in Church history to honor martyrs and saints who have gone before us.
Every year when I reflect on what makes a saint, I come to the conclusion that saints have perspective and vision--they see this life in the context of the whole. This life is a small part of one's whole life that extends into eternity. Saints have a freedom to live this life for God, expending themselves, giving up time, money, energy, kingdoms of their own making, because they see how this time here on earth fits into the whole. Hebrews 11, that Hall of Fame of biblical saints, starts with an explanation of this kind of perspective. These people had the "conviction of things not seen...By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." Saints understand that what we see was made from what we cannot see. So we must live our lives in the light of what is not visible on this earth.