Advent – Season of Hope Nana turns on her hearing aid–what a miracle! She had forgotten the sweetness of her grandson’s voice. Bandages are removed. Grandpa can see again with almost perfect vision, now unclouded by encroaching cataracts. Their granddaughter, a ballerina, dons her dancing shoes after weeks of therapy. Released from the chronic, throbbing […]
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Advent – Season of Hope The Christmas cactus–it blooms in the winter when the rest of the land lies fallow. Even in the darkest times, in the driest desert, in the dead of winter, hope springs anew: a flower blooms, beauty graces my room, hope dances in my heart. The desert and the parched land […]
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Advent – Season of Hope A small shoot springs up in the dirt-filled paper cup my grandson has brought home from school in mid-December. Spring, not December, is planting time, but I fight the urge to speak this truth: I see the sprout growing against the season. We sit and wonder together at the marvel […]
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Advent – Season of Hope Month after month, year after year, the couple prayed and wept. Countless doctors, endless fertility drugs–all futile. No small child to call their own, to cuddle in their arms. No new life to nurture, to gift the world with promise and potential. No future generation to call them blessed. So […]
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Over the past weekend I listened to reports about how the American Dream of each generation making more than their parents is no longer available to many young adults. (American Dream Collapsing) I don’t know about you, but that was never my dream, either for myself or my children. Since I went into ministry, my […]
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Advent – Season of Hope Snow mixed with rain–bitter, biting, turning roadways into slippery messes where fenders clash in angry encounters. Winter rain. I cannot comprehend its place in creation. Its dreary, dangerous, combination of sleet and ice browns an already dreary world barren of leaves and flowers. The winter rain brings no beauty, just […]
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Advent – Season of Hope Where is my teacher, the one I trust? He leads me where I would rather not go and teaches me what I would rather not learn. His lessons are hard to accept and yet good, oh so good to those who have a developed a taste for them. Bitter in […]
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Advent – Season of Hope Mary appeared to Juan Diego at Guadalupe. She came in a format he could understand, in colors and symbols that resonated with his Indian background and in doing so she united a culture, transformed a country, presenting Christianity in a way that could be understood by all of Mexico. She […]
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Advent – Season of Hope The baby’s cries of abandonment echo down the stairs, soothed only by his mother’s quick return and comforting embrace. “I did not abandon you, little one. I only left you for a brief moment. And see, now I am back. I will never abandon you. I will never be more […]
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Advent – Season of Hope I am so weary from the constant demands that life places on me–demands that never stop, just change. I am tired from household tasks, from endless clutter, from expectations for the picture perfect Christmas! I am weary with my job, and in my weariness I am overlooking so many details. […]
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