Another Christmas, is upon us dear friends.

I heard someone say recently that the journey is often something we treasure more than the destination. This seems more true of advent than most things – not because I do not wish your Christmas to be full of beauty love (I most certainly do) but because this journey is about finding light, despite the darkness. Finding hope despite all evidence to the contrary. An invitation to faith not as destination but as process.

It is all there in the Christmas story. A nation longing for a different kind of Messiah than the one born in a stable. An on-going occupation. A despotic king. A clueless pair of parents who have only the slenderest hold on what they have brought in to being. Homelessness. Refugees fleeing violence. Rich men who promise solutions but merely reveal the vast inequality gap.

This year, let’s try to remember that we are not the first generation of Advent travellers to fear the way things are going. The journey is not over though, even if the destination remains so very far away. Let’s keep walking.

Thanks to all of you who have walked with me. May we make more miles together yet.

This year’s poem was written on the shortest day of the year, that time when our ancestors marked the turning point towards light. I stand in their shadows.

Comes a time

.

Comes a time when dark seems darkest

When things can fall no further

Comes a time when the day is shortest

When everything that might break has already been broken

When I reach out into the darkness

For I need you more than ever

.

Comes a time when we can again conspire

Towards the rediscovery of kindness

Comes a time when we hold each other close

When we can stitch our common thread into

Hoods that hold the warmth from its retreating

When we hang lights

.

Comes a time when the daylights must be brighter

Turning dusk to reluctant amber

When the embers of this fire seem to linger longer

Comes a time to make this new beginning

To plant our seasons longing

In spite of all our losing

.

Comes a time…