91Èȱ¬

Good Morning

What if we were all travelling towards the light? I must have been about 12 and my sister 13 when we got lost on the moors late one afternoon in winter. As the snow twirled down, the grey sky darkened and black night fell upon us.Ìý Being younger and less adventurous, I began to cry.Ìý I remember clearly the fear of being adrift from the security of home and not knowing which way to go.Ìý My sister stomped doggedly through the snow, and shouted at me to hurry up.ÌýÌý Eventually, soaked and exhausted, we climbed over a hill and saw the yellow lights of home below us.Ìý

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent.ÌýÌý A time of expectation, of waiting for a promise to be kept.Ìý A time to seek out the light which is to come.ÌýÌý So - what if the light takes many forms and is seen through a million different eyes? ÌýI can’t meditate on the stories and metaphors of Advent without imagining the gruelling journeys which men, women and children are making across continents and seas.Ìý Who’s to say that their desperate pilgrimages to find asylum and opportunity are not also a path to Advent?Ìý How is tramping through an unfamiliar land in the dead of night with your child in your arms any different from the ancient story of the trek to Bethlehem?Ìý

In Advent we welcome the coming light.Ìý But more – oh, so much more than that – we ourselves are welcomed. We’re compelled towards the light of home, of hope, of new life, and the door is opened to us.Ìý All of us.

Welcoming God, in the grace-filled light of Advent, may we see the world around us with your eyes.Ìý And share the hope we are given.Ìý AmenÌý

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