hope for things to come

Advent is over looked too often - with the commercialism and the presents and the Christmas carols playing on the radio since the beginning of November -  but this year it is beating a refrain in my blood: Waiting. Hoping. Waiting. Hoping.

Personally, I have 12 more days of count down and to do lists and dreaming and trying to be present (at work and in Richmond) before beginning my travels and adventure in the Middle East. Packing lists and Christmas lists and grad school application lists. Work events and friends to see and wedding things to plan. Books to read and making time to mentally prepare for trauma and stories and new narratives and cultures.

And then the plight of the world, the hopelessness and despair, the racism and consumerism and global climate change, and the awful, awful politics and I find myself singing advent songs as prayers. Praying for emmanuel (god with us) to bring change - some how, some way - even when it is the "Christians" with "Christ" in their hearts who seem to be bringing the most hate and despair and fear into the world. Not knowing how holding onto faith in this 2000 year old story, a story so often whitewashed with Christmas carols about "White Christmases" and "Sheppard in the Snow" that the message of peace and persecution and non-violence is almost completely washed out, can possibly breath hope and love into the world once again.

But still, come, O come Emanuel :

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.  

For my soul cries out:

From the halls of power to the fortress tower,
not a stone will be left on stone.
Let the king beware for your justice tears
every tyrant from his throne.
The hungry poor shall weep no more,
for the food they can never earn;
These are tables spread, ev'ry mouth be fed,
for the world is about to turn.

Though the nations rage from age to age,
we remember who holds us fast:
God's mercy must deliver us
from the conqueror's crushing grasp.
This saving word that our forbears heard
is the promise that holds us bound,
'Til the spear and rod be crushed by God,
who is turning the world around.

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