Reflection for December 23

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it although this time, or at least right now, it has come very close. My pastor talks often about our dual citizenship, as Children of God and Goodness, gorgeous and divine, and we are also people with human biographies and wounds and families, living in a world of unimaginable suffering, brutality, madness….

[My Jesuit friend Tom Westin] says, “Advent is not for the naïve. Because in spite of the dark and cold, we see light—you look up, or you make light, with candles, trees. And you give light. Beauty helps, in art and natures and faces. Friends help. Solidarity helps.…”

Advent says that there is a way out of this trap—that we embrace our humanity, and Jesus’s humanity, and then we remember that he is wrapped up in God (Anne Lamott, posted on Facebook December 15).