… watching for the brushstrokes of God
There is a simple line in the birth story of John the Baptist that jumped out at me this year. “No, his name is John.” Simple, not Zechariah but John – not unusual in our days – in those days it stirred up the whole hill country.
What simple little shifts change your world?
I was reflecting on how people during the story of Jesus’ birth made room for God to enter into their lives in unexpected ways. Whether Zechariah or Elizabeth, Mary or Joseph, all had to make space and adjust to God disrupting their lives in ways that were utterly beyond them.
How do you make room for God who comes in unexpected ways?
I love the parallel of winter and advent in my region. Short days and long nights and barren trees do not indicate the restoration going on underground. The small first stirrings of God’s coming during the Advent season are usually invisible to our senses. It takes awhile to slow down enough to make room for noticing the first signs unfolding.
How do you begin to make room for noticing God?
The notes of hope wanting to emerge, rise, and turn to song in this season as we watch for light, wait for peace, and follow a star.
“O Holy Night…a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices…”
Do you wonder where the notes lead? What journey lies before you?
Blessed are you
in whom
the light lives,
in whom
the brightness blazes—
your heart
a chapel,
an altar where
in the deepest night
can be seen
the fire that
shines forth in you
in unaccountable faith,
in stubborn hope,
in love that illumines
every broken thing
it finds. ~ Jan Richardson
How does the light live in you?
[When] the ghost of loss gets into you, may a flock of colors, indigo, red, green and azure blue, come to awaken in you a meadow of delight. ~ John O’Donohue
What losses are heightened at this time of year? What spaces of wonder open up?
With the Eyes of the Heart 