It seems we are wandering into the darkness
The days keep getting shorter (for a little while)
The weather keeps getting more extreme
And yes, our systems keep getting messier
Toxic people keep winning elections
The poor keep getting poorer and the rich richer
And yet
The voice still calls in the wilderness
Prepare ye the way
Prepare ye the way for what?
An authoritarian leader who will control and coerce?
Divine retribution?
A time when the “righteous” gloat
And the “unrighteous” burn?
Prepare ye the way
Who showed up after John the Baptist made that appeal
Love showed up
Incarnated in a person
A person who showed us the true nature of the Sacred
(we should have had a clue from nature, but no!)
A person who showed us what love looks like
A person who showed us how to face hate and fear
A person who showed us how to live
A person who lived a life so amazing
And died so lovingly
That, as Brian McLaren suggests
Our worst failures were swallowed up in his save!
And we have been told that a some point
The way of this person, this Jesus, will be The Way
The way the world works
That the way he lived will be the way we live
All of us!
That the earth, which we have ravaged
Will be made new
And we will too
And here is the question
Do we believe that?
Do we have faith that this is true?
We celebrate the possibility every year
As Christians wander through the ambiguity of Advent
And the rest of the world celebrates Christmas
(starting right after Halloween, or so it seems)
But do we believe it?
Do we believe that eventually, love will win
Do we have faith?
Do we have enough faith to make what is possible, real?
Jesus said it doesn’t take much faith
Only faith the size of a mustard seed
What does faith do?
I think it opens us to the possibilities
I think it opens us to Love
And to Sacred
Perhaps faith is Leonard Cohen’s
Chink of hope
Perhaps faith is the crack
Perhaps that is how the light gets in
and we all know what a little light
does to the darkness
It is difficult to have faith in times like this
But the alternative
For me
Is unbearable
So I will declare
I believe
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