Listening to God Together

TURN ON THE LIGHT!  Advent is the darkest time of the year.   The days are short, the nights are long,   and then there’s stress around the holidays to contend with. If you check the hospitals you can see that this time of year routinely adds to their patient load, even without covid. To add to that, Southern California Edison has decided to turn off our power, sometimes for days at a time.   At the ranch that means we don’t have water, either, because it’s pumped by electricity.  That creates some anxiety.   Some folks, like me, suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Too much gloom outside and I start to internalize the gloom. What’s the solution to all of this anxiety and darkness? TURN ON THE LIGHT! ( I even have a full spectrum light that I use when there are too many dark days) And that’s just what God did at Christmas—  He sent us Jesus, the Light of the World .  He marked the way with a star.  HE TURNED ON THE LIGHT. We see references to Light all through

I’ve been thinking about Mary today.  She was a “little girl” in our present day way of thinking, and yet the moment when the angel appeared to her and she consented to God’s intervention in her life became the watershed of history—the event that changed everything for all us…. forever.  So. Much. Power. Focused on one small life in one quiet moment.  A moment we might never have known about had not the gospel writers chosen to record it. That amazes me. It makes me think of all the still, small moments in my own life when God has broken through my inner storm and whispered, “Peace. Be still, and hear the plans I have for you…” "Mary asserts herself before God saying, 'Here am I.' There is no arrogance, however, but only holy fear and wonder. Mary proceeds - as we must do in life - making her commitment without knowing much about what it will entail or where it will lead. I treasure the story because it forces me to ask: When the mystery of God's love breaks t