Advent 1: These are listening times

As we move into Advent we are called to listen...
Waiting for birth, waiting for death--these are listening times.

Advent is not a time to declare, but to listen, 

to listen to whatever God may want to tell us
through the singing of the stars,

the quickening of a baby, the gallantry of a dying man.

Listen. Quietly. Humbly. Without arrogance.

It is only after we have been enabled to say,
"Be it unto me according to your Word,"
that we can accept the paradoxes of Christianity.

Christ comes to live with us,
bringing an incredible promise of God's love,

but never are we promised that there will be no pain,
no suffering, no death,

but rather that these very griefs
are the road to love and eternal life.

In Advent we prepare for the coming of all Love,

that love which will redeem all the brokenness, wrongness,

hardnesses of heart which have afflicted us.

~from M. L'Engle,
Redeeming All Brokenness