Hi Dear Friends!
Every year I find myself at the same frenzied Christmas season pace. Between the parties, buying the presents, & scraping the snow off my windshield I feel like I miss the beautiful holiday season in all the stress that comes along with it. I have a really vivid memory a few years ago of buying Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. That was, as you can imagine, the stuff of nightmares. Last year I got stuck in Chicago twice and lost a suitcase on my way home for Christmas, which was also a nightmare. I’m hoping to make this year a bit different.
November 29th was the first day of the four week Advent season. Advent comes from the Latin wood Adventus, meaning “to wait.” It’s the period of expectant waiting to celebrate the birth of Jesus. This year I would love it if all of you, my friends who receive these emails, were able to take a step back from the pace of this season and find a few moments to know peace in your hearts each week. I wanted to give you a little prayer each week for the next four weeks. Maybe the peace that starts in our hearts will help carry us through 2010.
Peace & Gratitude for you,
Liz
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Week 1 Readings:
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25:1-10
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36
This week:
Pray with longing for a better world and the arrival of the Kingdom of God.
A prayer for you:
In our secret yearnings
we wait for your coming,
and in our grinding despair
we doubt that you will.
And in this privileged place
we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we
and by those who despair more deeply than do we.
Look upon your church and its pastors
in this season of hope
which runs so quickly to fatigue
and in this season of yearning
which becomes so easily quarrelsome.
Give us the grace and the impatience
to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,
to the edges of our fingertips.
We do not want our several worlds to end.
Come in your power
and come in your weakness
in any case
and make all things new.
Amen.
Walter Brueggeman