From the Pastor
"...as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
As we enter this second week of Advent, let us ask ourselves what we might change in our own lives to make God's way straight in a rather crooked, sometimes bumpy and often low world?
According to Thomas Merton, Advent is a graced period of time when a person can choose to begin to end all that is not Christ-like in his or her life. Contemplating Advent as a season of seeking greater wholeness of living in Christ, Merton writes:
"I begin to live in Christ when I come to the ‘end’ or to the ‘limit’ of what divides me from my fellow man; when I am
willing to step beyond this end, cross the frontier, become a stranger, enter into the wilderness which is not ‘myself,’ where I do not breathe the air or hear the familiar, comforting racket of my own city, where I am alone and defenseless in the desert of God." (St. Joseph's College)
Prayer: God who comes to us on the mountaintop and God who dwells with us in the valley, guide our feet to the place of salvation where we might one day stand together in Christ atop the plains of grace, under the horizon of redemption within your community, Beloved! Amen.
Come, Lord Jesus, Come,
Jenny Shultz-Thomas