Belated Good Wishes for Advent!!

Well, here it is, the end of the second week in Advent and I have added nothing to this blog except a picture for the first week! Life here at the hermitage has been fine. I have spent a few days cleaning out stuff I have accumulated over the years (mainly books and papers, but other things as well!) and still have some ways to go! My apologies to readers though! Sometimes preparing the way for the coming of Christ means getting rid of stuff and that takes time and energy away from other things.

This preparation happens on a number of levels of course, but it is amazing what material things can represent for us. The clearing out of stuff can be done prayerfully and when it is, that includes a period of remembering what was, what we dreamed of and hoped for, what we clung (and perhaps still cling) to for security or sentimentality, or that we just hold onto because we don't know what else quite to do with it! It can include gratitude for the present --- for the healing and love others have brought one to, and commitment to reflect more fully whatever vocation God has graced us with. All in all it is a challenging and compelling project, worthy of the beginning of Advent or Lent, and certainly worthy of the attempt to prepare oneself for a deeper and more complete dependence upon God and trust in the future he has opened for us.

Belated though this is, I wish readers a wonderfully fruitful Advent! May it be a time of preparation to meet anew and afresh the God who comes to us in weakness and who is found in the unexpected place. May it also be a time to look at the baggage we each carry around with us, and may we commit ourselves to letting go of whatever we no longer need and which serves merely to weigh us down in our journey to follow the poor Christ!