What do we do when a "Herod" seems to threaten the very fabric of our lives? We may find it helpful to remember how the story will end!

Slim pickings. Two Psalms, three poems and one sermon.

We often live our lives vicariously in a different tense, our bodies are in the present, but our minds are rehearsing a future or replaying a past, rarely staying in the moment where is within reach.

In some ways, putting Christmas away is more difficult that getting it out.

Mary believed what the angel had told her but no one else seemed to. She felt terribly alone until Elizabeth made room for her and created a space that was healing for both of them. 

When your desire to run is outmatched by your desire to stay, a beautiful kind of peace begins to appear. A peace that doesn't need outcomes to exist, it just needs the presence of God.

When Zechariah confronted a mystery that didn't fit into the tight and tidy quarters of his faith, he become overwhelmed with fear.  Mary’s more flexible faith allowed her to sit with the mystery and to ponder it rather than run away from it.

We cannot begin Advent with angels and wise men and choirs. We cannot start where the tinsel and glitter is. We have to begin small, quiet, and unnoticed. We have to begin the way the story grew in Mary. The way it still grows in us.

Set prayers and liturgy can feel stiff and impersonal if they are not part of our tradition but they may hold unexpected riches.

A new life iwth an old mindset isn't freedom-it's a more comfortable prison.