At this week's service, what I was thinking about most was the season of advent as a time of preparation. This week's candle is for love. The children's choir sang about advent, and love. And Christmas is very much about love, even the secular Christmas celebrated in films like "Love Actually," where it is pointed out that "love, actually, is all around. Just go to the arrivals gate at the Heathrow Airport."
I was struck also this week by the following phrase in an advent hymn: "these days of adventure." Advent is a season of preparing ourselves, our lives, our homes for the arrival of our saviour. And, I think it's highly appropriate for us to think of that as an adventure. Advent, after all, for many of us involves adventures. Before we had kids, my husband and I used to travel back to Calgary for Christmas every year, and that was always an adventure of delayed flights, lost luggage and many storms. Now, various of our relatives come to see us - and our kids - at Christmas, and they undertake their own adventures to do so. For instance, this year, my father is driving from Calgary to Ottawa to see his grandchildren. I learned this morning that his car had broken down outside of Thunder Bay and he is now waiting for a mechanic's office to open up Monday morning so he can get the truck repaired and continue on his journey.
Advent so often involves the adventures, sometimes arduous ones, we undertake for love, whether they are geographical or emotional journeys. And that's beautiful, and painful. A prayer for safe passage on your adventures; blessings to all on their holiday journeys.