Advent 8

Posted on December 8, 2019 by Kath

Somewhere in my memory I remember that in previous years I’d just post a song on Sunday’s. On a tired Sunday deep in December with 2 more weeks to go until Christmas holidays it seems like a good plan.

So here’s a classic Christmas song to cheer your soul this evening. Sometimes you need a huge dose of cheery joy, and this always reminds me of our wedding as we walked, grinning stupidly, hand in hand back down the aisle at the end of the service to this song. (We got married on the 19th December, it fit with the theme..). I love that the boys also now enjoy belting this one out.

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Advent 7

Posted on December 7, 2019 by Kath

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And sometimes the wonder is hard to find, because of small boys and coughs and 4 hours sleep. Some days you wander through in a haze, living purely each moment as it comes. Smiles from the eldest at Pump track adrenaline rushes, the random nature of Paradise Park in Newhaven, the walking around counting Christmas lights on the way home from the shops, eating together through the world of fuzzy heads. Life goes on. Wonder is there, just harder to appreciate.

So somedays it’s good to remember this:

“1 In the beginning [before all time] was the Word ([a]Christ), and the Word was with God, and [b]the Word was God Himself. 2 He was [continually existing] in the beginning [co-eternally] with God. 3 All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him not even one thing was made that has come into being. 4 In Him was life [and the power to bestow life], and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines on in the [c]darkness, and the darkness did not understand it or overpower it or appropriate it or absorb it [and is unreceptive to it].”

Boom. The Light shines on. Sticking one to the Darkness as always.

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Advent 6

Posted on December 6, 2019 by Kath

Today there was much wonder in a slower day, a day of sitting on sofas reading books, of writing with friends and hearing lovely encouragement after I read something I felt fairly vulnerable about. (no doubt it will be appearing on this blog soon…)

It was also Christmas Tree day (and over exhausted meltdown day, but that’s another story…)   I love how each year the story of our life together grows on this tree. From the decorations given as part of our honeymoon tree 10 years ago, to the ikea bundle I bought a few years into marriage, to the random nursery and school tat, and then decorations collected over the years on countless visits to Garden Centres with the boys. Oh how I miss the endless Christmas time trips to Garden Centres that came with the preschool years.

Anyway, it feels like our tree is creating as much story as our tree used to when I was growing up (and still retains at my parents house to this day). I am glad we don’t just go for the aesthetically pleasing look. I loved the boys squeals of excitement as they pulled out memories from the last few years from the decoration box.  I love this memory tree of wonder. And I love the boys super abundant excitement at putting it up this evening.

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Advent 5

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Kath

The wonder of today.

Found in:

The sunrise, the pink and purple sky, the frosty ground and the dawn of another blue sky day.

The chance to sit on the sofa for a while this afternoon with tea, a book and some lovely clementines.

The realisation that several years ago a solo dinner and bedtime with the boys would have felt scary and hard. Today it just feels like normal life, hanging out, reading by candle light and a whole lot less fear. I’m even looking forward to a Saturday morning out with them on my own. We’ve come a long way in these last few years.

Dancing around the kitchen to Rend Collective’s Christmas album. We’ve been doing this for about 5 years now. We are living the memories these boys will look back on when they are grown. No longer are they needy small things (well they are pretty needy and small still) but they feel like actual human beings, people who interact with me, who are affecting me and I them. No longer are they baby and toddler gazing at me in curiosity as I dance in front of them but they now join in the dance. (there’s a profound thought there somewhere..)

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Advent 4

Posted on December 4, 2019 by Kath

Today I started musing on my search for wonder and why I wasn’t just reflecting on waiting, seeing as how Advent is kind of all about waiting.

Then I heard some people comment on not feeling the Advent vibe yet, of the remoteness of the second coming. Of how they can’t conceive of it.

Which sent me off on some thoughts about how we live in inbetween times, and how whilst we wait for full second coming we also have the coming of Jesus in our lives right now. We aren’t just waiting in the dark for light. The light has come. Sure, we hope deeply, we ache and we long for the one day everything sad will come untrue moment, but in the meantime we have the Presence of the One who has Come. Here. Right now.

This thought led me to bring this poem to our staff team meeting this morning.

“Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger.”

David Wagoner

I love this sense of Here. The reality is that Jesus has come by his Spirit into the Here of our lives. Advent is as much about noticing and reflecting on that aspect of that coming of Christ as the first and second coming. Here is all we have and I want to look for Jesus in this moment now.

Which leads me back to wonder again. I look for wonder because it leads me to beauty and beauty leads me to transcendence and transcendence says to my soul that there is more than this and my soul says Hello to the more than this and Hello to my Maker (for those who have also read his excellent book, yes I am heavily plagiarising Padraig O Tauma right now from ‘In the Shelter’.) Wonder leads me to Jesus come in the now, in the Here of our lives.

Today the wonder was found in good team times, both in our large and varied staff team and in the smaller team of me, my boss and our new colleague. The sun shone bright again and as always I was arrested by the view above on my cycle home. Wonder and beauty and hope. All around. Hello to the wonder.

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