Hopeful

Advent is the 4 weeks before Christmas and is a time of waiting. Each week traditionally is associated with a theme and the way I learned those was to begin with hope. I love that advent starts here, in a place of dreaming of something better. Hope for me is an expectation of something. It’s active anticipation. It’s an exercise in trust.

Advent is a season when we remember Christ’s birth and look for Christ’s coming. We know that there is so much suffering and heartache and we hope that in the way of Jesus we can find better ways to both be present in the suffering and shift the world so suffering ends. We are asked by God to be active participants in making the world better. So we in hope look for Christ with us now and figure out how to live so that we can embody Christ here and now.

I love the metaphor of looking for glimmers of starlight in the darkness as what it sometimes is like to cultivate hope.This season throughout advent we are creating origami pieces to remind us of the importance of waiting and of being present. This first we we folded hopeful stars.

I hope you find ways to embody the practice of hope this week.

-Eilidh