Seeker

This Advent season I'm following the daily image and reflection at Advent Word . On this blog I am responding to each day's given word.  Today's word is 'Journey'. The word journey evokes many images in my mind:  holidays, commuting to work, refugees travelling in hope of finding safety, a spiritual journey from darkness to light, pilgrimage, searching for meaning, searching for God. Which to write about? None of these ideas inspires me today. What does grab me and always does is the idea that God journeys to where we are. We're looking forward to celebrating Christmas, the feast of God-with-us, of God coming into human life, so surprisingly in the form of a vulnerable new-born baby. What a journey, for God to come to us like a child, bringing heaven into the ordinary. If only we can journey each day to see and live by that great truth. One of my favourite Advent season poems is about God coming to us like that and when all seems mos...

Advent is a season intended to awaken us to the coming of Christ into our world. 'Awaken' is the Advent word for today 3 December 2017 in  #AdventWord - a Global Advent Calendar .  This is a global crowd-sourced Advent Calendar for the Anglican Communion. The idea is to reflect on a given word for each day and respond using images and responses on social media. You can read more about it here in  Advent Word 2017 . I'm going to have a go at posting a response to each day's word from today the 1st Sunday of Advent until 24 December 2017. 'Awaken' is not a word I use often. It has an old-fashioned sound. It means much more than ceasing to be asleep, or waking a sleeping person. I like the Old English usage of awaken, when it meant to stir up, spring into being, rouse to  activity.  My response today to the word 'Awaken' is a prayer: Awakening God, awaken us to watch and wonder, to see the dawning light and the coming of h...

In some churches today, the Sunday before Advent, is celebrated as Christ the King Sunday. When we think of a King, we often think in an institution where someone has great power, status or wealth. In the coming of Christ in human flesh and in his teaching is a strong theme of a different picture of kingship. A picture of someone who comes in weakness and poverty, whose true subjects are those who recognise their king in the outcasts of society. Today's gospel reading is Matthew 25: 31 - 46 . It is a parable about the judgement of the nations when Christ comes in glory and welcomes those who have served the least of Christ's family - the stranger, the prisoner, the naked, the sick, the hungry and thirsty. It is one of the most challenging passages of the gospels. Here is my poetic reflection on Matthew 25: 31 - 46  that I first posted in 2014. Hidden King when did we see you? We saw no King, only a scrounger begging on the street. H...