Dull Moments

I do not know how to blog about this week. There are so many back stories that I cannot explain. So many people who have been in my life for a very long time, in places very far away, that fell on my doorstep this week. To keep a long story short, an old family friend's mother was put into hospice over the weekend. My mother drove down with her to Cincinnati this week, to spend time with them, and to help driving. At the same time, an old family friend's son and his wife (who is my sister's age, who we grew-up with) had their first baby on Saturday night in Ft. Wayne. It did not go well, and the baby (and the whole family), came to the NICU at Riley in Indianapolis. And this is how, on Monday night, I found myself, with my mother and sister, in the NICU lobby at Riley with people I had not seen in years, who are not from Indianapolis, who I never in a million years thought I'd be seeing here under this circumstance. Their story is not mine to tell. I will not try to beg...

Does anyone else's soul long for Advent the whole year round? I grew up in a church where we did the candle light thing during December and read some nice reading about Advent-something. I remember sitting there and wondered how the families were chosen to be the "Advent families". It was a like a big, random raffle to me. That's all I remember. Needless to say, I did not grow up in a very traditional or liturgical background. In college, I occasionally attended an Anglican church, and something about the tradition and liturgy filled a thirst that I didn't know I had. The first time I went to a PCA Good Friday Service, I was stunned . You end in darkness. TOTAL, SILENT DARKNESS. The service is breath-taking. I don't think I can ever not go to that service now that I have experience it. Then, with the first Christmas Advent, we re-light Jesus into the darkness, candle by candle, moment by moment, declaring a hope that is not realized. I sort of felt jipped for...