#AdventWord #Beloved #被愛的

‘“Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord” (James 5:7). It is challenging to practice patience in the best of times, and during Advent, it seems many in the church struggle to slow down and be. I feel guilty with my own impatience, and yet, as I read this passage from James, I find comfort: we are still God’s beloved. The scriptures this week remind us that the Messiah is coming. We are called to be faithful and wait and are promised all will be made new in God’s time for all of creation—for us—God’s beloved.’ (Erin Wolf)

Walkie-Talkie Building, City of London, ‘Our beloved city’…

Evening Standard, June 2020: ‘Our beloved city bounced back from the Plague and Blitz — it can do so again…’

Whytt Magazine, August 2021: ‘Where has London gone? The reality of our beloved city without tourists: as the dust begins to settle from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic….’

London, our beloved city….. “A bad day in London is still better than a good day anywhere else.”

#AdventWord #Stranger #陌生人

‘Sometimes you pass a stranger and do a double take. There’s a knowing as you both stop, talk, look into each other’s eyes. You recognize the light in them and they the light in you. You are people of faith, perhaps extended family through Abraham and Sarah. You touch your heart, smile, and bow with hands in prayer position.

When I first saw an old Muslim man in Marrakech, I did not know that we would become friends. All week, he called out excitedly to me in Arabic. “He says he’s happy to see you,” someone translated.’

Deborah Gardner Walker

View through Tower Bridge towards The City and Tower of London

‘There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t yet met.’ (W. B. Yeats). It’s how you view the world that matters.

#AdventWord #Wilderness #曠野

‘In a wild deer state. Not touched by civilization.

Wilderness is not yet remade in the image of man. Wilderness is alien to our hopes, fears, dreams, self-centeredness and self-righteousness, frustrations, catastrophes and successes. It is separate from our habits, preferences, love, anger, or despair. Taking care in what we carry, some of us go to the wilderness to “get away from it all,” some to revel in the beauty of creation and some to test themselves there.

From the wildness, from outside anything and everything about us, a voice calls to us, “Think again! Prepare for the Lord!”’

Rex Peterson

The Bank of England, Threadneedle St, London EC2

‘In the wilderness’: idiom mainly in British English meaning ‘no longer having influence, recognition, or publicity.’ (Collins English Dictionary)

The Bank of England says that the U.K. is facing its longest recession since records began in the 1920s, with the economic downturn expected to extend well into 2024. Britain is in its own wilderness. Brexit, war in Ukraine, higher energy prices and the pandemic have all contributed. This past weekend we had England out of the World Cup, and now strikes, travel delays ~ and snow.

We need hope this Advent more than ever, to hear again the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord’.

#AdventWord #Messenger #使者

‘We who have been baptized are God’s messengers, just like John the Baptist. Join me this Advent in examining your life and in committing to a daily apostleship. Let us allow God to use us as instruments. Moved by the Holy Spirit, let us proclaim daily, at the top of our lungs, that there is a God of Love. Let us open doors that are shut off by hatred or resentment. Let’s prepare people to open up, allowing love to enter their hearts.’ (The Rev. Carlos Holmes Rendón Agudelo)

Tower Bridge, London

‘Moved by the Holy Spirit, let us proclaim daily, at the top of our lungs, that there is a God of Love’ ~ thus we are called to build bridges rather than walls, connecting people and communities across borders, frontiers, dioceses, churches, parishes and cities.

#AdventWord #Breathe #呼吸

‘Breathe on us, O BREATH. At our beginning and our end, you are with us and within. In the beginning…the BREATH of God hovered above the waters…calling creation into being. From the dust of the ground, God formed the human and b-r-e-a-t-h-e-d… I will put my breath in you…and you will live. And it was so. Life is in the breath, the BREATH of God. Breathe on us. The dust returns to the earth that gave it, and the breath returns to God who breathed it. At our beginning and our end, you are with us and within. Breathe Your breath on us, O BREATH.’ (Kathy Culmer)

St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London

And breathe.

#AdventWord #Winnowing #簸選

‘You’re a newly harvested grain of wheat. Suddenly you’re lofted, soaring into the air with your neighbors. For one hallowed moment, the wind holds you, then winnows you free of the tight shell that held you. You settle to the threshing floor, now a seed, ready to be winnowed again because a new husk, or maybe the old one, forms, even as you await your sowing. Emmanuel stands with his fork and his broom, sending you up again into the wind’s embrace, then sweeping away that chaff which bound you. Always ready and waiting, with love, for you.’ (Christine Havens)

Crucifix by Simon Robinson 1994, behind the altar at St. Mary le Bow Church, Cheapside, London EC2

The metal crucifix depicts the grave clothes that tightly bound the crucified body of Christ, the tight shell that held him until he broke the bonds of death. The grave clothes are empty, Christ is not there, he is risen. This Advent we look forward again to his coming in glory.