on the Pilgrimage

The Love Candle  As my reflections this year have been inspired by messages from a particular pastor, I won't stop now and continue to put my personal spin on his Advent messages. Thank you to George Saylor in Colorado.  As the COVID-19 virus continues to impact our world, one of the beautiful blessings that has come from this is all the church services that have gone online, of which George's is one. I could tune in to many others, but for some reason, this is the one I've come back to throughout this season. And I am grateful.  The fourth candle - the candle right before the Christ candle. I didn't realize it but nowhere in the four gospels is there mention of 'love' in connection to the story of Christ's birth. Peace - yes, joy - yes, but no love.  Not in the narrative of Christ's birth in any of the gospels. Hmm.  We live in a world that seems to be devoid of love. Real, genuine love. People say they love you, people use the name for all sort...

Let There Be Peace On Earth, and Let It Begin With Me So goes the lines of an old popular song. The thing is, that is where it starts, doesn't it? If we can't have peace with ourselves, then there is no hope for any other peace in our world. This year is one that is going down in the record books.  And I can't help but wonder how much of it actually was external fact and how much was the creation of our own making. The pandemic that has ravaged the world, with mixed catastrophic results; but also, the seething hatred that rears its head every so often. There is so much pain, so much anguish. So many people have lost so much, and it reminds me of those passages in scripture where the people cry out for help, passages in Proverbs are full of this: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. The thing is that joy in the morning hasn't come yet. And we are still in bondage ... or, so people feel. As I write, my city is in a lockdown of sorts ... again, an...