Saturday, December 9th:
The coming of a new baby into your home, into your life and world, changes everything. It changes the entire family!
The coming of Jesus into your heart, mind and soul brings new life into your home, family and world. It changes everything.
As we conclude the first week of Advent, focusing on the Hope candle, place your hope for present, past and future in the gift of God’s Son who can change your whole world for health, help and healing. Share that hope with the world around you by working for systems of hope that break the oppression of the empire and religion!
Being Sisters and Brothers of Nature
When we think of oceans and mountains, forests and deserts, trees, plants and animals, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the galaxies, as God’s creation, waiting eagerly to be “brought into the same glorious freedom as the children of God” (Roman 8:21), we can only stand in awe of God’s majesty and God’s all- embracing plan of salvation. It is not just we, human beings, who wait for salvation in the midst of our suffering; all of creation groans and moans with us longing to reach its full freedom.
In this way we are indeed brothers and sisters not only of all other men and women in the world but also of all that surrounds us. Yes, we have to love the fields full of wheat, the snowcapped mountains, the roaring seas, the wild and tame animals, the huge redwoods, and the little daisies. Everything in creation belongs, with us, to the large family of God.
Henri Nouwen
For further reflection…
“It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to the end.” – Deuteronomy 11: 12 (NIV)