ADVENT 2024

Dear Friends,
As we approach Advent 2024 there is within many a sense of hopelessness and
powerlessness, a feeling of being overwhelmed by bad news. It is a little reminiscent of the covid years when we wrestled with fear and with the unfamiliar. We had never been in such a place before, and so often the cry was ‘When will get back to normal?’ But part of the two-edged ‘gift’ of those years has been to show those who have sought to be awake and aware that we cannot go back to the way things were. That holds no life or promise for us. If in some shape or form we have been given an insight (a sight from within) that is gradually shaping us, reforming or even transforming us, then we know that we cannot go back to the way we used to view things.
Lynn Ungar has written a poem entitled Passover in which she describes the journey of the Israelites through the desert, following new laws to an unknown land and the
temptation to go back to the place of slavery, pretending that there was safety in the old
familiar. She then speaks of the ‘terrible blessing of the journey’ and ends by saying, “God did not promise that we shall live,/but that we might at last glimpse the stars/
brilliant in the desert sky.” There are many today who, because of the terrible and
fearful uncertainties in the world, are actively seeking to go back to a place of slavery,
pretending that regimes in both church and state that tell them exactly what to do, what to believe, and how to build walls between themselves and those who are different from them are the only means to protect and safeguard themselves from the threatening shapes they see all around. They are taken in by the trappings of power and control and the flattery and subtleties of all the many ‘Herods’ who are only seeking to bolster up their own positions. They have no time for star gazing and have chosen to settle for less, unaware that there could be a journey to make and a new world to discover.
But if we dare to follow the longings and the ‘homesicknesses’ of our hearts, as we choose to embrace mystery and be embraced by mystery, as, for the sake of something more that we cannot yet define but know is throbbing with expectancy, as we set out on an unfamiliar path, then we, too, will experience the terrible blessings of the journey. Often it will seem like an unlearning, a dispossession, a letting go. Lest you think it’s all intensity, and harrowing, and too risky and full of angst, most of the time it will still apear as ordinary, as we attend to the day to day tasks of living, of the earthly journey.

But when we least expect them, there can be these moments of joy when we, too, glimpse the stars brilliant in the desert sky – perhaps one of them betokening the insight for which we have been waiting for so long. We will actually begin to feel a strange
belonging on this unfamiliar way. We will even, perhaps, have a dawning awareness that the journey itself can be home.
Advent is a time for journeying, for being vigilant, for mystery, for hope against all seeming
evidence to the contrary. Dear friends, this is the time we have been given to live. We have no other. Let’s seize the moment – and do some star-gazing!
Ruth

ADVENT REFLECTION DAY 2024
Title: LOVE WAITING TO BE BORN
So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and
faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son. (John1:14)
On the cusp of Advent 2024, come and reflect with us on the mystery of an infinite,
indestructible love, the very heart of God. This Love is past, present and future and comes
together in a timeless way at this special season. In that sense we can truly say that Love is waiting to be born in this moment.
Date: Saturday 30th November
Venue: St Bride’s Hall, Derryvolgie Ave, Belfast
Time: 2 – 4.30pm
Facilitator: Rev Dr Ruth Patterson