First Sunday of Advent

"...weren't our hearts burning in us?" Luke 24:32

In the depths of Spring and in summer the crepe myrtles and other foliage block the view from my backyard to the nearby condos. But, when everything is, like now, bare branches, I can stand on the back steps and look across the fairway to a view framed by two of the buildings.

What I see is a streetlight and the cars lined up, parked, still in the cold nights. If I go out in the early evening, I might catch someone going in or coming out, the car lights flashing as they press their fobs. Often, though, it's early in the morning or well into the evening and things are still. The cars are in their places for the night, the people tucked away in their warm homes.

It's a special view; because, it reminds me of something from the house where I grew up. There was a fence around our back yard. Beyond it, in most directions, was another house. However, at the back of the yard and to the right, you could see the parking lot of the church around the corner.

Like the view I have today, it wasn't visible in summer. But in the winter, when the world was sleeping, I could go to the back of the yard and see one single streetlight that shone down on the parking lot and the back corner of the church's gymnasium.

The view I can see on mornings like today is one that reminds me of that earlier view. It connects me, I guess you could say, with that experience from many years ago. That explains why I wander out into the cold and dark to look at it many nights, but it doesn't capture why that earlier view was special. It was, after all, nothing but a streetlight, shining away on an empty lot, polluting the sky with its unnecessary light.

But it was something I could only see in the winter months. Only when wind and darkness had left the tree limbs bare could I see that scene. Only when most people spent their nights indoors.

Does this tie in with the Advent season that's now beginning? Seems like there should be a turn of phrase, a twist of the narrative that lets me put my hand inside my cuff and pull out a meaning, hidden before now.

It has the elements of Advent—quiet, darkness, a world asleep, light. I could stop there, sit with that as I wait for the sun to rise.

But there is more to it. It's something from the subtler parts of this season's story. It's how we receive gifts when we aren't even looking.

Like shepherds I'm merely out there caring for the creatures with whom I share this earth—the neighborhood cats who stop by each day. In the midst of my work, I look up to see that God has taken a moment to say hello. It is not angels that fill the sky with song, but it is something quiet, like the soft breathing of a newborn. And, in the moment, I find the One who didn't just come among us but comes among us, again and again, to walk a little way on the journey before disappearing. Leaving me wondering why my heart wasn't burning.

Draw near, Jesus, and set my heart afire against the cold days to come.