Sunday, December 02, 2007

First Sunday in Advent

Is 2:1-5
Rom 13:11-14
Mt 24:37-44

Pie in the sky. A pipe dream. That is all that many believe the idea of peace on earth and human solidarity is. A silly dream that can never be. Just look at the world around us. We are at war. Violence is on our streets and even in our homes. If not real violence, than the fictionalized violence we can’t seem to get enough of on television. We have bought into the idea that we, humans, are all so different that we cannot ever meet on common ground. How can we reconcile this acceptance of never-ending conflict with our belief in God, our belief in Christ? The reign of God is not a pipe dream, nor is it something that will happen someday. The reign of God is here, now. It is in us, and it is up to us. When we accept Christ, we cannot accept that peace and the solidarity of people is impossible. Certainly the world in its current condition does not reflect the reign of God, but do we, in our individual lives, try to reflect that reign? I may not be able to change the entire world on my own, but I can influence the world immediately around me. When we, as followers of the Christ, together climb the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, we can have an impact. When we beat our swords into plowshares, we can bring others to follow. It is up to us. Shall we work to establish the mountain of the Lord, or simply see it as a pipe dream, pie in the sky, foolishness? “O house of Jacob come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”

Drop down dew, ye heavens from above, and let the clouds rain down the Just One.

Deacon John
First Sunday in Advent
Dec. 2, 2007

1 comment:

victor said...

Drop down dew, ye heavens from above, and let the clouds rain down the Just One.


I wasn’t going to share this right away cause I still have no ideas of was it might mean but Tuesday, December 4th at about five or so, we arrived in our Canadian Capital City of Ottawa at our grandson’s hospital Rotel. As we were getting out of our car we saw a few crows starting to gather in the trees around us. As a crossing guard I recall in the early nineties seeing about fourteen over my head and for some reason I thought that they wanted to attack me and I said to myself in so many words, come on down, I’ve got my trusted steel sign and we’ll see how much damage I can do. I guess I was really paranoid in those days and I’m sure that our poor Bishop has records of me having told him that story. (lol)
Anyway, those crows just kept coming and coming and the number became so great that even my wife, daughter and grandson could not believe their eyes. I must say that at no time did we ever feel threatened and when we got into our room we looked out our window and to make a long story short we settled on the fact that there must have been about 1000 quiet crows but to be on the safe side I’ll say that there was at least 500 because in the pass I’ve often been accused of exaggeration. I joked that they must have been having some kind of crow convention and to make another long story short the next morning the crows were all gone.

The next day which was last night about five-ish, my grandson and I went downstairs where they allowed him to play a video game and I even got to play. In front of us was a large picture window and wouldn’t you know it the crows started coming in again and they became so numerous in number that we had to stop our game and go out to look around. As I walked out, I saw an old woman walking in and I’m not exaggerating when I say that she was as pale as a ghost but she was for real so I just kept it to myself. My grandson and I told the guy at the desk about the crows but he really didn’t seem to care but we pushed him into looking and he could not believe his eyes also and as a matter of fact he went outside and came back a few minutes later and said that they were all around the hotel. It was time for supper and as we were heading up we stopped at another widow in the hall and this time at a different location we saw hundreds of crows on the snow to which I asked another woman in the hall if she saw "The Murder" Yes I said it's an old expression for a bunch of crows on the ground. She looked out and then said I've got to go and get my husband to see this. As we continued to our room which was # 237 Steven, Butch was naming the rooms out loud and I guess he must have done that earlier cause he said that there was no room number 238 on this floor. I couldn’t help myself and replied in so many words, “Well of course that’s the room that the crows rented and there’s no way that they would allow us to see it!” (lol) I better stop now.

Last night I had a weird dream and early in the morning I thought I heard the crows all say goodbye in a loud voice.

Hey I wonder if their convention is a three day event but I’ll never know cause I’m home tonight!

Thank you for letting me share this long story with you and your readers. There certainly was a lot more than just 'ONE' (lol!?)

God Bless