I'm in love with this year's Advent litany titles. I dunno, sometimes these details just get me.
I've read Isaiah 11 a hundred times in my life and it still makes me weep with the hope of it. Apex predators napping with baby lambs. Lions munching straw as counter-culturally as you please. A community led by Wisdom, where Justice is a given and not something we have to endlessly fight for ... Will it ever arrive? Will this day ever come? The day no one is hurt or destroyed. The day no babies suffer. The day everyone can let their guard down because the danger has passed.
To me, this is the gospel: this Peaceful Kin-dom waiting in the wings for us to become conscious of it. This Kin-dom that touches every part of creation (male, female, human, plant, animal, ocean, mountain, cosmos) and rights every wrong both here and in the hereafter. And this is the work of Advent: to become conscious of the Peaceable Community. Hallelujah Amen.
God, things are looking hopeless,
As they are, we’re not sure how to go on.
We look around and see death and destruction,
Greed, dishonesty, strife, ego-seduction.