2. December

I am humbled by the amount and content of your feedback as i venture into this advent journey.  "Advent," as many of you know, means "arrival." I was particularly reminded of this aspect of the advent season as i waited in line at the Office for Immigration today.  I was there on my annual request to stay in the country.

I was far from alone.

There were dozens of other people.  Among these was a woman wearing Steger Mukluks!  Needless to say, i had to check if indeed my guess was right.  She was from Duluth but has been living here in Norway for the last 5 years.  Small world.

Among the others waiting for there time to meet an immigration official was a young family with a tiny newborn baby.  How much more significant their waiting suddenly became.  Here they were, with a child no more than weeks old, waiting to see whether they would be granted a stay in their new country.

It wasn't difficult to draw the connections to the journey we Advent-people are on.  Have you ever stopped to consider that Jesus was a refugee in his first years of life?

I shared that i am reading a book on the sacredness of relationships.  This is the excerpt i read today while waiting in line, just before the young family arrived behind me.

       Jesus is born to teenage peasants under questionable circumstances. His mother gets pregnant before marriage.  

        He's born amid the dung and straw of a stable. He's placed in a feeding trough.  

                                                                                                              (Rob Bell, "Sex God," Kindle location 1472.)

As if that humble beginning wasn't enough, Jesus and his family become refugees in Egypt.  Not the kind of glorious arrival some of our polished Nativity scenes depict, is it?