The second week of advent takes root...

Today will be a full one filled with pastoral visits - and we'll wrap it up

with another conversation/planning meal for my 2015 Sabbatical.  My head cold is mildly better and I look forward to seeing everyone.  In the middle of the day, there will be a meeting in the Mayor's office to unpack the recent agreement created to house an additional 20 homeless people this winter.  Earlier this month, it seemed as if all the players were hopelessly deadlocked in mistrust and turf battles, but now a practical and compassion plan has been fashioned using everyone's best gifts.  Another Advent blessing?  Could very well be, yes?

As the second week of Advent takes root, I am reminded of a quote from Thomas Merton:

There is in us an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of creative power. We seek to awaken in ourselves a force which really changes our lives from within.  And yet the same instinct tells us that this change is a recovery of that which is deepest, most original, most personal in ourselves.  To be born again is not to be somebody else, but to become ourselves.

And now it is out into the cold...