Back in college, I read global news every day. I was hungry to know more about the world, to be engaged in humanity’s struggles. At some point, the number of problems got too huge for me to process, and now I’m pickier about what news I read. I don’t want to be bombarded with stories designed to put me in a spiral of despair, but at the same time I don’t want to be in ignorance!
These days, the news reminds me of our great need for a solid foundation on which to build a reconciled world. The work of reconciliation between persons and peoples and creation itself is too difficult to build on anything less than the rock of reconciliation with God! At the same time, we mustn’t sit around on the foundation singing nice songs and pretending the work is done.
I didn’t write this poem for Advent, but it seems appropriate somehow. As the darkness of winter reflects the darkness of a desperate world, so each little candle we light illuminates the One who brings light to otherwise impenetrable darkness.
Entering into our flood of pain and failed solutions, the Christ child is God’s great “Yes!” in a world of human “No”.
Continue reading “cry yes”