Happy New Year! That's right. Welcome to the Church's New Year.  Advent is the first season of the Church year, beginning four Sundays before Christmas. The word Advent is from a Latin root which means "arrival" or "waiting."

Below is a wonderful piece from a blogsite that I discovered recently. Enjoy!

Advent is best understood as a season pregnant with hope, with what is to come. Mary figures quite prominently in Advent, as she should. It is a season of the holy feminine - carrying something new within us, within our community, that which is waiting to be born yet needs time to gestate.

This wisdom, in part, is that a life of faith will involve cycles of waiting, when the old has been removed, but the new has not yet been born. God needs holy things to gestate within our souls and within our communities. These holy ideas, understandings, insights, and actions all need time to become. If they are born too early, at our demanding impatience, they cannot survive. God knows the exact time of birth. We, usually, do not.

And so we must wait. We must wait for the growth to begin, to mature. We must wait through the discomfort, even the sickness, as we allow the new thing to develop. We must wait for the labor pangs. We must wait for the water and blood to rush forth, heralding the birth. We must wait.

Advent draws us into this truth of life, of the immense importance of waiting. For four Sundays, we hear the cries of a people, of our own souls, wanting to know when, how, and why. For four Sundays, we encounter Mary, a young woman heavy with the holy Child gestating within her, waiting. For Advent, we stand in lines, pace the halls, feel uncomfortable, sit in tears even, at our frustration of the act of waiting for something, anything, to be born.

We do not like waiting. And yet, God knows that we must wait as God waits.

The poet Rilke writes, "You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born. Fear not.... The future must enter you long before it happens. Just wait for the birth, for the hour of new clarity."

Advent matters because it is the holy season of waiting for the birth. The birth of Jesus, the birth of new ideas, the birth of courage, the birth of new songs and dreams, and the birth of what God has impregnated within us that is gestating.  

(Taken from the blog site with an unusual name: Dirty Sexy Ministry)

-Shawn

shawnschreiner@sbcglobal.net 

• Let us know that you might come so we have enough materials (it's okay to just come as well)
• Go on a scavenger hunt around your house for items like: royal blue or cobalt blue ribbons, white ribbons, blue or white candles, styrofoam circles, evergreen branches, sheet moss, artificial greens (for those with allergies), white pillar candles and holders, other earthy items that you think would look good on a wreath, etc.
• Let Shawn know if you have any of these kinds of materials so that we can decrease the cost of needed items as well as be good stewards of resources that are already out there.
• Volunteer to help at a station

Come one! Come all! This will be a great way to build community.

Mystick Krewe of LAFF's
Fourth Annual PADS Fundraiser

To Benefit PADS (Public Action to Deliver Shelter) at Grace Episcopal Church

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!!!

Please mark your calendar for this fun, family-friendly event.

Saturday,December 8th

4:00 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Grace Episcopal Church Parish Hall

924 Lake Street, Oak Park

At the door, donations of $5.00 per person, with a cap of $20 per family

Food and Beverages (wine and beer)

Great Raffle Prizes!!!!!!!!!

Face painting and Children's Costume Corner

Live music by
BS Brass Band - bsbrass.com

Sponsored by the Mystick Krewe of Laff Social Aid and Pleasure Club   (Facebook - Mystick Krewe of Laff or www.mystickkreweoflaff.org)

For more information about West Suburban PADS - www.westsuburbanpads.org

Please bring donations large men's coats and men's socks, gloves, scarves and new underwear

For more information: rbtaxman@hotmail.com or kjmensch@yahoo.com