Happy Advent

 Happy Advent!

Sunday marked the beginning of Advent and the start of a new church year. Also, therefore, the end of ordinary time.

I thought I might be able to write something profound and maybe even poetic about what an extraordinary, ordinary time it has been. And the paradox that, in some ways, what has made it extra-ordinary is how very, well, ordinary it has been: how very mundane and dull and lacking in the extra-ordinary things which contribute to making life, well, ordinary! 

It didn't happen. Who knows, it might, but it probably won't and even if / when it does, the moment will have passed. 

And so we arrive in Advent... a season for which I have a particular soft spot, perhaps because I feel it gets so squeezed and forgotten as the preparations and pre-emptive celebrations of Christmas. 

I wonder whether there's any chance of somehow "doing it better" this year when so much of the usual December trappings have been stripped away." After all, I / we have had plenty of practice for Advent this year ... a season which is all about waiting and anticipation and looking ahead to something better to come. 

I'm kind of hoping so, but am yet to really figure out how. Ask me in a month.