Watching and Waiting...

First Sunday in Advent...World A.I.D.S. Day...the first day of
December...a convergence of images and ideas and thoughts
as I sit here in the early-morning darkness, awaiting the rising
of the sun.

superstition...
The Ancients, in these ever-lengthening nights,
     lived in ever-deepening fear that
     the light would not return...
     the darkness which enshrouded them
     more and more would remain,
     the earth a cold, unfriendly place where
     neither humans nor beasts could
     long survive.
How welcome firelight and candlelight
     must have been...causing the fearsome
     darkness to retreat, holding the encroaching,
     threatening shadows at bay...granting the light
     of hope amidst cold and dark.
Darkness became the enemy...light the friend
     which promised life...and even in this modern
     age, when superstition has given way to
     explanation, even now, we light the corners
     of the night with perpetual, ever-shining light,
     convinced that somehow we can overcome
     fearsome darkness, holding as it does,
     so much that threatens us...
when all the while, the beauteous light of
     moon and stars is dimmed, and the
     velvet-gloved hand of night which beckons
     us to see the glories and gifts of a darkened
     world is seen only as a fore-shadowing
     of Death's own Spectre...
                  and, with the Ancients, we are afraid.




Mary's waiting...
A time of waiting...
Delighting in preparing for a birth...
Virginal Mary smilingly fecund...
Expectantly maternal, maternally expectant...
Not sure of what will be, only certain
That the child to come will bring her
        both joy and sorrow...in the way of
        all children, everywhere...
                         Welcome, Advent.