Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Weavings November 2016 newsletter from Upper Room Publishing of Nashville, Tennessee, United States for Tuesday, 22 November 2016

Weavings November 2016 newsletter from Upper Room Publishing of Nashville, Tennessee, United States for Tuesday, 22 November 2016THE SEASON OF ADVENT NOVEMBER 2016
This newsletter is a service of Weavings in partnership with The Academy for Spiritual Formation.

The first Sunday of Advent is November 27, 2016.
The Message of the Prophets and the Advent Season by Pamela C. Hawkins
In my home church, we seemed to leap in worship from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve, bypassing the elegant and essential bridge of Advent built on God's prophetic word. But since that time, I have discovered and grown close to the words of Isaiah and other prophets whom God called to speak truth and promise to God's people, even when they blatantly and destructively lived outside of their covenant with God. So powerful in message and beauty, the words of God's prophets shine through the darkness of the people of their times as well as through our contemporary darkness that descends when we, God's people, continue to stray from covenantal faithfulness to God.
To approach Christmas only by way of the Advent Gospel readings will leave us ill-equipped to live in the post-Christmas world that is nor all stars and angels, but is, in fact, rife with both destruction and possibility. Humanity cannot take Advent and God's coming among us to heart if we bypass the prophets. God's people struggled mightily with faithfulness and faithlessness. Their struggle and lack of discernment often brought dire and desperate consequences. Yet through the cacophony of pleas, arrogance, and wars, God's prophets spoke to the people of a redemptive future of joy, kindness, and peace—all made possible by God's steadfast love born into the world. When we allow God's prophets to speak a word to us, alongside those of the Gospel writers, we discover an even more stellar and glorious gift in the manger: Because of the darkness, the Light comes to us.
Because of sin's death-dealing ways, the life-giving ways of faith in Jesus the Christ can reassure us that "all things are possible" because God is with us. For me, Advent's message finds its integrity by placing the Prophets next to the Gospels—darkness against light, despair against hope, fear against love.[From "Introduction," Prepare the Way: Cultivating a Heart for God in Advent (Nashville, TN: Upper Room Books, 2016), 34.]

Where do we go from here?
Academy director, Johnny Sears, invites us to consider the vital role of deep listening in our call to be Love in the world: "Listening to Our Pain," featuring the writing of Parker J. Palmer for the Weavings journal.
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Friends, we are grateful and humbled to have shared this journey with you for the past 30 years. We hope that you continue to be formed by the One who gave us the gift of the Weavings journal and that Weavings lives on in you as you grow ever closer to God and to one another.
The Weavings Staff
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