I woke up very early on November 29th with a pressing need to watch the sunrise down the road. We live near a road called Eden, which seems appropriate given the spectacular view of the ocean at the edge of the rocks. Where the water meets the granite, there are endings and beginnings, much like this season of Advent, which begins with Jesus preaching of endtimes, and Isaiah calls on God to rend the heavens and come down. I could do with less apocalypse this year, since we’ve already had so much of it, but it’s an ever-present reality, apocalyptic possibilities–I don’t need to name them; just turn on the news.

A confession: this week, I’ve felt the profound loss of no longer working in a parish. I am homesick for church, like everyone else in the pandemic. I miss every bit of the Advent preparations: the going up to the attic to look for the candles, scrabbling in the sacristy, finding greens for the wreaths, do we have enough candles, where are the stars, everything we usually do, which we’d be doing if not for a pandemic. But even in the pandemic, I miss the tasks and preparation, the pondering of scriptures, the thinking, the conversations, the wondering what good word do people need to hear this year, what good word do I need to hear, the wondering how to do another on-line service with integrity and care, and the frustration of feeling so much without being able to see people in person. And now, there’s a further distance in leaving my congregation, for this strange pause I’m calling retirement, but which is really a time out to be with my husband. One of the secrets of parish ministry they don’t tell you in seminary: they don’t prepare you for how much you end up loving your congregation, your people, your flock, your lambs. Because that really happens–it’s a gift, too, from God, because it’s a kind of huge love, this love of the church, not just for one’s own congregation, but a great love of the church universal, the people of God, the body of Christ embodied everywhere, in every place and time. I have no words for it, just love. And it isn’t a personal love; that is, I couldn’t come up with it on my own–it’s a grace, “unexpected and mysterious” as Jan Lindholm says in her hymn (ELW 258). And I suppose the reason I needed to see the dawn this first Sunday in Advent is I need to see the promise of this season, the hope of this season, and remember, and embody, in my life now, with it’s changed orientation, this wild love of God’s people, whether I am serving a congregation, or bearing witness to my spouse as he meets the demands of living with brain cancer, or praying by the ocean on a cold morning in November.