![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/431\/2019\/12\/Mary-and-Jesus.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe third part of our walk through Advent begins with three voices…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am Mary. My time is closer now, I feel the movement within me. Like countless mothers before me I feel the need to prepare, to clear out, to make ready, full of energy: they call it the nesting impulse. The Psalmist speaks for me; ‘How great is your goodness which you have prepared for those who love you’.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
I am Isaiah and I speak for all those who have been waiting and hoping for change: all those who have been overlooked, downtrodden, forgotten. Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
I am John the Baptist. And long years after, I repeated those words: \u2018I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord\u2019 as I called people to the waters of change. Who will listen? Who will come? Who will dare? What needs to change in your life? What will you leave behind to make room for God?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Hearing a\nchallenge like this, with Christmas in less than a week, may feel a bit much.\nWe may be already caught up in the preparing for Christmas madness – the food\nplanning and shopping, last minute presents and cards, getting ready for\nvisitors or travelling – not to mention things to finish at work or in our\nstudies. And now on top of all of this, we\u2019re meant to prepare spiritually as\nwell? Or feel guilty if we don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephen\nCottrell, the newly appointed next Archbishop of York, wrote a little book a\nfew years ago called \u2018Do nothing – Christmas is coming\u2019. I wonder whether\nothers in his family, possibly those keeping the whole show on the road, smiled\na wry smile. It would lovely just to drop it all, but it might not be that easy.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But maybe\nthere is a small shift that we can make. Our Advent email guru, Brian Draper,\ntalked a few days ago about how in music what\u2019s important is not just the\nnotes, but the space between the notes. Without the space the notes would be\njust one indigestible wall of sound. It\u2019s the same when we pick up a book –\nit\u2019s the space that lets the words speak. In the poetry books that I love,\nthere is more space and fewer words – but often the words say more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So maybe\nthere is a way to leave just a little bit of space between the things we have\nto do. To take a breath between our different activities. As we open each card,\nor write each card, or send each Christmas email – to stop and mindfully bring\nthis person to mind just for a moment, and hold them before God\u2019s loving gaze.\nAs we shop and plan and prepare the food we may be sharing, to bring to mind\nthose we will be sharing this with, and hold them in prayer and thankfulness –\nand maybe even to do the same thing when we are washing up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe there\nwill be some times when we can allow ourselves a few minutes to gaze out of the\nwindow, or step outside – and drink in the wonder of the sky, the birds, the\nmoon, the rain\u2026 Maybe in all the Christmas din we can take two or three minutes\nto listen to one carol with all our attention – allowing the music to sink into\nour soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And maybe we\nwill also be given the unwanted gift of being forced to wait – in a queue at\nthe post office, in a traffic jam\u2026 and find in those moments the freedom of a\nfew minutes space. We could perhaps be aware, in our enforced waiting, of the\ncompanionship of Mary, coming towards the end of her nine months of waiting.\nWhat may be preparing to come to birth in our lives?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You might\nwant to take a few moments to breathe now – to allow God to do his work in\npreparing you for all that will be coming in the next couple of weeks – and to become\nmore open to receive his most precious gift to us\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We offer to God the spaces of our lives, however small, that they may be doorways to prepare our hearts to meet him\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
We offer to God all that we would clear out, simplify and leave behind, to prepare our hearts to meet him\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
We offer to God all that we would become, our energy, our imagination, to prepare our hearts to meet him\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
God of constancy and change, help us to recognize where we have become stuck in the busy patterns of our familiar lives. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lead us into the unforced rhythms of grace where we can know eternity in every breath.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prepare your way in us, that we might welcome your Son, Jesus, the child who is to come. Amen.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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