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The shy soul


 During Advent I will be looking at Jesus' visits to the Temple.

The first visit is when Jesus is presented as a baby at the Temple by Mary and Joseph, in keeping with the custom that all first born sons were dedicated to God.  The story is told in Luke 2:21-40 and somehow in that great courtyard of milling crowds they were noticed by Simeon and then Anna. …my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the sight of all people. 

In our own Advents and our long waitings for God to answer prayers, or circumstances to change, or the world to become a more just place, or the church to reflect more unity, have there been fragile, ordinary, even innocuous visits from God that we have missed?  God came in the form of a young infant, held by shy, overwhelmed new parents, trying to be faithful to what they had been given to do.  

Can we learn from their example first of all, by keeping faithful to what is in front of us.   What God may hereafter require of you, you must not give yourself the least trouble about.  Everything he gives you to do, you must do as well as ever you can.  That is the best possible preparation for whatever He may want you to do next.  If people would but do what they have to do, they would always find themselves ready for what came next.   George Macdonald.  

Secondly could there been something stirring in our soul that we could easily have dismissed just as the Holy Family would have been easily dismissed amongst the great temple crowd. In the jumble, noise and confusion that often make up our inner worlds and fill the horizons of our awareness how may our ‘shy soul’ be coaxed to make an appearance?   This Advent can you find a bit of extra time to quieten yourself.

Listen to your life.  See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.  In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments and life itself is grace.  Frederick Buechner.

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