Advent
Is a time
Of stark contrasts.
Eager-eyed children
(of any age)
Await their gifts
with fervent expectation:
others anticipate
pleasurable reunions,
or simply moments
for leisure choices,
the luxury of time.
But there is another side.
Across our pain-weary world
There is the icy grip of poverty,
The cold bleak agony of separation,
The white-hot anguish
Of the might-have-been:
Memories of the past
Or experiences of the present
Casting their long dark shadows.
Yet in this time
Of searing disparity
We look ahead
To one in whom
Joy and sorrow met
As in no other:
Fully human -
In a way we are not yet
But through Him one day
Will be -
And so knowing
Both wonder and suffering
In a way that we
Tied now to earth-bound vision
Can only ever begin to glimpse.
Poem by Jeannie Kendall, reproduced with permission