adeste fideles

During the holidays, I typically reflect on the year past and prayerfully anticipate the next. Advent is especially instructive: it teaches me to wait, to anticipate, to expect. It splashes paint on canvas in uncomfortable fashion: Bethlehem is for people that have come to the end of themselves, who have no choice but to press into Christ, who desperately seek a miracle in the midst of ordinary squalor, on the periphery, where things aren’t suppose to happen.

Many of my friends and colleagues live in forsaken places, on the edge of humanity—Darfur, Eastern Congo, even Haiti. But I find Christ there, often more present than in our land of plenty. And I find faith that humbles me, faith that disarms my usual weapons—I become more vulnerable; I give more freely; I surrender.

And, I often leave wondering—am I better off or are they?

“We are redeemed by our suffering…” says Dostoevsky. Theological sparring aside, ceteris paribus, I find more faith in desperate places.