Australia

Beloved ~


   I dreamed I was in the ranger’s tower above a beach turned white with seagulls feasting on whatever had washed ashore.  The wind in my face and the sound of their shrieking was in fact the breath and whining of a white faced golden retriever, his snout on my pillow telling me it was past time to get up and feed him.   Alas, jet lag.   

   Australia in December is early summer.  Christmas ads include sales on sandals and bikinis.  School kids are on end of the year trips. The day we visited a winery it was 40 degrees celsius ~ 104 to us Yanks.  Most days were far milder but summer all the same.  

    As crazy as it feels, in fact it’s ordinary.  The seasons change and we live accordingly, simultaneously, each in our own spot on the globe.  Our bodies relocate more easily than the attitudes therein.  It’s hard to imagine an ordinary different than our own.  Dreams and reality collide, startling us us into a new day.

    Today it has me thinking about Advent, about our spiritual longing for Christ’s perfect kingdom where normal does not include the hardship and grief ordinary to this life.  It has me thinking about how prone we are to imagine that kingdom as a someday place, instead of the here and now place as Jesus described it.    I find a certain comfort and strength in imagining the kingdoms geographically instead of chronologically - two spots in the universe, simultaneous and seasonal.  Best of all, they are traversed not by long plane rides, but simply by waking up.  ~ peace and prayers, pastor annette