Introduction

For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
1 Corinthians 13:12

In W. H. Auden’s poem “For the Time Being,” the author reflects on our dreams, thoughts, fears, and hypocrisies that go hand in hand with the day after Christmas. We’ve sung the Hallelujah Chorus, opened our gifts, watched the church manger pageant, and reread the Christmas story, and now we feel the letdown that creeps in amidst the crumpled paper, leftover ham, and droopy decorations. Christmas has come and gone and now where are we?

Yet Advent is more than celebrating a single moment when angels sang praises and wise men gave gifts. Advent is also a reminder that Christ is with us today, loves us unconditionally today, and expects something of us today, whether it is the day after Christmas or the fourth of July. Toward the end of Auden’s poem, the shepherds say,

O Living Love, by your birth we are able
Not only, like the ox and ass of the stable,
To love with our live wills, but love
Knowing we love.

We continue that wonder of Christmas by remembering that the God who loved us enough to make us in His own image and to send His Son, has gifted us with the ability to love Him and others. As we reflect on Advent, we are reminded that glancing back at that moment in time gives us the opportunity to look forward to where we are called to go and be the love of Christ in the world.

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Advent, an adventure beginning the four Sundays before Christmas, has traditionally held the meaning of “to come.” The early church saw Advent as an opportunity to begin again: what an opportunity! Our writers this year are alumni of University of the Cumberlands though many still recall it as Cumberland College. They have used this opportunity to express the hope, peace, joy, and love that grow throughout the celebration of Advent. May you, as I have done, find the presence of God in their words.

-- Norma Dunston, editor