in the bleak midwinter

… millions are unemployed, uninsured, and under pressure.

widening gap between the haves and the have-nots widening and gappening like mick jagger about to eat all of the billions of burgers mcdonald’s serves from the deforested brazillian rainforests turned into grazing land to feed our addictions to cheap bovine carcasses infused with hormones, antibiotics, and monsanto’s irreversibly genetically modified pastures.

“corporate person” funded presidential candidate cacophany of outrageous claims to undermine and dissolve whatever might be left of our supposedly sacrosanct social safety fish net stockings with holes in them big enough to let the dying great barrier reef, the hole in the ozone layer, and the too late, past the tipping point, global warming gasses passed by the now 7 billion of us – we can’t seem to stop f***ing! – f***ers flow through.

we tune-out with our ipods and text while we drive, droning phoning on about where we are now and how slow the traffic is

… as if any one really cares.

we medicate ourselves with dances with the stars, and pretending to care about the change in justin bieber’s hair style, demi’s divorce with ashton, tantric Tebowing, and the life and times of the kardashians who somehow beamed onto our planet from a wayward script of star trek.

yet, lo!
lo how a rose!
lo how a rose e’r blooming on fox news!

awakened ones are on the rise

literal signs of hope appear

large white sheets of paper and flattened cardboard spell out what we’ve all been thinking but were too inhibited to say.

a new day is coming!
the ways of today are relics of the past!
a new heaven and a new earth are on the their way!

sure, some who of those scared but doing it anyways souls who hold those signs are shot point blank with pepper spray and rubber (coated steel) bullets.

but as with the sh*t that happens, so does grace. …

… click HERE to see the rest of the poem  (originally posted on Patheos.com)

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Advent (from the Latin word adventus meaning “coming”) is a season observed in many Western Christian churches, a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. It is the beginning of the Western liturgical year and commences on Advent Sunday, called Levavi. The Eastern churches’ equivalent of Advent is called the Nativity Fast, but it differs both in length and observances and does not begin the church year, which starts instead on September 1.[1] The progression of the season may be marked with an Advent calendar, a practice introduced by German Lutherans. At least in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Methodist calendars, Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before December 25, the Sunday from November 27 to December 3 inclusive. Latin adventus is the translation of the Greek word parousia, commonly used in reference to the Second Coming of Christ. For Christians, the season of Advent serves as a reminder both of the original waiting that was done by the Hebrews for the birth of their Messiah as well as the waiting of Christians for Christ’s return.

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Bonus Poem:

advent

it isn’t about waiting for baby Jesus to be born again,
swaddled in a sty;

and it isn’t about waiting for Jesus to return again
from a cloud in the sky;

its about us deepening into God’s kingdom,
– liberated life for you and i

– roger wolsey

Blessed Advent y’all,

Roger

 Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. – Helen Keller

Roger Wolsey is an ordained United Methodist pastor and is the author of Kissing Fish: christianity for people who don’t like christianity