Twilight Twitches

Dear Family,
“...a Coming to...”

That’s what Advent – ad venio - means, ‘coming to.’ Fooling around with the idea I real¬ized it could have a lot of meanings; for example, coming to consciousness after being in a coma, or coming to a new conclusion about something, or coming to the door of someone you visit. (I guess there wouldn’t be much visiting going on right now.)

It could also mean that someone was coming to visit me. With Christmas on the horizon, the season of Advent certainly is inviting us to raise our expectations of the coming of Jesus.

Dear Family,
We made it! We have completed another Church year. Christ the King reigns!

Or does He?... with all that is going on, are you tempted to wonder sometimes where He is? Look at your crucifix. There He is, suffering with us.

Remember Jesus coming to John the Baptist and getting in line with all the penitents that John was baptizing? John said to Jesus (in effect,) “What are you doing here? I should be baptizing you!” And Jesus said, “Do it for the sake of righteousness.” In other words, I choose to be a part of all these people so that when my Father looks at them, He will see me.”

Some King, indeed!

Dear Family,
What a week! Eta “graced” us for three days last weekend and left another version of Lake Sebastian. It struck me how threatening Eta seemed at night but somehow wasn’t quite as bad in the day.

But the flooding problems continued to threat-en even as Eta moved north. “Rain bands” is a loaded phrase. As usual I’m writing on Tuesday morning (the 10th) and a flood watch just came in to last until Wednesday night. It said “rain bands” could come later this afternoon. Shall the bark (barque, boat) of St. Sebastian weather the storm?

Dear Family,
I’ve told you in the past that writing these Twitches almost a week before you read them can be very challenging. The printing deadline is Tuesday (this week, Election Day). By the time you read this will we know: WHO WON?

As I think about it a little more, I realized that no matter who won, I hope our attitude would be the same, namely, as I wrote last week, Vote and Pray. (Annie suggested it might have been better to put it the other way around: Pray and Vote.)

Either way, we ask God to bless us as a people, a country, a force for good in the world.