Advent & making room to reimagine

Advent is a time of waiting, anticipation and preparation. It is the season that leads to the celebration of Light coming into the darkness and the birth of One who brings hope, peace, joy & love here.

This year, Advent comes in the wake of the two most recent mass shootings to make headlines. The first was a hate crime targeting LGBTQ neighbors who thought they’d found a safe place to be themselves. The second shooting happened overnight in a WalMart - details are still forthcoming. Both not only leave lives overturned, but both are also stark reminders of the violence, hatred and apathy that abound here.

What is the point of Advent in a world that cannot seem to overcome its worst tendencies? That cannot muster up the courage or care or imagination for a better possibility for life here?

“Our problem today”, writes Kester Brewin is that, “the space for imagination to expand and take shape is inversely proportional to the speed at which we live. Driven hard and fast, we lack the time to allow alternate world and possibilities to form, careening past small turnings and exits, bound to follow the obvious straight paths of the present arrangement.”

Advent is an invitation to wake from our apathy, and to make room to reimagine some new possibilities beyond our present arrangement - because my God, we need new ways of seeing and being and relating and living here.

ReImagining has been part of The Well’s life together from the beginning. We encounter Jesus as One who was constantly guiding those around him to see themselves, one another and the world in new ways. Sadly, we often reduce Jesus to nothing more than a sacrifice to appease an angry God (so we can go to heaven when we die). In doing so, we miss the deeper meaning and message of his life. We miss seeing him as the embodiment of a loving God and an invitation into a better way of being human and a better way of loving our neighbor and living together.

In the coming year, we are taking some time to ReImagine that better Way embodied & taught by Jesus: What would that Way look like if it really took root in us? In our community? In the Church? In the world? And this journey of reimagining begins with Advent.

During Advent, we are making room to pause, to be present to the complexity of this season and to notice and celebrate the surprising ways that something new is being brought to life here. We would love for you to join us as we make room together to welcome the One who invites us to imagine another, better Way of being human.

You can find all the details for our Advent gatherings here, and make sure to subscribe to our weekly updates in case of any changes.

with peace, love + imagination -

Susan