In Expectation of Advent

Look at your neighbour, and see yourself. The frailty of another's soul so akin to your own... the ravages and tatters... the wanting, the giving, the receiving, the pushing away. Dwell in the place where we are all common yet extravagant, knit together with our holes, rips, and mended seams. Made of the same stuff. And when we choose to ask for it, there is a grace that fills up all the empty parts and, despite ourselves, joins us together even more.

Look to the Savior, and see rich become poor. He who saw our tatterdness and donned it upon himself, living in our state, so longing for a bit of heaven. The seamless did not need him. The tattered only had more room to receive him.

I see the poor in the cold winter streets, looking for warmth and something to eat. I am the same soul. If I were anything but, I would have no need for Christmas. Opened eyes see empty hands, receiving the greatest gift of life, bit by bit, and sharing in it with my fellow tattered pilgrims.