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In the Christmas stories, Mary and Joseph transition from being a couple to being a family, parents.  That is a very significant change.  It is an entire change of life and orientation.  It involves a mammoth reallocation of time and resources.  

Other transitions in the life cycle involve significant transition. Moving from being a child to a teen ager is a big shift with a driver’s license to prove it!  Moving from youth to adulthood is a drastic reorientation.  Oh, I have to take care of things and keep myself and my life together, someone else is not going to do it for me.  There are transitions during adult years to new jobs, new homes, new family arrangements, the empty nest, grandparenthood, retirement.  Really, when you think about it, life is one continuous series of transitions.  

We can think of these changes in terms of migration.  What are we leaving behind?  What are we moving toward?  How do we navigate those changes as smoothly as possible?  It is not always easy.    

It is beautiful that in the church we have relationships with people of differing ages and at many different places along life’s journey.  We can listen to one another and learn from one another about how to traverse the many changes life brings with grace and intention.  This helps us to make our migration through life toward what is life giving and life sustaining.  We can make our transitions, accepting the grief as well as the blessing, with hope and joy.  

In this Advent season, as we think about Mary and Joseph preparing to welcome a new baby, may we think about where we are on life’s journey.  What transitions are we making?  Where is our migration taking us?

Prayer:  

Seeking to live and flourish, may we make our way toward Jesus this Advent season.  Amen.  

Birds do it.  Bees do it.

That old Cole Porter list song reminds us, Birds do it, bees do it.  They don’t only fall in love, they migrate!  Many, many species of animals migrate.  Yes, birds.  Children who live up north are taught about how birds migrate to warmer climes in the winter.  We know that fish and whales migrate.  Turtles migrate. Butterflies migrate.  Wildebeest migrate.  Migration is part of the natural world.  Animals migrate to live, to flourish, to survive.

People, also part of the natural world, migrate.  People migrated out of the Rift Valley in Africa and over the course of 1000’s of years have populated Earth.  And people continue to migrate.  We are told that there is more migration going on now than at any other time in human history.

Why do people migrate?  There are countless answers, but fundamentally, for the same reason as other animals:  to live, flourish, and survive.  

Each year in this season of Advent, we make a migration of sorts.  We prepare ourselves for the celebration of the birth of Jesus.  We go through rituals and spiritual practices helping us to get ready, to be open, to experience.  Why do we make this migration?  Why do we do this preparation?  Why do we want to be ready for this celebration?  

Jesus is life-giving.  He points us to life full and free and joyful.  He shows us how to live more deeply and with purpose.  He invites us to health and wholeness.  So during Advent, we make a journey toward more fully receiving Jesus and all that he is bringing into the world.  We want to make our way to peace, hope, and love that supports and sustains life.

Prayer:

Seeking to live and flourish, may we make our way toward Jesus this Advent season.  Amen.  

Today marks the 6th anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  What a horrific day!  And there have been many similar horrific days before and since.  

This season of Advent invites contemplation of the theme of migration.  Awful as Sandy Hook, and Parkland, and all of the other mass shootings are, they did not occur in a vacuum.  We did not suddenly wake up in a country with more guns than people where school shootings are a “thing.”  

We have progressively migrated to this point as a country.  Over many years attitudes toward guns and gun ownership have changed in the US.  This is the result of an intentional strategy by several groups for differing reasons.  And it has been very successful.  There are people who wanted US culture to migrate toward greater acceptance of guns and the proliferation of guns and they have effectively created that cultural migration.

But what this shows us is that it is also possible to create a migration in a different direction.  It is possible to shift our culture toward a different attitude toward guns.  That’s the thing about migration – it involves movement and we can influence the direction of that movement.  

In thinking about celebrating the birth of Jesus, we must remember that Jesus was a pacifist.  So the last thing that should ever be given as a gift in honor of his birth is a gun, toy or otherwise.  That is but one small step in contributing to a societal migration away from gun culture.  

Prayer:  

Seeking to live and flourish, may we make our way toward Jesus this Advent season.  Amen.  

Why do people migrate?  

We are in the midst of a huge migration of the human population at this time.  Why are so many people migrating?

There are two basic reasons for migration.  You need to get away from something, to leave something behind.  Or you are going to something, there is something you want and you are going to it.  We see both of these dynamics at work today.

Many people love their homes and their homeland but they must leave because of war or violence or drought or some other danger or peril.  They cannot continue to keep living where they are living safely.  So, they migrate.  They leave to seek a new home in a place that is safe and where they can live and flourish.  

There are also people who migrate because there is something they really want in a new location.  Maybe they get involved in a relationship with someone who lives in another city or country.  And they decide to migrate to be with that significant other.  Maybe it is a wonderful job opportunity that motivates migration to a new place.  Here in Florida we know that many people migrate because of the weather.  They are looking for more warmth and sunshine.  

And sometimes migration involves both the push and the pull.  There are things that need to be left behind AND there are things to look forward to ahead.  

In this season of Advent, we are thinking about migrating closer to Jesus.  Are there things we need to get away from, to leave behind?  Are there things that are drawing us forward, closer to the way of Jesus and the love that he shows us?  Very likely we have both of these motivations going on.  This is a time to think about your journey.  Where have you been?  What do you want to leave behind that is holding you back from life full and free?  How do you feel you are being drawn to your heart of love?  

Prayer:  

Seeking to live and flourish, may we make our way toward Jesus this Advent season.  Amen.