Advent - God's apparent lack of restraint

Christmas day is over but I am in my own Advent. Experiencing God's apparent lack of restaint in loving. In loving me.

If you know me you know that I am notorious for not paying attention to dates and times ... I remember moments, experiences, feelings, people. But I might not remember them when they actually happened. I might send you a Birthday Present a month early. Or a week late.

But today I have been trying to get the date into my mind: Dec 28 2007. It is a peak day. Untainted joy. Dec 28. I have written it down three places. I have said it out loud. I hope when I am 99 years old I will say, on Dec 28, "This is my favorite day of the year."

"Advent happens in time, the story of love between God and man. There is a time when it begins, and therefore there is a time before it begins, when it is coming but not yet here, and this is the time Mary was in when Gabriel came to her. It is Advent: the time just before the adventure begins, when everybody is leaning forward to hear what will happen even though they already know what will happen and what will not happen, when they listen hard for meaning, their meaning, and begin to hear, only faintly at first, the beating of unseen wings." Frederick Beuchner, "The Magnificent Defeat."

Winston Churchill said, at the end of the war, "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is only the end of the beginning." So it is.