Job, Advent, and Suffering

Last year's Tree

What we've done for Advent: 

1. Set up our advent wreath... today 

(We were at my parent's for an extended thanksgiving that included an ice storm and a power outage at our house until Tuesday night)

2. Set up our nativity, with Mary and Joseph journeying on the coffee table; the Magi are coming from the East!

3. Re-read parts of Joseph Ratzinger's advent homilies, collected as What it Means to Be a Christian

4. Wrote my advent column!

            Terrorist attack iconic Paris, leaving the Western world mourning for the victims, their families, and our collective safety and security. The news hits hard amidst a daily life of relative peace and joy, bringing to the forefront the horror and evil present in this world, leading us to ask, “Why?” Governments, think-tanks, pyschologists, and friends may answer this “why,” but their answers don’t suffice. It isn’t really to them that what we ask. Instead, our question is addressed, consciously or not, to the source of all meaning.


Read the rest here (or here, if you prefer your news sources to be Texan).  

And my November column, on beauty in the everyday.