Kester Brewin

From ‘Advent’ in The Complex Christ:

Our problem today: 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 worlds and possibilities to form, careering past small turnings and exits, bound to follow the obvious straight paths of the present arrangement. Yet if we stop and wait, and close our eyes to the ‘buy now, take me now’ images, and rest our weary retinas, we will begin to remember, new worlds will form, new exits will become apparent…

It’s so unfortunate that Advent has lost this contemplative element. One only need think about the ‘silly season’ that our diaries become in the run up to Christmas to appreciate that any sense of waiting is minimal. Instead we rush frantically around from celebration to celebration, raising glasses to the already-expected and inevitable gift we know we are guaranteed to receive on Christmas day.

Somehow we must try to set our minds to anticipating everything, but assuming nothing, rather than assuming everything, and anticipating nothing.