Sunday 9th December (Advent 2C)

ADVENT 2C
Night:
dark, still, clear
and voices,
sounds of industry.
Suddenly
light –
white hot liquid light
pouring from the blast furnace.
Pig-iron
spilling and sparkling:
molten metal
on the way to something finer, useful, right.
And the glowing slag trucked on rails
into the night
dumped;
spreading down an unseen slope,
a dying red scree.

A bit like life, really;
separating and clarifying
the useful and valuable
from the stuff
that hinders or hides.

Much of the time
it takes discipline, persistence, energy
and will.
But sometimes a moment
sudden, unexpected,
a jolt, a word,
amid the way of society,
deep in its daily routine,
opens our vision
to filling valleys of despair;
lowering hills of prejudice;
and mountains of oppression;
straightening crooked paths of exclusion;
smoothing rough ways of hopelessness;
so that all might experience
the justice, the way, of God.
        © Jeff Shrowder, 2012.
  More for Advent 2C…