Let us pray: Loving God, may these words be ones which help us to know your word for us, your people. Guide them and use them. Amen.

The clock radio came on at the appointed time and gradually increased in volume to arouse Hope from her fitful sleep. She lay there, slowly becoming more aware of the news and weather accompanied by easy listening music and the lighthearted repartee of the morning radio hosts. Her waking was complete when she realised that it was December already. Suddenly the drowsiness was gone and her thoughts turned to the same ones which had occupied her off and on for the past few weeks, except this time they were not about things to come. The time of anticipation was over - it wasn’t about December that’s coming anymore. It was about December that is now here.

It was the time of year when Hope’s frame of mind most clearly belied her name. She spent a lot of time despairing for the world these days. It continually seemed to be on the brink of disaster. Weather crises were now a common occurrence, not just in far off places, but much closer to home. It seemed as if every weather pattern was pushing at the edges of extreme. She couldn’t be sure but some reports she had heard cited these extreme weather events as just another outcome of global warming.

It wasn’t just weather that sapped her positive frame of mind. It seemed she was at odds with many other things that happened in the world. December amplified some of these concerns. The commercialism of the season only served to highlight her dissatisfaction with the ever greater control that large corporations had on her life. She was concerned that the heart of being human was all too quickly giving way to the need by a few people to get richer at the expense of many millions of others whose lives were getting worse. It was a trend she felt pretty hopeless to stop. How could she expect to have any influence on something that was global in nature? She believed the poster sentence that told her that any journey begins with a single step, but the road seemed so long and the distance she wanted the world to travel seemed only to increase.

She was not in a complete quagmire of despair. There were many things about her life that she felt good about, but in some ways the good things she had also helped to increase her worry. How could anyone say that the decision to have a child is one made out of hopelessness. Her daughter had brought incredible joy into her life. But it was also concern for the kind of world her daughter would know that added to Hope’s discouraged frame of mind.

Now it was December and the pressures of the season only added to her search for something new to inspire and encourage her. She wanted the best for her child and her partner, and she was doing the best she could, but it seemed that there were ever increasing outside pressures that threatened any positive attitudes and feelings she could muster.

Deep down she knew it was a spiritual crisis, but she had difficulty putting words to her feelings. She had friends who were Christian - well, sort of friends - their overbearing nature, simplistic fatalism and personalistic faith stance was a huge turnoff to her and prevented her from getting too close in friendship. Their answer to some of her questions seemed much too pat. She just couldn’t see how a personal relationship with Jesus was going to help her understand and deal with the problems of the world except to lead her to turn her back to them and absolve herself from any responsibility in either causing them or helping in some way to fix them. If that was what faith was all about, it was not for her. Yet she did not see her herself as a person of no faith. Certainly she had no connection with a faith community. Her grandparents had been church attenders and she held her grandmother especially in very high esteem, but the years of her childhood and youth had not been spent in church. Her parents had never attended and therefore it was not a part of her tradition either. But she had a good upbringing. She could easily see that her parents were responsible for much of what she thought about the world. Her concern for people, her affinity for people who lived on the margins, her suspicion of corporate and popular culture were all things that she had learned at home. Any rebellion she had shown as a teen was not in opposition to these attitudes but in pushing them even more strongly. She sometimes felt that her parents had not tried hard enough in their desire for a more caring and just world. She was determined to do better in her life.

Now that she was a Mom she was starting to understand her own Mom a bit better, and she was ready to cut her a bit more slack now that she had spent some time in the motherhood shoes.

Her daughter’s wakeup cry interrupted this flood of thoughts, feelings and concerns. She crawled out of bed and went to hold her daughter, putting those motherhood shoes into action. Just holding her daughter helped put some of the concerns to rest and served to increase them all at the same time. She reflected on the love her daughter had for her and the role that Alison played in keeping Hope’s life on an more even keel. Even a baby can play a part in establishing a mutual relationship. Strange, Hope thought at how a baby can help to calm some of the fears while at the same time be the reason for many of them.

There had to be more. That’s the way Hope summed up the way she was feeling. Yes, she was trying hard. As hard as her parents had tried for her. She realised that now. But she still felt something was missing. The Christmas season always intensified the feelings for her. Despite her lack of organised religious experience she knew that the season had connections with religion. She also knew that many of the religious traditions came from other pagan traditions - adopted by the Christian church over the centuries. She didn’t know the details. She didn’t want to know the details. She did know that some of the details only added to her despair. What would redeem the season for her? What would help her to find what she was missing?

A group of like-minded people would help. Not all her friends were overbearing Christians. There were others with whom she could share some of her concerns and they could ask questions together. That helped, but she still found herself looking for more. The young moms in her neighbourhood and the ones she met at the daycare were also people with whom she could have discussions, but these often centred more on day to day parenting issues than on some of the deeper issues. Hope was clearly part of the online generation and while her computer time had diminished since Alison was born, she still sought out community online and again it helped to discuss some of her deepest feelings with friends she had made around the world. She was impressed by the breadth of the internet, but not as much by the lack of depth. She could have discussions with people in Europe as easily as next door, but the depth was not always there in the way she desired. Many of her discussions were one of in nature. A good discussion, but no follow-up with the same person.

Cuddling time over, she put Alison back in the crib, and picked up her copy of Canadian Living to peruse while she listened to her daughter cooing in the bed beside her. The ad caught her eye enough as she leafed through the pages to cause her to turn back to it. A stereotypical Jesus in a very non-stereotypical ad, with a child on his knee and an invitation to share in discussion about life’s big questions. Wondercafe.ca it said.

I wonder what that’s all about she mused. Brought to you by the people of The United Church of Canada, it said. Strange, she mused some more. Can’t hurt to see what’s there, she thought as she picked Alison up and headed for the computer room. ... to be continued ... Amen.