Let us pray: O God, may these words guide us to knowledge of you and your will for us, your people. Amen.

    As they say on some television programs: Previously during reflection time...our protagonist, a young mother named Hope, was not living up to her name. The beginning of December only served to remind her of how desperate she felt about the state of the world - due in part to her concerns about climate change and the influence of the corporate world on the lives of the majority of people. These concerns had increased with the birth of her daughter, and her worries about how her daughter would fare in a somewhat ominous future. Hope knew these concerns were in part a faith crisis. She had never had a connection with organised religion, but her own value system was very much a product of the one imparted to her by her parents. Hope longed for connection with like-minded people and found it, although unsatisfactorily, through friends and acquaintances and occasionally in internet discussions. Hope longed for more. When we left her last week she had just seen a print ad for wondercafe.ca in a copy of Canadian Living. Intrigued by the depiction of Jesus sitting in the usual place of Santa Claus in a shopping mall place of honour, she was headed for the computer to find out more about this ad and the intriguing invitation and inscription she had found there. Brought to you by the people of The United Church of Canada the ad had said. That might have been enough, but the cheekiness of the ad sealed her resolve to find out more.

    It was a pretty nice looking website - soothing colours, nice use of photos, good looking fonts and lots there without being too much. She noticed right away that there were other print ads besides the one she had seen. Some were even more cheeky than the one she had seen in her magazine. This didn’t exactly fit her idea of the kind of things churches do. There was certainly no hard-sell. She proceeded cautiously at first, half-expecting that at some point one of her mouseclicks would bring up a form inviting her to sign up for church membership. It didn’t happen. She noticed that there was a place where she could look up the United Churches in her area, but nothing suggesting she had to. Instead she found a pretty open kind of invitation to join the discussion. She could talk about the ad she had seen in Canadian Living or any of the other ones that were displayed on the site. She could respond to a guest editorial or start her own topic. In many ways it wasn’t much different than lots of other places she had visited on the internet. Except that she hadn’t seen something like this from a church.

    Something like this must have cost a fair chunk of money she mused. That upset her a bit. In her mind church was at least in part supposed to be about community service and she wasn’t sure how this qualified, until she realised that she was thinking about this while surfing their web site. “Aha”, she thought, “I am part of the community being served. Well, if that’s the case, then it’s not a bad job. I don’t feel any pressure. I simply felt invited and I accepted the invitation.” she mused as her thoughts clicked for her just as her fingers clicked on the mouse buttons as she surfed the site. She read an editorial by Graeme Burk, who from his profile looked thirty-something like herself. The intro said that he was a communications co-ordinator for non-profit agency working with at-risk youth in Toronto. In the article he unabashedly stated that he was a Christian, but not in the same way that some of her friends had demonstrated. He also made her think a bit more about Christmas. And that was the point of his piece. Just like the ad had done, the one that brought her here in the first place. Might be worth coming back from time to time. Might even find a kindred spirit here, or at least a place where I can share my ideas and find out that they really are shared. I’ll come back here from time to time, she thought, perhaps even a bit more often.

    Alison began to whimper from the blanket on the floor where Hope had placed her when she came into the room. Feeding time. She looked at her daughter and remembered one of the ads she had seen on the website. A newborn child with the hospital id bracelet still on her little wrist. Warning: it read, some re-assembly of priorities and beliefs may be required. That was a discussion she was going to explore the next time she visited wondercafe.ca but right now more important priorities were at hand.

    As Hope gathered up Alison for feeding time she reflected just a bit more on the last part of the warning on the bracelet. Some re-assembly of beliefs may be required. Beliefs. She really had never thought about her beliefs before. She knew that was going on for her was some kind of faith crisis, but she had never thought about it in terms of beliefs before. She laughed inside as the irony of her situation revealed itself. A few moments ago she was thumbing through a copy of Canadian Living. All of a sudden she was visiting a church web site and now she was musing about her beliefs. How did that happen?

    One thing was clear. Her early morning surfing and accompanying reverie had brought her just a bit of peace. She wasn’t quite as anxious as she had been when she woke up. She had read some things that told her she was not alone. That in itself provided some consolation, just a bit of unexpected peace for her mind and her heart. It’s good to know that there are people out there who think along the same lines as you do, and it’s good to have others provide thoughtful reflection to help you get things straighter in your own mind.

    She’d read something somewhere that the word advent was used for the days leading up to Christmas and that it had something to do with preparation. She knew it wasn’t just about the Christmas tree, the garlands along the banister and the icicle lights along the eave of the house, but exactly what it was wasn’t very clear to her. She had a sense however, that some kind of preparation had just happened for her. It wasn’t an earth-shattering revelation, just a quiet and subtle change of course. A little less concern and a little more hope. Not much - the world hadn’t changed around her, but in a very small, almost indiscernible way, Hope had changed. Her life journey had just taken an ever so slight change of course. Almost not enough to notice, right now, but as the journey progressed the difference would become more visible.

    Adoption of pagan traditions or not, overly sentimental as Graeme Burk had referred to in his article, or not,  Christmas was on its way. With Alison in their lives, their traditions were going to change, even as they tried to cling to as many of the old ones as they could.
   
    This morning had begun with her realisation that it was December. That had directed her thought and just so slightly increased her anxiety. She had mused on the poster which read - Every journey begins with a single step. It had seemed so maudlin when she first woke up, but just as the poster said, a step had been taken in the past few moments in a different direction. She would have to see where it was going to lead. Amen.

    This is a story which will continue, but unlike this week which continued something begun last week, this journey is going to take a little longer. Hope’s journey changed, but ever so subtly, and it is not something that is going to resolve in the context of the next couple of weeks. So, watch for Hope to return in 2007, perhaps more than once, as we follow her journey along a highway perhaps different from the one that  Isaiah and John the Baptiser might have imagined, but a highway nonetheless.. Once again, Amen.