Friends,
This week, as I settled down to write my Contact piece, writing didn’t come easy for me. The axle in my bicycle’s rear hub snapped on Monday and on Tuesday (my regular Contact writing day), I was scrambling, trying to find a bike shop that would either a) fix my hub or b) get my backup wheels up and running. The trouble is my bike was built in 1982, which means it’s still running on late-Cold War-era technology, something most young bike mechanics seem to have forgotten how to fix.
I wanted to get my bike fixed so I could ride my bike to a dentist appointment on Wednesday (where I was to have a tooth extracted) and, following that, to the Oakland Children’s hospital, where one of my nephews was to be undergoing surgery for a hernia. Of course, I own an automobile—two of them, in fact—and I even own another bike, but I wanted to ride my favorite bicycle on Wednesday. I had everything planned out. I was looking forward to riding whilst in a Novocain-induced fog, but the universe wasn’t playing along. Meanwhile, I was supposed to be writing a Contact piece on Advent.
My bicycle-related problems, of course, were entirely bourgeois (How lucky I am to be worried about such first-world trivialities!), but the distraction also was somewhat welcome. It was good to spend time worrying about something that actually had a solution. I might otherwise be worrying about children in Aleppo, or about the possibility of foreign spymasters pulling the strings of the marionette that American democracy has become. The world has serious problems. It was easier to be obsessed about getting my bike back on the road, but it didn’t help with my Advent message for Contact.
But here’s the thing. Advent was going to journey into Christmas regardless of happened with my bicycle, and despite the world’s actual problems that are of real concern, still the year was going to wind down, the Solstice was going to usher in winter and the darkest days of the year, and then hope and light and joy was going to be reborn in us. The coming of Christmas waits for no one’s broken axle. It delays not for even the most pressing matters of human concern.
No matter what happens, Christmas comes. A child is born in the fullness of time, and Advent season leads us to the manger, there to adore the Prince of Peace. This means nothing we do can disrupt the indwelling of God’s love. I find this good news to be deeply reassuring.
God’s Peace!
Ben P.S. Please pray for my nephew Leo on Wednesday, as he recovers from his surgery.
PPS: I just found out that free e-copies of my latest book Thoughtful Christianity are available online by visiting http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=60164bdda6e4064d943bed8b2&id=41ab0f7971&e=%5BUNIQID Please go download yourself a copy. If lots of folks from MPC go get one of the free e-books, it will make me look like the kind of writer people like to read, which will be a great help to me the next time I pitch a book idea to a publisher. Thanks for your help!