It's a tiny candle, the kind that are used for Hannukah, made of beeswax and intended to burn for about twenty to thirty minutes.

Pausing to sit and watch the flicker of candle light in the window... time to be still and quiet... time to savour the simple beauty of a candle flame defying the darkness of night, and taking its place alongside street lights and the stars.

The light shines in the darkness; and the darkness can never overcome it.

This morning the good people of the Gathering Place were finally permitted to open the mysterious brown boxes that had been sent to them by post.

Inside was, to all intents and purposes, an Advent Calendar with a difference... a Bag of Blessings, with something for each day up to and including Christmas Day.

This morning we prayed for the courage to hope, thought about the interconnectedness of faith and hope, and gave thanks for the little shoots of new growth that are the signs of God's inbreaking kingdom.

Over the coming days, look out for more objects from the bags!

Advent, we tell ourselves, is a journey.

Advent, we remind oursleves, shares its etymology with 'adventure', something we tend to think of as exciting and daring.

Advent, the scholars tell us is a word that means 'coming'

All of these are true... it is an exiciting and daring journey of hearts and minds as we seek the one who has come, who is coming, and who will come.

And so it is a season characterised by hope.

Not hope as wishful thinking, that 'it would be really nice if...'

Not hope as 'if only...'

But hope as chosen trust in the promises of God that will see all creation renewed.

Hope Street, then, a road that we follow on our way to Bethlehem.

Will you join the journey?

This poor old blog has been rather neglected of late, life is has been filled with all sorts of good things, and time to pause and post has been squeezed out.

So, if anyone is still kind enough to be reading this, there is news - hopefully good - that Advent will see a return to daily posting... an Advent Calendar of sorts which will link to one of more of the other Advent things with which I am involved.

There will be photos/pictures, there may be poems or links to where to find them, there may even by the odd thought or prayer.

For now, though, maybe what we need is a little frivolity...

I think that most clergy find Remembrance Sunday challenging - and I think that's a good thing.

This morning I was proud of our congregation, as we met on Zoom to remember those from our church who died in the two World Wars, to hear stories about beautiful art created by prisoners of war, and to pray for peace.

I think that I have preached eighteen of the last twenty Remembrance Sundays - some of them twice as it happens.  It gets no easier, always searching for something to say, always seeking to hold a creative tension, always risking getting it wrong.

One little tradition of our church is to place two poppies - one red and one white - together on the cross that sits on the Communion Table.  This morning I fixed two poppies to my Welsh pew-wood cross.  This felt like an important thing to so.

We remember all people affected by war, all animals affected by war, all creation affected by war... and we dare to dream of peace.