at least then we are actively engaging with our lives

President Obama warned us about woke culture.

“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff. You should get over that quickly... The world is messy; there are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you.”

Advent calls us into a more courageous, kinder and more difficult way of being woke--"now the moment for you to wake from sleep" and "Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming." This is the way of coming at the stuff of our life from the perspective of eternity. 

As usual on Friday, my inbox included the newsletter from All Saints Margaret Street. Here's part of the message from Father Michael. 

If we regard our lives from the perspective of faith, and of eternity, we are challenged to meet difficulties in a particular way. If we don't like something, and we are convinced in good conscience that we are right not to like it, we can either try to change it, or to change the way we think about it, looking for the glimpse of glory. Neither of those things may be easily done, but at least then we are actively engaging with our lives. What Harold Macmillan called 'events' may be beyond our control, but our conduct and our self-understanding is within our control. This isn't Pollyanna-ish or the philosophy of Candide; it is about the perspective of faith, which is surely what we seek to learn in Christian living.  Michael Bowie, Newsletter Advent 1, All Saints Margaret Street

In Hong Kong and Syria, on London Bridge and in the White House, even in some of our parishes, there is an authoritarian spirit among many leaders and followers. Abuse and brutality are legitimized and enacted. And the woke culture responds with its purity and lack of self awareness. In my lifetime I've seen how frequently the purity culture can become the oppressor culture.

I had a therapist once who pointed out that whenever I saw only two choices I was crazy. 

Today's Daily Office reading from 1 Peter illustrates the alternative way. the Pathway of Grace --

Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.

The Advent leadership task in our parishes is to nurture all, and especially the Apostolic center, in the perspective of faith and eternity. It is to develop in them the competency of doing what they can in the places they do control and influence, especially their own "conduct and self understanding."

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