Christ is Life
Advent, Week 4
by Andrea Lingle

I just spent three hours cleaning up the room shared by my second and third children. I begged, threatened, and cajoled my children to help me. I lost my temper when I found a basket of washed, dried, and folded clothes carelessly upended onto the floor. Every time I clean up my home, I am filled with grating antipathy for the world of physical science. Could we not have been dropped into a universe that tended toward order?

Christ is Mystery
Advent, Week 3
by Andrea Lingle

If Paul was a Jew among Jews, I am a first-born among first-borns. I live my life religiously. About twenty years ago, I went hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina with my family and some family friends. The place where we were hiking crossed a rocky bald where there were patches of sensitive lichen. A helpful sign instructed hikers to follow a trail of yellow painted dots to minimize the ecological impact of hundreds of booted feet. After a few minutes of ambulatory dot-to-dot, we sat down to look at the view. My mother, always aware of her children, had seen my careful attempts to minimize my lichen-impact, and teasingly asked if I was sitting on a dot.