As soon as water hits flour, transformation begins. Gluten begins to form and starches slowly release their sugar. When given enough time, gluten forms a powerful net. In the tension between two qualities--the plastic and elastic--the dough begins to grow. When I watch a loaf of bread rise, I'm reminded that the Holy Spirit lives in the tensions of the Christian faith.
Read MoreAdvent is my favorite season of the liturgical year.
Or perhaps not necessarily my favorite – I do love the feasts of Christmastide and Eastertide – but it is the season with which I resonate the most.
The tension.
The remembrance of what is already juxtaposed with what is not yet.
The remembrance that Christ has come, the anticipation that Christ will come again.
My hope is not a naïve expectation for discord to disappear, but a belief that the God who asks that we eat together in remembrance of Him does change our minds, does bind the hearts of all mankind. It is a belief that my studies are not in vain, that bold expectations for justice are not a waste of time. That leaning into the tensions of the already but not yet, we will find the strength to carry our sorrows in the small, slow glimmers of change.
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