The Morning Moon

I opened my eyes this morning and through the blinds there it was, a full moon peeking back at me through the bare tree branches. A full moon in the sky outside my window at 6:45am on a random Wednesday morning.

It shocked me for a minute. I was always a bit confused about the concepts of how the sun and moon and earth dance around each other, rotating and revolving and eclipsing. All I know is in my ordered world you see the sun during the day and the moon at night. So those times when the moon is still there in the morning just confounds me. It’s like something went wrong. But I trust it knows what it’s doing.

For some reason that moon this morning brought me a sense of peace. A sense that in spite of all the uncertainty we have been living in this year, there are some things that stay the same. Some things we can know for sure. Some things that in their constancy and predictability can bring us hope.

There is a normality to the world after all. It’s just harder to spot with all the abnormality around us. And it will be back. In the mean time we rest in hope.

Advent is a season of hope.

In the book Beautiful Hope, a compilation of essays from spiritual leaders, Pope Francis tells us, “When everything seems finished, when, faced with many negative realities, and faith becomes demanding, and there comes the temptation which says that nothing makes sense anymore, behold instead the beautiful news…God is coming to fulfill something new, to establish a kingdom of peace…Evil will not triumph forever; there is an end to suffering. Despair is defeated because God is among us.”

He goes on to say, “We are all called to become men and women of hope, cooperating in the coming of this Kingdom made of light and destined for all men and women of hope. For this reason we must pray that each day God may give us hope and give it to everyone: that hope that arises when we see God in the crib in Bethlehem.”

Or when we see the moon in the morning.

Make this a hope full Advent,

Joan