Our theme throughout Advent this year is to be "Night Visions".It is always a wonderful creative process to see how a theme emerges, how different people live with the theme and write about it for our Advent devotional. It is interesting how the theme gets incorporated into worship, through music, sermons, words for liturgy. It is also fascinating how putting a theme before people invites them to think in new ways, stretch their usual ways of seeing things, even use different language to express common, daily events.

Last night was spent reading through the poems and reflections submitted for the devotional. It was so exciting to see how two little words…night visions….was brought to life in so many different ways. I think it will be a lovely devotional. The theme in some ways had its inspiration from writings by Jan L. Richardson, a United Methodist minister, artist and author. She writes:“There are other
senses, you tell us, and when the darkness obscures our choices, we must turn
to the other ways of knowing you have given us. In the daylight we can get by
on sight, but for the nighttime is our hearing, is our tasting, is our
smelling, is our questioning, longing touching. A thousand messages waiting for
our sensing, you have given us, O God.” 

Being a visual person, I have to see things to figure them
out….or so I try to make myself believe. But when no picture or image will lead
me through to understanding, it is sometimes the night visions that help me
come to a place of calm, a place of peace. Lying awake, eyes searching the
darkness for some picture to hand my thoughts to, I am forced instead to
listen…to the wind outside my window…what wisdom floats on its breath? The
sheets rub their knowledge into my skin, cooling the heat of whatever anxiety
that grips me. The questions that jump from the diving board in my head slowly
break the water’s surface and begin to do the backfloat, swimming gently in circles
until they begin to lull me to a deeper breathing, a quieter mind. I swallow,
noticing that now my mind is clearer, my heart is slowing, my breath becomes
deep and peaceful. From this place of darkness, I offer a prayer…..thank you,
thank you, thank you. Now I see.

What does ‘night visions’ say to you?