{"id":1936,"date":"2010-11-29T08:18:09","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T13:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/?p=1936"},"modified":"2010-11-29T08:18:09","modified_gmt":"2010-11-29T13:18:09","slug":"reflections-on-advent-from-the-sunny-pew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/2010\/11\/reflections-on-advent-from-the-sunny-pew\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on Advent (from the sunny pew)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>yes, christmas is coming. \u00a0this morning at church the first candle of  advent was lit by a beautiful young girl in gold slippers named Bella.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>it is the first week of advent, which means that its getting darker,  colder, and more desolate &#8211; but instead of surrendering to the sense of terror  and doom induced by the darkness we begin to wait, expectently, for something  that is on its way, something that is going to be delivered to us, something  that will offer hope, redemption and salvation. \u00a0and what have we learned from  our religious teachings? \u00a0that whatever form of deliverence or salvation is  imminent, it is not to be found (or born) in any source or place where we might  expect it. \u00a0it is not going to originate in and be handed down from the higher,  more exalted strataspheres of the economic, social and political structure. \u00a0it  is not to be delivered by wealth or riches or the knowledgeable or kings or  magistrates or even the high priests and rabbis of any religious order. on the  contrary, what ever it is that is going to offer a sense of salvation to our  souls, \u00a0is going to arrive outside the artificial constructs of civilization,  close to the natural elements, amid the beasts and wildlife&#8230;that is what my  christian upbringing and faith structure has prepared for me to believe. \u00a0its  about all i have to cling to. the hope that i will make it through this. \u00a0that  something will come to help me continue my journey&#8230;<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>yes, christmas is coming. \u00a0this morning at church the first candle of advent was lit by a beautiful young girl in gold slippers named Bella. it is the first week of advent, which means that its getting darker, colder, and more desolate &#8211; but instead of surrendering to the sense of terror and doom induced [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-worship-and-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1937,"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936\/revisions\/1937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}