Monday Morning Musing: Flying through Time

When this post appears in this space on this Monday morning, Bruce and I will actually be half a world away, on an airplane (if you know me, your prayers for traveling mercies are welcomed!) en route to a much longed for return to Advent in Germany. It's been nine years since we were in this country where we both lived as kinder at this time of year. We were most recently there during my sabbatical in 2016.

But there's something magical about Germany in this season of Advent. Of course, a part of the magic is the Christmas markets, which we will no doubt enjoy, along with a lebkuchen and a steaming hot mug of glüwein. More than that, at least for us, is something of the notion of time. I lived in Nuremberg as an infant and young child, so it's where I learned to walk and talk and eat real food. When we return to this city, I can retrace the path from our family's apartment to the corner bakery, where my mother pushed me in a stroller for a sweet treat. Even all of these decades later, that somehow grounds me, reminding me that this is the place where I learned that my own two feet could carry me forward and that the words I have to say matter.

As we fly to Europe we will somehow lose hours, which I understand in my intellect, but which seems very wrinkle in time like to my heart and spirit. What might have happened in those hours that will somehow be left behind as our airplane whisks its way through the smooth (please, God of all travelers, let it be smooth) night air? And when we return, landing on the west coast, we won't just regain those hours we left behind, but three additional hours and oh, it fairly boggles my mind and might leave me stumped if it weren't for....Advent.

Advent is this season in the Church when we suspend time even as we count it. We long for the Messiah who has come into the world on that night in Bethlehem and for whom we still wait. Our systematic theology gives us the explanation our intellects need for this, but in our spirits and hearts it remains, like traveling through time zones, a bit of a mystery.

For this mystery, and all mysteries: for time travel and the birth of babies and love that is unconditional and the way no two snowflakes are alike and second chances and the grace and mercy poured out upon all people by a God who loved us enough to come among us and for whom we still wait....I am so filled with awe and wonder.