Home > Advent Blog 2022

Glass half empty?

December 16, 2022

Emma Walsh, one of 15 St. Luke’s Episcopal Church young adult missioners,
building a church on the grounds of Campamento Monte De La Transfiguracion,
Jarabacoa, República Dominicana, February, 2006.

Isaiah 10:5-19 | 2 Peter 2:17-22 | Matthew 11:2-15

Today’s readings paint an awful picture of humankind around the time Jesus was born. I consider myself a “glass half full” kind of guy, but these readings are anything but.

Godless nation. Kingdoms of the idols. Haughty pride. Plundered treasures. Wasting sickness. – Isaiah 10:5-19

Waterless springs. Deepest darkness. Licentious desires. Slaves of corruption.

‘The dog turns back to its own vomit’, and, ‘The sow is washed only to wallow in the mud’. – Peter 2:17-22

Ugggggggg!

I suppose it would be easy to run from such travails. Do I dare write a reflection on these readings?

Heck, Christmas is eight days away. The baby Jesus will be born. Presents given and received. Choirs singing. Food and drink aplenty. But as we have been also reminded of Jesus’s death the past few Sundays, human life is a bit more complicated.

I flirt with life and death, have and have not, vitality and rumination. Are my struggles the harbinger of new life? I sure hope so.

So I reflect.

Love thy God. Love thy neighbor as myself.

All that I have that is good comes from God. Share that bounty and its reward multiplies tenfold. I have experienced this. In Jarabacoa. In Woonsocket. In a community that is St. Luke’s.

I have come to the conclusion, after 60+ years of traipsing around planet Earth, the most precious bounty I have is “time”. Not money, food, shelter, for which I am grateful. But “time”.

If I have learned anything, it is to spend time with my friends and family and neighbors. All of my neighbors. Not just those who look and eat and talk and think like me. Toss an enemy in there for good measure.

Keep on Christing…

I’ll check back with you next year, God willing, and expect to see our glasses half full at the very least.

Perhaps running over!

Rob Walsh