{"id":5179,"date":"2012-12-10T11:57:44","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T18:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/michaboyett\/?p=5179"},"modified":"2012-12-11T12:55:34","modified_gmt":"2012-12-11T19:55:34","slug":"thankful-tuesday-advent-thoughts-christmas-gifts-and-baby-cheetahs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/michaboyett\/2012\/12\/thankful-tuesday-advent-thoughts-christmas-gifts-and-baby-cheetahs\/","title":{"rendered":"Thankful Tuesday: Advent thoughts, Christmas gifts, and baby cheetahs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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Some words that are blowing my mind this week, from the amazing Advent book I\u2019m working through. (Preparing For Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent<\/em><\/a>\u2014go now and get this book.):<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Christian wisdom is to name the darkness as darkness, and the Light at light, and to learn how to live and work in the Light so that the darkness does not overcome us. If we have a pie-in-the-sky, everything-is-beautiful attitude, we are in fact going to be trapped by the darkness because we are not seeing clearly enough to separate the wheat from the chaff (the more common \u201cliberal\u201d temptation). Conversely, if we can only see the darkness and forget the more foundational Light, we will be destroyed by our own negativity and fanaticism, or we will naively think we are\u00a0apart from the darkness\u00a0<\/em>(the more common \u201cconservative\u201d temptations).\u00a0 Instead, we must wait and work with hope inside of the darkness \u2013while never doubting the light that God always is\u2014and that we are too (Matthew 5:14). That is the narrow birth canal of God into the world \u2013through<\/em>the darkness and into an ever-greater Light.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

-Richard Rohr<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n