A little lower than the angels

 Arab women grinding coffee in Palestine “Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.”  -Matthew 24:41 I went to church yesterday on the First Sunday of Advent with a lot on my mind, given that I've been spending a lot of time recently reading from files left behind when my father died 47 years ago. In those files I'm reading about his religious and spiritual outlook on the world of his day, and it's making me think about my religious and spiritual outlook on the events of today. In the assembly of the church yesterday we marked the beginning of Advent; a season in which Christians are focused on getting ready for the coming of Christ into our midst at the Feast of the Incarnation. We read from Matthew's Gospel of Jesus telling his audience to keep awake and alert in order to be able to perceive the coming of the Son of Man (his name for himself) into a world which - like ours - was full of conflict and threats to peace. Recallin...

Dismas Among all the people we saw on the street last Sunday, hers is the face that I remember clearly. Seated in her motorized wheelchair, she was moving quickly toward us on the sidewalk of West Pender Street in Vancouver, Canada, headed in the direction from which we had come. I only had fleeting seconds to see her face; gaunt, lined with creases and worry lines, with a slight concavity around the mouth suggesting a history of poor dental health. Notwithstanding all that she displayed a face of classic beauty in form and symmetry. The eyes left the most memorable impression. There was suffering in those eyes, visible pain, the unmistakable indication of a daily struggle to live. I thought I detected a degree of desperation. What errand was she on? She was once someone’s beloved child, I thought. Or was she? As Sharon remarked that day, there are those who in their first five years of life never get what they need, being born to parents who themselves are desperate.  Once they ar...