Can you feel it?

There are a couple of repeated messages/news items that I keep hearing lately.. some people are connecting them. I'm with them...

First, the economy is the biggest news item going. Even the seasonal cards and letters we received at work were laced with references to our sagging and struggling economy. You can't open a magazine or a news site without hearing about how bleak and difficult things are.

Second, is a growing desire to return to simpler lifestyles, frugal choices.. consuming less and losing the motivation to accumulate stuff. Being more contemplative about how we live... a desire for more being replaced with a desire for less... Macleans had a cover article about frugality recently that helped me to see that this is a bigger trend than I had thought.


Have you noticed it too? This week, I was reflecting on this and wondered if the Spirit of God is behind it all.. you know, we (I?) tend to think of the Spirit often in terms of our personal lives, our own needs, relationships, our context... (or maybe thats just me) - we sometimes neglect to consider the larger picture, the ways that a sovereign God interacts with humanity and creation. It seems like there is something afoot in North America. I'm excited about what this means for North American Christians... Many people are listening, caring, longing to rightly respond... I read their books, blogs, and articles. Even though I have difficulty connecting the overall state of Christianity in our culture with the individual people that I interact with and know... the truth is that the church has somehow failed the rest of the world. It feels like we're realizing that, and wanting to do more about it. It feels like real justice, mercy, compassion, selflessness are increasingly pursued and noticed. It feels like we're seeing that we need to do more than send a few missionaries or service workers overseas, or more than sending a cheque in the mail. It feels right.

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So often during this advent season, I've bowed my head to pray and the prayer that springs immediately to mind is: 'Come, Holy Spirit..'

So now, I pray it for our world.. Come.. Holy Spirit.. be sovereign over our lifestyles, our culture, our blind spots, our priorities.
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My growing Christmas wish list:

• I wish for children all over the world to be cared for.



• I wish for diseases and medical concerns that could be easily treated in the first world to be easily treated everywhere.



• I wish to be cured of Affluenza.



• I wish for no children to be involved in the sex trade.



• I wish for no children to ever have to become soldiers.



• I wish for access to clean water for people all over the world.



• I wish for people with much to be willing to share, to take responsibility.



• I wish for sustainable lifestyles all over the world.



• I wish for corrupt governments to become just.



• I wish for the horrible disease of greed to be cured.



• I wish for people people to stop doing nothing because they think they can't make a difference anyway.



• I wish for courageous, innovative, inspired leaders to show us how to rethink our faith and our responsibilities.

I hope some of you readers will interact with these observations.. I know I'm not the only one thinking about this stuff...