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Honest Advent's word for yesterday was "seen." Scott Erickson's words and art invite us to think about the risk and gift of revealing our true selves—our "real"—in all of our gift, fault, and messiness. Ours is a God who not only knows our "real," but has chosen to live among us in all of our humanity. Ours is a God who not only wants to see us for who we really are, but whose grace. God loves us, even when our lives feel broken, even when we are the ones who did the breaking.

When do you feel most loved? Whose approval do you most want? What kinds of things make you feel like love has to be earned? How do you feel when you make a mistake?

Small Kindnesses

by Danusha Lameris

The New York Times (9/19/2019), Bonfire Opera


I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk

down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs

to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”

when someone sneezes, a leftover

from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.

And sometimes, when you spill lemons

from your grocery bag, someone else will help you

pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.

We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,

and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile

at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress

to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,

and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.

We have so little of each other, now. So far

from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.

What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these

fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,

have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

In the poem "Small Kindnesses," the poet offers another lens through which to view the world and a glimpse of grace in small every day acts. Where do you see these small kindnesses—this grace—in your own life today?

P.S. Thanks for extending grace to me as I accidentally showed you my "real"—the part of me that had only good intentions about sending this email last night when I got home from the office and then just...forgot. Love, Rachel

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