This past week, I witnessed something I had wanted to see my whole life: the Northern Lights! Unusual solar storm activity made these lights visible in North Carolina. I drove to a nearby lake and parked by the bridge, joining about a dozen others. As I got out of my car to position my phone’s camera, a woman standing nearby showed me how to lengthen the exposure time on my camera so that I could get a crisp picture. We waited til the car headlights were out of the way, aimed our phones toward the sky, and then compared pictures. She got a kick out of my giddiness at seeing the lights on my phone. Because here’s the thing – they weren’t visible to the naked eye, not here. They were there, however! Just not visible without the lens and light exposure that cameras make possible.

Advent is upon us! We proclaim God with us – Emmanuel. And yet God is, for many of us a lot of the time, and for most of us at least some of the time, not really visible. The month of November saw many of you stepping up to offer support to people in your community experiencing food insecurity due to the government shutdown and the baffling decision to withhold SNAP benefits. Thank you. You made God a bit more visible to people experiencing suffering.

What if, this Advent, we imagine ourselves as the camera that makes the invisible visible? Like my phone’s camera, it simply required the right conditions (exposure and lens). Could you be that for your community this Advent – with extended exposure to the Light, making something elusive more evident?  As you work within your chosen Advent theme this year, might you layer on ways to help your people see, then show, that the God who is coming to us is indeed already here?

I am waiting and watching with you.

Grace and peace,
Claire

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photo credit – Claire Clyburn