First Sunday in Advent: HOPE.

Hope is a word we throw around a lot during our year. We encourage others – and ourselves – to try and find it in every situation.

Yet, sometimes we can’t. Sometimes hope is as far away from us as the moon. We grasp for it and yet can’t see anything beyond the present reality in which we find ourselves.

The funny thing about hope is that it does not rely on us to appear. In the midst of the darkest of realities, or the bleakest of journeys, it is always there ready to spring upon us.

Like the Advent season ahead of us, hope is best found in the long journey. It is not something that will dawn all at once, but rather like a thousand tiny pinpricks of light that burst through in the midst of our ordinary day-to-day life.

If you don’t feel hope this first Sunday in Advent, know that it is all around you. Don’t give up. Look for the smallest bit of light in the world and hold on to it.

Above all, when you find it, don’t keep it to yourself. Be hope in a world that desperately needs it. Shoulder the travelers that can’t see it on this journey of life, and let others hold you up when you falter.

Hope is communal. Hope is all around us.

Keep journeying.