“L ate have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient,

ever new, late have I loved you! . . .

Created things kept me from you;

yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all.

You called, You shouted, You broke through my deafness.

You flashed, You shone, and You dispelled my blindness.

You breathed Your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for You.”

–St. Augustine, Confessions

The battle of Mary and Martha, of Love and Duty, of Rest and Work rages with quiet tempests in this fragile heart. I ache, I focus, I crave for . . . balance. And in the Advent I struggle to find the place of Rest, the very place You are wooing me to.

Diminutive time carved out for beauty and the joy of hard work splash the canvas of Present Time, and yet You use a present reality to fold me closer to You: a brush with being too long out in the Alberta winter, an aching Pronator . . . common things, drifting my soul to the shore where I find You. But is it a discovery? For You were the One pushing me to shore, the voice telling me there is more than can be humanly seen, the ache in my heart, satisfied only in You.

So I come, and in the awakening, rest in the knowledge that You are walking with me.

A God of prophecy, yes; but more than prophecy, for you are a God of fulfilment. The final word finding life in Jesus—the Incarnate One.

“Help me, the created, breathe the air of Incarnation, live in the Incarnate One, incarnate Him in Rest and Work.”