How do you prepare for Christmas? One year, when I was working in parish ministry, we decided to hold an Advent retreat. Many parishioners were eager for such a time of reflection. We arranged it well in advance, made posters, booked rooms and soon had abundant pre-registered participants.

A rather superficial movie, a murder mystery, struck a deeper note with me. The movie was about a group of people on an island holiday. Every so often, one of them would disappear, never to be seen again. They didn’t know who would be taken next, or when, how, why or where the person went; but they knew they were all subject to the mysterious phenomenon. Not so different from real life, except that in the movie, the mystery got solved.

We were sitting watching his daughter’s hockey tournament (her team was winning). My friend and I had both been thinking that day about Robert Latimer, whose request for parole was not granted. Mr. Latimer’s story asks uncomfortable questions.

Trudging along the slushy sidewalk, I kept my left hand in my pocket, eyes alert, watching for panhandlers. In the pocketed hand was a wad of fresh crisp bills.   

Somehow over the Christmas holidays, I become more aware of world conflicts and turmoil. Maybe it’s because our world slows down and I have time to notice. For example, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell starting Nov. 9, with the Brandenburg Gate opened on Dec. 22 of that year. Over those Christmas holidays the changes in the Eastern bloc dominated the news, especially with the demise on Dec. 25 of Ceaucescu in Romania. 

Have you ever said no to God? Consciously, that is, and deliberately. Very likely, most of us have a constant “no” running through our bloodstream, even when we think we’re saying yes. But occasionally we may be aware of ourselves saying no.

At the words of his wife, Jim shrivels inside himself and speaks thereafter in infrequent monosyllables. She thinks he is sullen.

Shawna becomes belligerent when her supervisor criticizes her and stalks out.

It was Sunday morning, and I was leaving the hospital. A woman was sitting in the foyer; she smiled pleasantly, but a bit anxiously, her white hair framing a friendly face. She’d finished her appointment early and wondered when the bus would come to take her to the mall. My car being nearby, I offered her a ride over.

Labour Day came early this year, along with those September-school-starting feelings. Even for those of us who’ve been out of school many years, they can be startling. If you’re a parent of school-age children, perhaps you’ve been “getting them ready,” assisted as always by advertisers who prod weeks early. If you’re not, you may remember the years when you prepared for term-time, possibly with competing feelings. 

My friend Susan had been thinking about death. “What if there’s nothing after?” she mused to me, with some alarm. “How do we know? I love life — with all its suffering. Life is too wonderful for it just to end in nothing. But how do I know?”

Our culture makes it easy to ignore death (up to a point). The reality of death can get lost among our flurried lives, just another “issue” we might or might not decide to put on today’s to-do list.