Precarious Advent

Precarious Advent
Advent 1 2023; Mark 13:24-37, Isaiah 64:1-9
I hide my imagining eyes
from apocalyptic visions –
stars falling, heavens darkened;
although my rational mind admits
humanity courts self-destruction
generation after generation.

There is some comfort in the promise
that the Cosmic Christ is, has been, will be
there in the most desperate times,
and his words will not pass away,
though heaven and earth are transient.

Yet in this precarious Advent,
daunted by end time scenarios,
do I really want to stay awake,
or rather in mists of unknowing,
beyond smoke screens of wilful unseeing,
to dream I feel the hands of the potter
moulding the clay of our being,
finding the form and the colours
that will emerge transformed by fire?
	Barbara Messner 28/11/2023