I may need to live life without fear because fear can lead to violence when I feel the need to protect what is mine at any cost. I may have to remember that God is always present because I can only hate when I have forgotten God. I will have to teach my children the ways of peace instead of the ways of war - and that will not be an easy task in such a violent world. Don't misunderstand me, it is not that I think that any of this will be easy or that there are simple answers, that isn't it at all. I do think that we will have to make fundamental choices about how we solve problems and work out differences and this is the season to think about those things.
Advent is the season of hope.
It is the season when we read from the prophets and we are reminded that there is a future filled with God's presence. It is a future in which there will be peace, not just the absence of war, but peace. Peace between nations, peace between people, peace in our neighborhoods and in our homes and in our hearts. In that time and in that place our children won't learn war, they will learn God and that will make all the difference. Advent is a time when our spirits are stirred to prepare not only for the coming of Christmas, but for the coming of Christ and the coming of the prophecies of Isaiah.