This year, we want you to have several options for charitable giving during Christmas.

First, you can give a gift to a child at Hughes Spalding Children’s Hospital at Grady. Just bring a gift (they especially need presents for adolescents, such as Game Boys) to one of the Christmas services. Gifts must be new (for infectious control purposes) and should not be wrapped (but should be in the packaging, if there is any). Grady gives these toys out year-round, so you’ll know that our gifts are bringing smiles to sick children when they most need it.

In addition, you can sponsor a child at Pere Bruno’s school in Terrier Rouge, Haiti ( Jim and Gale Mull went to the dedication ceremony in November). The cost is (get this!) $150 per child per year, and that includes a hot lunch (often the only nourishing meal the children get). Make a check to St. John’s and show that it is for "Haiti Scholarship."

Finally, you can purchase a solar panel for the school (which must provide it’s own power since there in no power grid in the town). The cost is $400. Put "Haiti Solar Panel" on your check.

ANNUAL PARISH MEETING

At our Annual Parish Meeting on November 17, we heard reports from the rector and senior warden, Donn Blosser told us that Begin Again is up and running. The parish elected the following persons to serve three-year terms on the vestry, beginning Jan. 1:

Katie Aboul-Khair

Donn Blosser

Joanne Lindsey

Gale Mull

We extend our heartfelt thanks to all of the candidates for their willingness to serve.

You are welcome to pick up a free copy of an Advent and Christmas Calendar in Bott Hall. The calendar grew out of a relationship between St. Francis (Macon) and a church in our companion diocese of Ecuador. The calendar encourages you to designate a collection box, and each day to reflect on a brief passage from Scripture and do the spiritual exercise prescribed. (For example, "To remind us of the importance of water, place 5¢ in your Epiphany Box for every faucet in and around your house.") This is a great way for children and adults to live the seasons, and the money collected (on January 12) will go to benefit work in Ecuador.

This year, our Advent adult Education will consist of training sessions between the services for some of our Sunday morning ministries. This seems appropriate during Advent, a period of preparation, and it allows us to get groups together that are very difficult to gather otherwise. Please consider coming even if you are not a part of the ministry being trained. It will be helpful for you to know what goes into our Sunday morning worship, and we will discuss the theological implications of each ministry. The schedule is as follows:

Dec. 1: Lectors (readers) and LEM I’s ("chaliceers")

Dec. 8: Greeters (Everyone!)

Dec. 15: Lay Readers (those licensed to lead worship)

Dec. 22: LEM II’s (those who take communion to shut-ins)

Dear Father Jim & Members,

James and I thank God for sending us to his house to worship, where friendship and warm hearts, smiles of love, and happy thoughts greet us from each face and hand that reaches out to welcome us to St. John’s Episcopal Church. We may not be there every Sunday, as we live out of state and attend Grace Episcopal Church in South Carolina, but we are always thankful to worship with you when we are in Atlanta. Our prayers are with you in thanksgiving to God for his blessings. May God’s peace and love be with you all.

James and Anne Foster

Please make these changes to your Parish Directory: Scott Mills, 1852 Dorsey Avenue, East Point, 30344, 404/765-0088; John F. Austin, 575 Hood Ave., Fayetteville, 30214, 770/460-0266; Hylan Scott, 1703 Linwood Ave. East Point, 30344, 404/559-1730.

The great figures of drama and literature have always known that we cannot sustain any emotion, even a desired emotion, very long, and that emotions are much more richly felt if juxtaposed to a contrasting feeling. And so the dark drama in Hamlet is made even more poignant by the comedic scenes which transform an otherwise sustained incline of tragedy into a roller coaster ride of laughter and pain.

Part of the genius of our liturgical calendar is that it taps into this wisdom of the centuries. We prepare for the laughter and joy of our biggest parties (Christmas and Easter) with seasons of contrast — a season of somber reflection (Advent) or a season of penitence (Lent).

This is an idea quite foreign to our culture. In East Point, the Christmas decorations went up before Halloween. In College Park, they went up the day after. We live in a culture of instant gratification. A huge sector of our economy is dedicated to giving us what we want when we want it. The benefits of having to wait, of reflecting, of anticipating, are almost totally lost.

Except to the church. Advent is a time of anticipation, a time of longing. This is a season in which we reflect on our need for God to be among us before we rush to look in the manger, open the presents. Advent is a time of longing for the baby, but not only for the baby, but also for the promised parousia, the long awaited Second Coming.

It is never easy being countercultural, but it is especially hard in this season. Our culture sees the season before Christmas as a contest to see who can achieve the most excesses. Christmas day becomes merely the end of a season of gluttonous material consumption. The season becomes one who, having overeaten to the point of bloating and exhaustion, is lulled to sleep by the familiar melodies of a precious and vaguely religious lullaby about a baby born under starlight.

And in the midst of this orgy, we are called to stop, to be quiet, and to reflect. We are called to long not for salvation by acquisition or for a cute story of a baby, but for the power beyond our dreams, the grace beyond our imagining, the hope beyond our reality, the love beyond our comprehension. We are called to ache. To ache for love which enters into the pain and danger and heartbreak of the world. To ache for love that does not shy away from the storm, but sets its course for the very broken place where we live, for the very broken people that we are, full of beauty, full of ugliness, full of love, full of pain. We are called too ache for love that comes into that place of sweet roses and crowns of thorns, and comes as a babe.

Advent is a season of practiced aching. Practice aching for that love, and, after the time of waiting and longing, you will better know the real joy of Christmas.