When something is rebuilt there is an assumption that what once was is worth bringing back to life. This restorative work may involve complex deconstruction of old foundations, other times it merely warrants creative adjustments and minor up-cycles. Regardless, to begin a rebuild someone first needs to see with new eyes the fresh possibilities that what was old can be made new. There needs to come along an imagineer who dare says, “Yes, I can work with this. There is beauty here.”
This is the story of the incarnation. In God’s dwelling among us as one of us, God says to the brokenness of the world, “Yes, this is good and beautiful and worth the rebuild for sure!” Advent is a four week venture in communal and self (re)discovery, when we allow the holy to be unearthed from within us once more. We all have intrinsic value. While maybe battered by time or trauma, self-doubt or systems, not-so-healthy decisions, circumstances or isms that have targeted our worth and dignity, there is a divine belovedness about each of us that can never be taken away. Sometimes we need someone to speak this truth to us; sometimes we need to share lovingly the same with another. There is beauty everywhere, if we have the eyes to see and ears to hear.
Check out the calendar of words for sacred imaging through AdventWord.