{"id":455,"date":"2010-12-14T09:06:35","date_gmt":"2010-12-14T09:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/advent-reflections-love-or-fear.html"},"modified":"2010-12-14T09:06:35","modified_gmt":"2010-12-14T09:06:35","slug":"advent-reflections-love-or-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/12\/advent-reflections-love-or-fear.html","title":{"rendered":"Advent Reflections: Love or Fear?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recommended<\/a> the book God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas<\/a> a few weeks back. The words and images within have been a welcome companion in these weeks leading up to Christmas Day.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Yesterday, I was reading an entry by the poet Scott Cairns. He wrote about repentance, which is a central part of the Christian life and which the Church emphasizes in Advent as a way of “making room” for Jesus’ entry into the world. I heard long ago that “to repent” means “to turn.” And I’ve always thought of it as turning away from sin, as if I’m walking down a road towards a dark place and something stops me in my tracks so that I turn around entirely and head back towards the light. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Cairns wouldn’t disagree with me, I don’t think, but he emphasizes the importance not of turning away from sin, but of turning towards God: “Our specific hope lies in turning toward. As a result, the sin we suffered is behind us just the same, but that sin is no longer the power that occasioned our turn.<\/i>” <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In other words, if all I’m turning away from sin because the sin itself sickens me, but not because the love of God compels me, then sin still motivates my action. Instead, ideally I would turn towards God because love and truth and goodness draw me close. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
As we prepare to receive the Light of the World once again this year, may I be drawn to the light even more than I shun the darkness.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recommended the book God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas a few weeks back. The words and images within have been a welcome companion in these weeks leading up to Christmas Day. Yesterday, I was reading an entry by the poet Scott Cairns. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}