“Advent is a time of exquisite balance between the sadness of the mess we live in, and the bliss of the world we would like to live in. Advent is when we acknowledge that bliss is not the blotting out of pain with port and plum pudding, but a process, a pilgrimage, a pregnancy, and — amidst the chaos of the world’s governing — a cry for the coming of the reign of God” -Margret Hebblethwaite