God is with us when we sense him and when we don't, when we're stressed and when we're peaceful, when we're weeping and when we're giddy with laughter.

During the season of Advent, we go back to the time when Jesus first appeared to us so that we may become more aware of his appearing today, in the everyday moments of our lives . . . walking into our own wildernesses, joining us around our own dinner tables, resurrecting our own defeated bodies. God has joined us where we are: in the womb of a woman, in the experience of human life, and in the uncertainty and suffering that so often meets us in our world. We are literally surrounded by God, even in the darkness, and one day everything will become so illuminated that we will see God with our very own eyes, face-to-face.

There exists a daily advent of glory in the midst of our mundane moments, in the middle of our normal days; we only need to ask for eyes to see and ears to hear. God is here, making all things new.