Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Psalm 42:6

The intricacy of bare trees never ceases to fascinate me. The limbs that reach toward the sky, each one with its own curve, a tale of its unique growth. Smaller branches that begin to overlap, some reaching out or even down as they find their way. And finally, the tangle of twigs.

Even bereft of leaves and blooms, each kind is distinct; the beech, the maple, the oak look nothing like one another. And the complex patterns of the two redbuds in my front yard each tell their own story.

Like winter bares trees, Advent can bare our souls. Waiting in expectation, keeping one hand in the preparation of the everyday and another reaching toward a manger that is both past and present and forever, strips away pretension.

Exposed, we are beautiful. Each our own intricate, tangled, complex pattern ever reaching, finding our own way to light and life.