When I thought about sewing my purple stoles, I thought of all the usual things people include. There were designs with various crosses, candles, the mother and child, and of course the scene at Bethlehem. None of these quite spoke to me and my sense of calling to ministry.

You see, one of the most significant ideas about both Advent and Lent, is that both are about God entering into the messiness of human life. So, I used the randomness of the “crazy quilt” design to reflect on this messiness.

And life is certainly messy! We might have all our plans laid out, but in the end stuff happens and it is not always what we planned. We travel through the good times and bad. There are often times that I call “an interesting learning experience,” though usually it was not a learning experience that I wanted in my life.

But why I sewed my stole in this way is that in the midst of all this messiness, God is present. There is nothing that we can encounter that is outside of God’s presence.

And so we have hope.

It’s been a busy week for me. You know, one of those weeks where I was out almost every night (apologies to my dog who had extra time on his own), days where the best laid plans did not happen, and even writing this blog post is suddenly five days too late. My refrain this week has been “I’ll take back the time when things calm down in January.”

It seems in our culture that busyness is almost a source of pride. We expect people to be busy all the time. In more recent times, even our hobbies get turned into a source of income. So many people having one or more “side hustles,” especially with our cost of living crisis that makes any extra income a necessity. Leisure activities for the sake of enjoying them are no longer the right thing to do. Having a time of rest, a Sabbath rest, seems no longer permissible.

I often think that using the name “God” has become a bit of a problem in our society. As the theologian Richard Rohr points out for many people their idea of God is a cross between parents and Santa. God becomes the old man in the sky who keeps an eye out and duly rewards or punishes people according to what they do. It comes with many layers of stereotypes. When people tell me they don’t believe in God, I find the god they don’t believe in is the same one that I don’t believe in either.

One of my favourite descriptors for that which we call “God” is the “Divine Source of all Love.” To me, this sums up the nature and relationship we have with God and gets beyond thinking about God in ways that look rather like humans. It also gets beyond issues of gender.

I read an article just the other day about how we are increasingly expecting to get new things NOW! Once we would have planned to go to the shops and hunt around until we found the right thing. More recently, the rise of shopping online meant that we might have selected what we want, but then have to wait a few days to get it. Today we can often pay a little more for “expedited delivery” and get it, if not now, then very shortly.

This is relatively OK when we are talking about things, but what about when we are talking about life? Often we hear in the news where people say “now this court case is over, I can move on.” Or the unspoken expectation that after a funeral support is no longer needed (spoiler alert, support is even more important after the funeral when other people forget). We expect that we can move from one state to another almost instantly and our society often supports this idea.

Transition is the psychological journey between two ways of being and it is anything but instant. Change starts with something new being implemented. Transition, on the other hand, starts with the ending – the celebrating or commemorating of the old. Even then it does not move into the something new. There is a time in between, a time of waiting. It is even a time of anxiety and unsettledness when the old is no longer relevant, but we do not know what the new will look like.

As we approach a time of endings and beginnings, how can you make the time to sit with patience between the old and the new? What are the transitions that are needed in your life?

Do you have a hobby? Recently I’ve been enjoying getting back into crocheting. I used to crochet quite a bit, but it left me with sore wrists and that meant I couldn’t do my other (more important) hobby, which is playing music. Well, the equipment for crocheting has changed a bit and now I have hooks that I can use and I’m busily making myself a new top for my concerts.

I find it really satisfying to make something. I start with raw materials and a pattern, then out of all of that comes something to wear. Complements about something I’ve made mean so much more than something I’ve bought in the shops. But I have a problem with this top that I’ve been making. I made it too small and I’ll have to give it away.

They start out not looking like much – just two bits of paper. What good are those two bits of paper, except perhaps for jotting down a shopping list (for those who still use paper for such things), but look at what happens when the two halves are woven together.

We could start thinking about how we can be OK on our own, but together we can be something different. We are stronger together. We can communicate a different message – one of love – when we are in relationship. I’m sure there are many more messages from these baskets. They are also rather frustrating… but definitely worth it!

Isn’t that how life works far too frequently? Small things grow and grow in unpredictable ways. While I’m talking about really annoying things – like technology going wrong – it also happens with other things that often start small. I’m thinking of love, compassion, kindness. One small act of compassion can also grow in unpredictable ways, and like a computer virus, take over and change our lives too. Jesus talked about this idea and he called it the “kingdom of God.”

“Everyone has something special they can do. Sometimes we need help finding out what that is.”

This was approximately the last line of a children’s story I read on Sunday to introduce the theme. I obviously can’t reproduce the story here, but Dusty the Sheepdog is a tale of a kelpie who was an utter failure at being a sheepdog. It turned out he was deaf, so the children trained him to be helpful doing things that don’t need hearing.

Sometimes it is hard to appreciate people’s gifts. Sometimes they get on our nerves and we don’t want to get to know them. Some people are so shy or have been socialised to not show what they have to offer.

Everyone has something special they can do – sometimes we need help finding out what it is. What is your gift? How can you help bring out the gifts of others?