Advent

I came across this word "adventitious" recently. It means "accidental" or "fortuitous." But it has a deeper sense. We make choices as we move along in the complexities of life and sometimes the choices we make connect with other events around us in a way that make possible things we could not have imagined.

Most of what we do, I suppose, we hope is intentional. But, if we're honest with ourselves, the choices we make often connect with things beyond our control. We try to head off in a direction that makes sense to us, only to discover that other forces larger than we are at work. It could be chaos. Or it could be a divine design that we might trust if we just relax.

The root word for adventitious is advent, of course. And advent means the "coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important" like the advent of the computer or the advent of peace. Usually, but not always, this coming is a surprise. It's like riding a roller coaster. Something's coming over the next peak, but you're not always sure what it might be.

Advent is one of those words rooted in language that is deeper than all current languages. The Indo-European languages share this word meaning "to come." Advent in the Christian tradition is the season of the Church year in which we wait for Jesus to "come" as a child in our midst. The four Sundays prior to Christmas day are the Sundays of Advent. In the romance languages (French, Italian and Spanish) the root word is "ven" as in adventure, souvenir, avenue, circumvent, convention, covenant, intervene, invent, prevent, revenue or the Old French bien venu which means, welcome.

Welcome comes to English via the Germanic languages (English, Dutch, German, Scandinavian). Welcome means a "desireable guest" from wel which means desireable or pleasurable and komen which means "Guest" or "he who comes." Welcome the one who comes no matter who he or she might be.

The strange season of Advent is all about welcoming the stranger. For, as it is written, welcoming strangers may be about entertaining angels unawares (Hebrews 13:2)

A lesson we all learned during our exile after the fire was that we were welcomed by so many without conditions. In turn, we have done a bit of welcoming. A Latino church is now a part of our fellowship. La Viña del Señor is a new church in the Wisconsin Conference led by Mario Navarro. They've been with us for a year and a half worshipping on Sunday afternoons. Already they have moved from strangers to angels.