by Tim,  read time : twenty-five minutes

An essay on light and darkness inspired primarily by two books I've been reading: J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Rene Girard's I See Satan Fall Like Lightning.

by Tim,   read time: twenty minutes 

Christmas is a celebration of the day God came back to us by being born, as Jesus. Advent, from the Latin word adventus which means arrival, is the four-week season before Christmas when Christians try to remember what it was like before Jesus arrived. We try to empathize with the incredible longing and expectation felt by the Jews who awaited Him and the rest of the world who hoped for something like Him. Advent is an annual spiritual exercise that helps bring Christmas to life. We do it because we recognize that Christmas can actually become lifeless. In fact, for many of us today, Christmas may have died altogether...