Advent begins next Sunday, the start of a new year in Christian calendars.  The word Advent comes from the Latin Adventus meaning coming.  It is a season of waiting with anticipation for the coming of Christ and the incarnation, God made flesh, culminating in the season of Christmas.   In Advent we are invited to be present to the tension between all of the not-yets of this world and the signs of the Kingdom we see here and now represented in Emmanuel, meaning God-with-us.  It is a tension between the promise we hope for and the glimmers of hope present at every turn.  Advent is a season