When any of us get a smallest hint about how much God is giving to us, we are grateful.

For instance, a woman named Katharine Lee Bates took a trip to the top of Pike’s Peak in Colorado and then wrote America the Beautiful. It was gratitude for what she saw.

Rust and violet colors interleaved in the sunset. A hospital patient waiting calmly for tomorrow’s verdict.

Unthinking courtesy from strangers who stopped their car down the street so that someone could complete his or her jaywalk in safety! Your family. The dog. Your own life, a wonder and a mystery even with all its losses and tangles. Trees that wisely shed their leaves with the snow and cold to come.

The ability to see, if indeed we can do so. Holy darkness for those who cannot.

You and I do very little to “deserve” the mysterious goodness around us and in us. We are not required to be worthy of it because God gives everything out of pure generosity. God gazes in wonder at the world and at each person and says, “You are worth it. I will not leave you.”

And a paradox: the shocking smallness of my own self. I am in no way the center of the universe. This is good news, not bad. I can rest in God’s everlasting arms and then do as much as I can to help others. Worthiness results from being loved, not just from achieving.

Smallness.

Perhaps gifts are not tendered to you right now. Perhaps life simply has too many problems: even international ones, that affect you. Maybe gifts are there, but you cannot see them.

In that case, your Advent eyes will have to rest their weariness for a while and do some waiting. It will be there, God’s delicate care for you and for us. You will see.

A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength (First Reading).

God, who takes joy in small things, does defend us poor ones from the wrongs of life. “He shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land's afflicted.”

Put it this way:

God does not erase trouble, he loves us within it.

Wait to catch a glimpse of God’s intimate love for each hair on your head. We must wait. In Advent and in every time. God labors to give each creature the gift of a lifetime.

I know, with all the catastrophes in our present world, how could any of this be possible? The answer? Wait. Clean your lenses. Open your eyes. Wait, and then see.

The shoot of Jesse is sprouting fast.

A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,
and from his roots a bud shall blossom. …
a spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
a spirit of counsel and of strength,
a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord. (First Reading)

As the mystic, Julian of Norwich put it,

All shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and every manner of thing shall be well.

Stay around for it.