Advent Devotional for December 17th

The Great Rose Window at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Devine
New York City

"And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken." - Genesis 3:22-23
+++++

"A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push it." (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value)
+++++

Some natural tears they'd drop'd, but wip'd them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow
Through Eden took their solitary way.(John Milton, Paradise Lost)
+++++

Knowledge breaks us. Grace remakes us. How do you - like Milton's Adam and Eve - live in hope with what you know?

(2005 Advent Devotional, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London)