As we enter this season of Thanksgiving and Advent, we are reminded that life’s sacred rhythm calls us back—back to one another, back to God, back to wholeness. Chickasaw poet Linda Hogan writes that in ceremony, “We remember that all things are connected.” The purpose, she says, is to mend what has been broken—to bring together the fragments of our lives and reestablish our connections with others.

 

Each season invites us into ceremony—the sacred practice of being made whole again. Whether we gather with family, church, or strangers-become-friends, we remember that in Christ, “all our relations” are restored. We are reconnected to the earth that sustains us, to the ancestors whose prayers still echo, to one another, and to the God who breathes us into being.

 

May this season set us upright again, filling the places within us with love, belonging, and peace. For in the coming of Christ, the fractured world—and our fractured hearts—are made whole once more.