Some of you met John McNamee about a year ago when he was at St. Stephen to read from some of his poetry and essays. John retired a few months after he visited with us. (He was forced to retire, actually, by the Archbishop, who considered him to be a thorn in his ecclesiastical flesh. An aging priest who ran with the Berrigan brothers and who still thought that way can only be tolerated so far, in the political atmosphere of today's Roman Catholic church.)

I digress. John's writings come out of his exerience of decades as a parish priest in north Philadelphia -- in the midst of some of the worst poverty and despair in the world. During this season of honesty about what brings us despair, and hopeful watching for God's advent, for God's entering in, I thought I would offer John's poem entitled, "Advent."

Ghetto woman
these Advent evenings
when I light wreath candles
against winter darkness
and search holy books
to feel the spirit of a season
that gathers human yearning
into hope

I remember other evenings
when the projects hovered
over Diamond Street
ghost ships at concrete anchor
and somewhere in the upper reaches
of that ruined landscape
your window wreathed in Christmas lights

taught me more of hope
than all my books and pieties