"Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." (Luke 21: 28)

I was recently going through some family photographs. I noticed, as I have many times before, how many of our pictures are of people all lined up,

facing the camera, smiling. This is true for birthday events, graduation celebrations and Christmas gatherings. It's also the case for scenes in the woods, at the ocean or on the deck. People pose, smile, "click" goes the camera and- sometimes months or even years laterinto the album goes the photo.

A unique feature of many of our photos is the inclusion of fish- mostly bass. I often joke that we have as many pictures of fish in our photo collection as we do of people! Even the fish are lined up, smiling, with their better side facing the camera!

I had taken a look at the photos after reading an Advent reflection by Canadian author, Ralph Milton. He writes about Advent as a time to "see around the edges"- a time to look not only at the familiar, but also at what is not often in our viewfinder. He had this image of Advent as he thought back to experiences in a photography class. Lessons learned there became life lessons for him, especially in the Advent season. He encouraged me, and I do the same for you, to look more broadly at what we choose to keep in our album, memory or daily believing.

Milton writes of a course assignment. Each person in the class was to spend time in a room they visit every day. In that very familiar place, they were to see things differently, noticing what they usually do not see. With a new eye in this familiar place (he chose the bathroom) they were to take three rolls of interesting pictures.

No people all lined up, smiling! No fish with their bigger side facing the camera!

As Milton took on the challenge, he noticed things he had never seen. Their beauty was there all along and he had missed it. His skills and art as a photographer were enlarged. So also were his skills, art and faith as a Christian in the Advent season. He began to experience the s e a s o n more profoundly.

There's s o m e - t h i n g v e r y comforting about the familiar and the positive. Advent celebrates that. Like the pictures in our photo album, there are sides of life that we know and love and need in the present and future.

Advent affirms that what has been good in the past will continue to be so: that all the grace we have known will always be with us. That the ways God has blessed us in the past will continue. These images will still have their place in the album of our life.

But Advent is also about the unexpected and the difficult. It's a call to look around at other ways God has been, is and will be in the picture. Ways perhaps we missed when we wanted everything lined up, the better side showing and everyone smiling.

The Advent God of the unexpected asks us to look more closely at other angles, faces, events- perhaps especially those we may have t h o u g h t were void of God's presence. With new openness we may j u s t n o t i c e God in p l a c e s a n d e v e n t s previously overlooked, ignored, missed.

This Advent I look forward to the usual line-up of familiar Advent blessings: deeper experiences of predictable gifts: hope, peace, joy, love- and finding them in all the familiar places: carols, readings, time with family and friends. I am also accepting the invitation to open my eyes and heart to the surprises God has in store for me in places I may have missed.

The Advent God visits us in the familiar and in the new. Many find it easy to see God in the happy times we may have captured on film or in our memory: people

smiling; families together;

new experiences or accomplishments. Yet the God of good times is also, and perhaps more fully present in the difficult, distressing, empty places of our lives. God visits us there, often in ways we have failed to notice: a song on the radio, a visit at a bus stop, long periods of silence, a group of friends deciding to make a difference, a change of plans. How much we miss when we do not look again and more deeply at difficult times and places and notice what God is doing.

Go to a familiar place this Advent and look very, very carefully at all the ways God is and was and will be in the picture: in things all lined up and smiley. Then look again, especially if the scene is a painful, difficult or simply unfamiliar. Notice God in the picture when there is no sunshine, or smiles, only pain or loneliness, fear or despair.

With this Advent God, be encouraged to go to places you may never have been before also. The Advent God is already there, waiting for you. Welcome this God, open your heart to deeper faith and meaning. In all that is before you, let God come near. Your salvation is at hand.