Opening to the Spirit
Today’s word: Advent
1
) With the advent of winter weather I hope you have all got your winter tires on. At the beginning of every season there are usually ways to prepare that make our lives easier.
During the Advent season before Christmas it often seems that the merchants of the world have united to persuade us that buying, buying and more buying will bring us to December 25th as prepared as we can possibly be. More than that they would have us believe that happiness, harmony and serenity will all reign because we have found the perfect gifts for our loved ones. I suppose it was inevitable that Christmas would devolve in this manner. It is so tempting to think that all our troubles would be resolved if only we had the proper gadget, the proper winter tires so to speak.
Yet it has been my experience that no exterior object, no matter how well treaded, can fix whatever ails us at Christmas time. The work of preparing for this time of year begins with an examination of ourselves, our values, our goals, our hurting places. The journey inward is fraught with an accumulation of past experiences and future expectations for Christmas, expectations that are rarely met. Trying to pretend life is perfect, that our families, our jobs, and our circumstances are perfect can be an exhausting exercise.
Instead here is my recipe for the season of Advent. Start by counting. Every day count at least one thing about your life for which you are grateful.. Find the blessings. No matter how poor in spirit or pocket book I may be, I can usually find at least one thing for which I am grateful. Recognizing our poverty yet not letting it define us allows us to enter the season of Advent with humility and sensitivity. What better way to welcome the Prince of Peace into our hearts?
2
) “Advent” signifies the coming arrival of a notable person or event. A person might ponder the advent of television, or of space travel or of the Internet. Something new is beginning, and it is a time of celebration. For many in church life, Advent is the season of preparation before Christmas. We celebrate the coming of God into our world in a dramatic new way. We use candles, or calendars filled with chocolate treats, and we change colours in our church decorations. This year this special season is a week shorter, as Christmas eve is also the 4th Sunday of Advent.
One of my favourite words, adventure, begins with the same letters. I like to think that life can be a series of adventures filled with excitement and passion. Each new experience brings wisdom and joy.
This year my life has gone through many wonderful, dramatic changes. I look forward to more. Our church, both locally and nationally has also undergone many changes. There are those who see change as something to be afraid of. The familiar is disappearing and we don't know the future. Many long for the past.
The word advent for me means the arrival of a new world, very different as the divine mystery unfolds. My hope is that we can rejoice together and find hope. I know that we are not alone, God is with us as we journey.
3
) "Prepare ye the way…" the chorus reminds us in Handel's Messiah. Before the joy and jubilation, comes the long season of waiting in hope and anticipation. The whole first section leading up to the Nativity sings about the longing for justice, the cry of the messenger heralding the coming of light, the birth of love and goodness into a world of power and greed gone madly awry.
In the household where I grew up Advent was about more than opening doors in a cardboard calendar for daily chocolate treats or shopping countdowns toward the gift-giving bonanza. I learned to look forward in the darkening time of year to the haunting plainsong of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." The wreath invited me into contemplative mystery. We lit its purple, rose and white candles each Sunday at church and later, our smaller version at home. Around the dinner table we children were encouraged to prepare our hearts with acts of self-restraint, kindness and generosity.
Advent is our turn to wait on God. Can we learn to live in the space of not-yet without being impatient, anxious, or demanding? Not just standing in endless check-out queues waiting to pay for armloads of gifts. Can we live in the dark of the year without losing hope for the light to come? Can we make peace with each other, and bring joy to those whose lives are filled with suffering? Can we love the lonely and forgotten?
Advent's weeks are named for the gifts only we can give, acts of justice that can tip the balance in a world which still, centuries after the birth of the one we celebrate, is never quite ready to recognize or welcome infinite goodness. My favourite closing words for our annual Carols and Candlelight service are from Howard Thurman, reminding us that the work of Christmas begins as we put away the decorations. Or does it begin even before that - in Advent, with the realization that goodness depends on us, we are the ones we're waiting for.
4
) Advent is my favourite church season. I know it should be Easter, but I don’t always feel like that much joy, and the trumpets and lilies can be a bit much.
Give me Advent: a small light, a quiet hymn, the waiting, the blue. This season wraps us like a blanket. We aren’t joyful, but we also aren’t alone. We simply wait in hope. The church is like a cocoon of peace in the midst of a world that is bustling around, getting broke and exhausted in attempts to make people happy. Advent doesn’t worry about happy. Advent just is.
Give me the quiet prayers and the waiting at the edge of mystery. Let me be surprised, again, when the sacred child is born, but only after the needed journey. Most of life is like the trip to Bethlehem. We plod along, one foot after another, thinking about the things that need to be done. We need food. We need to find a home. We need to pay our taxes. Only sometimes, when we rest, we can remember our sacred task. We remember that God waits, always, to be born.
The Inn is full of guests, drinking and eating, and completely unaware of what is about to happen. We can go to the mall, on any given day, and be distracted. But, somewhere outside, somewhere at the edge, the world is pregnant with God. Let us remember.
One word, four voices - now it's your turn to reflect: Do you celebrate the season of Advent, and in what ways?
Rev. Mead Baldwin pastors the Waterville & North Hatley pastoral charge; Rev. Lynn Dillabough is now Rector of St. Paul's in Brockville ON. She continues to write for this column as a dedicated colleague with the Eastern Townships clergy writing team; Rev. Lee Ann Hogle ministers to the Ayer’s Cliff, Magog & Georgeville United Churches; Rev. Carole Martignacco is Consulting Minister to UU Estrie-unitarian Universalists in North Hatley.