Feeling asleep this Advent?
One of my drives in Pennsylvania…
You may love this season. Advent, candles, family gatherings, and Christmas services. I just pulled out Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol to read over the holidays; I am sure it will mean more to me now as an adult. What book do you pull out each year during these weeks before the celebration of the birth of Christ? Books designed around the theme of light and darkness have a lot to offer. This is a favorite month on the church calendar for me. I am oriented by the days of December that highlight the coming of a Savior. The older I get, the more I realize how much I need a rescue.
And yet, there is pain hidden in this nostalgic time of year. Waiting is hard. Chronic “anything” steals our hope. Endurance and resilience are tough to access in our next-day-delivery-days, same day appointments, and quick turn-around on whatever we need.
These days, we may get stuff fast......but the heart has a different speed. Freedom from fear, overcoming toxic comparison, awakening forgiveness, breaking down in repentance, loosening the grip on control, and rewiring the damaging, set-in-stone patterns after years of marriage, these take intentional work and long hours, days, years. We don't think we can make it. We wonder if growth will ever come. This is when Advent really matters. Not the sentimental quotes and readings, but the robust promise that light WILL push itself into the darkest places and warm it up with hope.
So what do we do when we feel disoriented? What response do we have when our faith flatlines and hearts grow cold toward God?
We pay attention to our lives, we give our bodies help:
Take note of creation.
Be silent.
Walk.
Get off the phone.
Confess.
Sing a worship song alone in the car.
Write.
Cry, if you can.
Name what is off, and ask for help.
Read good poetry.
Listen to classical music.
Bake
Write a letter of gratitude to a dear friend
Getting in touch with the Spirit, becoming present with God may be more simple than we think. In a culture streaming a hose of noise into our heads continuously at all hours, it's no wonder our hearts are numb and our minds are fatigued. No wonder we feel lost and untethered. No wonder we can't hear what is heard only in silence.
Advent reminds us to look and be alert, to listen and wait. Receive. To not run to the next thing or default to scrolling and wasting time. Advent exhorts us to sit in the dark and wait for the light. To wait with hope. To choose it.
It will come.
What do you need this season? What will open your heart up so you will be ready to receive the light? These are the words God gave me I sat alone by the fire.
Advent.
The stream is what you need.
Quiet and calm,
but moving.
Cold water, its shape changing.
You need fields.
Vast and silent,
but welcoming.
Peppered with geese who are calling.
Light is what you need.
Soft and warm,
but strong.
Shinning ahead, paving the way.
Have you felt numb before?
Like this?
For this long,
where you can't see,
the great blue heron,
or hear the church bells
carry their notes
down the gravel road
along the river
across pastoral fields
turning their songs
into poetry
and dropping them into your soul?
You need tears.
Steady and constant,
but reaching deep down.
Softening stone, calling out new songs.