Happy Advent!

Do you ever find yourself on the edge of a conversation wanting to jump in but if you did you just know your timing would be off?  Recently, I've been on the edge of several Advent conversations.  Several of my acquaintances who haven't grown up in an Anglo-catholic or Roman-catholic community have recently discovered Advent and wished that their church did more to mark the season.  "Yes, yes!" I want to excitedly say I have always loved the season of Advent.  It's one of the best gifts the Church has given us.  In the hustle and bustle of marketing that Christmas has become we have an excuse and the call to be a little bit quiet and a little bit still remembering that if we are Christians, we are on the road together to Bethlehem and each Sunday during the Advent season offers a lesson on helping us find our way.

As a cradle Episcopalian, I have always had the church calendar of seasons as a part of my life.  The church colors change beautifully throughout the year from green to to blue to green to purple to white to red and back to green.  It's like a big clock of colors marking the year.  Now, I confess that when I was little I didn't think about it much and nobody ever really pointed out the importance of the colors but I always knew what season it was -- be it Advent, Christmas, Lent or Easter.  In more recent years, and not without the help of having been a regular Sunday School teacher for a couple of decades, I'm even more aware of  it.  The curriculum we use at the Cathedral, Godly Play, really emphasizes the colors and the time line of the church so my little minions and I are attuned to the gift of color. The colors don't just make the church more decorative they also symbolize that which we want to learn and remember.  The colors really do surround us.

But let's be realistic, as nice as it is to be quiet and reflective for Advent there are still so many things that must be done:  Nutcracker performances, shopping, parties, decorating, cooking, Christmas card sending.  One year I decided that we would wait to put up our Christmas tree until closer to Christmas.  Last year we didn't send a Christmas card.  Another year we moved the week before Christmas which didn't have anything to do with trying to move during Advent but certainly required us to be well-oiled machines of efficiency and definitely delayed all Christmas decorating until the very last moment (ummm...let me NOT recommend moving over the holidays).  But each year, I'm trying to find something that I can give break company with to free myself up for a little more time to de-stress and enjoy the season.  This year, I'm enjoying (and sharing with the Writing Group) an Advent Poetry blog I found.  You might like it too.

Every year, I find myself experiencing Advent differently in spite of every Advent ending in the same event: Christmas.  The road is never quite the same and each year I come across different people and see something new on the side of the road to Bethlehem.  This year we began Advent by moving my mother-in-law to a nursing home for those with Alzheimer's and severe dementia.  She is in the latter category of severe dementia of which the onset was terribly sudden but seemingly lasting.   I miss her.  I miss our Sunday night dinner ritual where she always thinks that I'm the best cook in the world (who wouldn't miss someone who thinks that ESPECIALLY if it's your mother-in-law).  We have several friends, who too, are experiencing what are best called "tough times"  --  critically ill parents, a recurrence of a friend's cancer.  All of these things that remind us to take stock of what's important and where light is shining in our lives. 

So on that note, happy Advent.  Slow down and enjoy yourself.