Welcoming Advent

Thanksgiving and its aftermath led me to some new musings about entering this Advent season.

After the complete vacation mentality I had over Thanksgiving break, I was on a great high, ready to tackle life again. On Monday I listened to a voicemail from my mom saying hi and she mentioned something about how it's hard sometimes to get back into real life after having a nice break. I thought to myself, "That's sweet of her to be concerned, but I feel great!" Actually, from Tuesday morning on I had a pretty rough week.

My original thoughts at the end of Thanksgiving weekend were a new appreciation for the approach of Advent. I wrote in my journal about the value of Thanksgiving right before the beginning of Advent because it gave me a time to slow down and remember to be reflective in the coming weeks until Christmas. The rest and grateful focus of Thanksgiving is a gift to spur me towards a richer perspective on Advent.

When I started to feel down towards the middle of the week (because of a variety of reasons), I was less excited about Advent because it would just be one more thing to do. That's a dumb reason. I soon realized that it is times of emotional and spiritual difficulty that are the Advent times. I am balanced in the tension of wanting to be joyful about the birth of the Savior and at the same time caught up in my own darkness. I am aware that my need for a light is not a one-time fix. Any current difficulty underscores my need for Christ and brings me into the heart of Advent: the anticipation and hope that comes from knowing how the story ends while I'm still in the middle of the action.

It's funny that a month ago I was so ecstatic with my life at the moment that I couldn't see a cloud in sight. No words could express how fulfilled I felt. And yet I am so fickle in my emotions. Sometimes I laugh at myself for being so human.

I'm still thankful that a weekend away prepared me to be focused on Advent this year. And I'm also grateful that I am learning to live into the darkness as to fully understand the Advent season and expectancy of light.

I just have one more little blurb to share with you as a closing to this post and a beginning of Advent reflection. This morning I lit the first Advent candle at 8th Day Community. In their tradition, the first candle is for forgiveness. This is what I shared:

Today we light the first candle on the Advent wreath, the candle of forgiveness. Through forgiveness we understand our humanity and our own need for forgiveness, and at the same time we discover our power through Christ to love and transcend hate in the world.
In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky writes, "At some thoughts one stands perplexed, above all at the sight of human sin, and wonders whether to combat it by force or by humble love. Always decide 'I will combat it by humble love.' If you resolve on that for once and for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force: it is the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it."
And so we begin this Advent season with the knowledge of our need for a light to shine in the darkness, of our need to forgive and to be forgiven. Let us humble ourselves to let Christ live in us this Advent season.

Amen.