Advent 2019 Words for Reflecting

As I thought about Advent this year, I really wanted to find a way to “observe” it, in every sense of the word; to be curious and quiet and reflective, to take time to stop and really see what this time of waiting and expectation is about. I knew I wanted to put my thoughts in writing, but I felt like I needed some kind of a framework. Then the Advent words showed up and I knew immediately that this was the perfect prompt for my reflections. Wooden stars and a little tree provided another piece of the “how” of this. My plan is to write on the word every day, and when each set of four is complete, to hang the star on the tree.  The final piece is to put it all up on my long-neglected blog, and to share it as others are doing. Because the plan has been brewing and life has been busy, I’m a little late to the party, so  days 1-3 are all arriving at once. 

Day 1 Word: Unexpected  The unexpected tends to make me anxious. I want a plan, some warning – I want to be in control! And yet, unexpected things can be wonderful and fun, spontaneous and in the moment gifts that bring wonderful things that all my planning could not create. I think about a wonderful “find” of something beautiful in nature, that perfect gift that I wasn’t planning on getting but it was just too good to pass up, something my granddaughter does or says that could not have been anticipated. T

here is a fine line between anxious and excited. Maybe a good practice for me would be to see if I can find the latter in the unexpected events and moments in my days this Advent.

Our priest talked in his Advent 1 sermon about the now and not yet of being Christian, especially notable in this season. Another reading held up mindfullness and anticipation. It occurs to me that those two are really the same. Mindfulness of this moment, this now, right there in the cupped hands with anticipation, the not yet. Noticing God at work in the world can only happen if I am present in and to the world. And yet there is also the tension that this is not all, is not complete. Jesus is still coming, God’s kingdom is still coming. Can I be present to the whole of it, the here and now and the not yet without getting so anxious I bolt on the former and foreclose on the latter?

Day 2 Word: Visit The mediation this morning talked about being ready for the unexpected visit, noting that in the Middle East, visitors don’t call ahead but just come, and that because of this custom, there is always a space and provisions ready, just assuming that indeed they will come. I think about how we tend to live in our space, not necessarily always ready for a “visit” but scrambling if we know someone is coming, to straighten up and get something together to offer. This applies to more than just a visit from an actual guest, but also to all those “unexpected” things that throw me into a spin. I wonder how it would be to live in the trust and expectation that the guests might just come, and they might be Rumi’s guests at the Guesthouse, sweeping me out and preparing me for some new thing? To always be ready in healthy anticipation and curiosity, to be prepared, but not in a rigid or controlling kind of way, but with a kind of fluid grace based in trust that holds me both to a standard of living as if the guest arrives soon (or treating myself as the guest!) and relaxing into the expected unexpected.

Day 3 Word: Time
The reflection this morning made mention of time slipping into the future, which of course gave me a Steve Miller earworm. Time, however, rather than slipping, slipping, slipping into the future, seems more to be racing. I remember my mother telling me that the older you get the faster it goes. At the time, of course, I thought that was just another one of those things that grown-ups say. It turned out, however, that as in so many other things, she was right about this one, too! I’m reminded by this daily as I do my morning and evening routines. “Didn’t I just do this, like minutes ago?” is often the thought in my head. Nope, not minutes but hours. Twenty-four of them. Where did they go, and how is another whole day later already?

All those hours, gone! And how did I spend them? Some, of course, were productive. I went to work and did try to be truly present there. Time was spent as it is every day, doing those required tasks of life like laundry, cleaning, tending to the cat, preparing, eating and clearing up from meals, personal care and tending…all routines that I can and do perform mindlessly most of the time. And then there is the truly mindless time, mostly spent meandering around the rabbit trails of social media and the interwebs. So much time there some days that could truly be used in better ways. So much of that time slips away without my awareness, without my intent. Much of the time I seem to behave there as if time is infinite and I can squander it in mindless pursuits without consequence. As truly, I would like to believe. Who ever wants to think about the alternative? Especially the reality that more of my life is gone than is yet to come, the fact that there will be an end to time as I know it in this life. I could get caught in anxiety about what is to come, I could get lost in regret about wasted time and chances. But that just uses up more time! The important thing I need to remember that the only time I really have is now. This is the day, the time that matters.