Tag: Advent

Advent, Contemplation, Hope, Mindfulness, Serenity, Waiting

Advent’s Invitation

Rev Kathy

ABA52B53-DF36-418D-BD71-FE6891967598What is Advent’s invitation to me? What does this season want to  teach me? What will I see in a new way as a result of Advent’s opportunities for reflection? So many questions!

“Wait,” the wiser ones tell me. “Wait for it.“

“This is the message of Advent — endure the dark places of this season knowing that the Messiah is coming again to bring light to your world and to your heart. Just wait.”

So it seems that Advent is not for impatient folk, the ones who want to get on with it, to get on to the lighthearted joys of Christmas. Advent’s call to ponder, to be mindful of the moment, and to wait catches the busy ones off guard. Our souls sing the adagio strains of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and the mellow hopefulness of “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus,” while feeling in our waiting hearts the great need to belt out “Joy to the World.”

What exactly is Advent’s invitation to me? What is it that Advent promises that makes waiting worthwhile? What is it that this season has for me to learn?

These are questions I cannot answer, at least I cannot answer them at this moment. My hope is that if I am faithful in the waiting and the pondering, the answers of Advent will become clear to me. Until then, it is just one of those life mysteries that eludes me. 

In the meantime, Barbara Brown Taylor offers a wise word about it all

Advent invites us to awaken from our numbed endurance and our domesticated expectations to consider our life afresh in light of new gifts that God is about to give.

— Barbara Brown Taylor

Wait for it!

Advent, Contemplation, Darkness, grief, Hope, Light, Loss, Memories, Mindfulness, Pondering, Sacred Art, Seasons, Sorrow, Waiting

Pondering through Advent

Rev Kathy

23DCD324-DEFB-436C-8942-C4ADA60DA52AYesterday, I mused on the tenderness of this season of Advent. The waiting. The darkness. The need to linger in the season with a sense of mindfulness.

To be honest, I want to shop with reckless abandon and find fun toys for my grandchildren. I want to bake all manner of Christmas cookie. I want to decorate every corner of my house, and if I had my way, ours would be one of those houses that people drive by at night to see all the twinkling lights.

But on that outdoor winter wonderland, I definitely do not have my way. My husband’s days of hanging lights on the gutters, placing a Santa on the roof, and wrapping the trees in tiny, twinkling lights are over. He has happily passed out of that season of his life.

For me, yesterday was baking day, and I made a new discovery about mindfulness and cookie baking. The two activities pair well. Dropping cookie dough by the spoonful onto a baking sheet is slow work. It gives one time to ponder. And pondering a is a good thing to do in Advent days. Good lesson learned, with the added bonus of having 200 cookies in the house!

While dropping cookies, one by one onto an old, scratched up baking pan, I pondered. Some thoughts hinted at my inner sadness. Other thoughts were of friends who are very ill and are walking this Advent journey in darkness. Other friends have lost people in their lives, and on this day, they find themselves in mourning.

As I do in most Decembers, I find myself, along with others in my family, feeling the sadness of having lost my youngest brother, Pete, to cancer. It happened many years ago, yet the hurt remains.

No doubt, this Advent journey can be a tender time. Yet we journey into the days ahead, not with a spirit of despair, but with a glimmer of hope. Even in the darkness, we begin to awaken, knowing that something new will be born in us just as it has every Advent. This is the season when we wash our faces and rub our sleepy eyes until we wake up, eyes wide open to the Light that sleeps in a manger.

Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

— Luke 2:19 New International Version (NIV)

Like her, I am spending my Advent days pondering — moving in mindfulness while holding tender feelings, heart longings, mourning in the soul.

And, of course, I’m waiting in the darkness. But I know, without a doubt, that light will shine. It always does.

 

Advent, Bethlehem’s Star, Christmas, Darkness, Hope, Loss, Mindfulness

Today I Believe

Rev Kathy

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This season is a tender time. And oh, this darkness of mine. December brings it every year — that feeling of tenderness, of darkness. That is, if I stop to notice. Stop decorating the house. Stop shopping. Stop planning a lavish Christmas dinner. Stop baking dozens of cookies. Stop going to Christmas events — parties, pageants, gatherings, light displays . . . Just stop!

If we do stop in these advent days, we might just feel this tender time. It’s not Christmas yet, you know. It’s Advent, a time of waiting, hoping, believing. If ever there was a time to practice mindfulness, this is the season. As I move through Advent’s days, I want to move slowly and with the awareness of the tiny miracles all around me.

I want to remember past years and people I have loved. I want to linger beside the Chrismon tree that holds decades of white and gold ornaments and decades of memories. I want to be mindful of my own darkness and the tenderness that is nested in my heart.

Advent is most surely a tender time, and a time of darkness, a time when people of faith wait for the light to come to earth again. Advent causes me to wait for the light that always comes to come into my heart again. Until the light shines, though, through a little baby born in Bethlehem, days will be dark and tender.

I am remembering my youngest brother who would have had a birthday this month. The loss of him far too soon will always leave a lump in my throat. December, his birth month, is a tender time.

In these days, I miss the joy and laughter of my grandchildren. For them Christmas is all joy.  They are such a gift to me, and being separated from them by so many miles makes this a tender time.

My friend’s fourteen-year-old grandson lost his battle with cancer this week, and I cannot help thinking about what a dark and tender time this family is feeling because of this deep loss.

So many losses surround us. So much grieving. So much darkness waiting for the light of Bethlehem’s star and the infant that comes to bring light to our hearts.

I love this tiny prayer:

Lord, you have always lightened this darkness of mine; 
and though night is here, today I believe.

— Evening Office by Northumbria Community

 

 

 

 

Advent, Faith, Inspiration, peace, Prayer

A Prayer for Peace

Rev Kathy

A81E9F0E-2271-4149-9432-5B83AFE1AEBDLoving God, Creator of all,

Listen to the cries of our hearts as we await the coming of the Prince of Peace.

Hear us as we cry out in the midst of a world where peace is not a reality.

Comfort us as we reach out with heart and hand to our brothers and sisters in need.

Ennoble us to open our arms to those who are in exile.

Make our nation a hospitable land in which all people love their neighbors.

Forgive us for acts and words of hatred, exclusion and bigotry.

Grant us open hearts that care for all,
and help us walk in the image of Christ.

Amen.