Advent

This is my favorite time of the year.  Advent - the four weeks before our celebration of Christmas, a time of waiting and preparation.  Those are the words I would say every year to the congregation to try to explain. What I have learned is that every year is different and this year is no exception.  This year I am aware of the ways in which  new traditions intersect with the old.

  A year ago I sold my house in Columbus and gave away and threw away a whole lot of Christmas decorations.  The artificial tree that I used to set up with my grandchildren is gone  - as are some lights, candles, crosses, nativities, dishes, ornaments, and pictures.  This is a new chapter and John and I are establishing - slowly and somewhat intentionally - new traditions.  Last year we bought two birch Christmas trees with sparkling lights that sit in the living room.  We also got two reindeer that are on the hearth.  An ornament that from  Germany is on the trees as well as candy canes.  There are stockings with our names on them in front of the fireplace. This is a  beginning.

Also on the hearth is a nativity that my mother bought me fifty some years ago.  The pieces are somewhat plain and carved out of wood  and housed in a "stable" with a straw roof on it.  Over the years many of the pieces have disappeared - including baby Jesus.  We are missing a cow, a shepherd and a sheep for sure. There was one year that one of the girls put a ransom note on the manger saying that Jesus had been kidnapped.  I guess you had to be there.  I bought a new baby and manger in Israel that is made of olive wood and it is very meaningful to me.   I also added a large angel over the top of the stable.  I love it for its imperfections and all of my memories of putting it up and putting it down every year.  Sometimes with my daughters, other times with grandchildren and often alone.

Advent for me is really about waiting for Jesus to be born again.  Or to show up.   I love the imagery of the story.  I love the angels that come to Mary and the Shepherds.  I love the dreams that guide  Joseph and the Wise men.  I love the star in the sky that leads the Wise men -  first to Jerusalem and the court of Herod the corrupt and duplicitous King -  and eventually to this humble place where Mary cares for her baby.   I love the song "Mary did you know" and believe  that she did not know at all what was ahead for this child or for herself.  She is a picture of faith -  doing the next thing you are called to do even when you don't know.  You just trust.  

It is often in reflection that we see how the events came together so perfectly to take us in new directions that change our lives and the lives of other people.  But most of the time we live in "I don't know" about the future and just try to take the next step that appears. 

Yesterday morning I stood at the window looking out at Hoover Reservoir which I could not see.  There was a misty fog and I could only see  the bare trees, the leaves on the ground, the  chairs silhouetted against the white haze.  I thought that this is my life this  Advent.  As we put our lives together, as we live with health questions, as we wonder what is coming next we wait.  Waiting for the mist to clear, waiting to see what is next, waiting for the picture to fill in.  

Advent is my favorite time of the year.  The waiting in the darkness at times but always waiting in hope.