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Even though Advent is officially over and we are in the season of Christmas, Cathy's thoughts are always "in season."
(More links to Cathy's writing can be found at the bottom of this blog post.)
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What is Advent?
Is it the season to be Jolly?
Or should we be feeling our grief, our angst and our hopelessness instead?
I am coming to realize that we need to take the AD out of advent and VENT more.
Tis the season to get real, methinks.
I am learning that the 4 weeks before Christmas were traditionally a season for reflection and “waiting”. But not the kind of waiting a little kid feels the night before Christmas.
It is akin to a hopeless daring – akin to the Jews wandering the desert for 40 years – “Maybe just around the corner is the promised land – the milk and honey. It is the fierce, yet naive hope expressed in the broadway hit “Maybe This Time” (see link to this song in our Sacred Journey Playlist).
It is the season of the Cautious Optimist. I am afraid to hope, but what else do I have left?
The problem is – Most Christians like to skip to the end of the story. That is cheating – but mostly cheating ourselves. When we do this, we cheapen the journey part – we rob ourselves of the surprise ending.
I have realized that we, as Christians, have forgotten how to feel our lives. We have forgotten how to sit with our angst, feel it, and come to the end of our selves. We have forgotten how to identify with those around us who are grieving, suicidal and conflicted. We need to sit a little while with the in-between.
THAT in-between is called advent.
SO – as Chris Linebarger advised, we need to play less of “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” and more “O Come O Come Emmanuel”. Our playlist should include more dirges like Leonard Cohen’s – “You Want it Darker.” Or U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Turn off the Tinny Christmas and turn up the BLUES!
Professor Mark Oldenburg, argues that Advent “excludes all those aids that would help keep the celebration of Christmas from vapid sentimentality, all those proclamations that remind us what it means that “the hopes and fears of all the years” were and are met in Bethlehem. Keeping Advent entirely as a preparation for Christmas empties not only Advent but Christmas of its meaning.
Gone is the notion that we are in the “meantime” between the Incarnation and the Eschaton. Gone is the opportunity for our honest cry that things are not as God has promised they would be. Gone even is the notion that God comes to us here and now, where we are, in our rush to pretend our way back to “when Jesus was alive.”
I think of all the people who say, “I feel so sad this time of year.” I know there are many reasons for this sadness.
As a Christians, we always remind each other to consider those people who are unfortunate, poor or depressed this season. But perhaps, instead, we should learn from them. Perhaps, instead, we should get in touch with our own misfortunes, poverty and depression this season. Perhaps this is the true calling of Advent.
Is it the season to be Jolly?
Or should we be feeling our grief, our angst and our hopelessness instead?
I am coming to realize that we need to take the AD out of advent and VENT more.
Tis the season to get real, methinks.
I am learning that the 4 weeks before Christmas were traditionally a season for reflection and “waiting”. But not the kind of waiting a little kid feels the night before Christmas.
It is akin to a hopeless daring – akin to the Jews wandering the desert for 40 years – “Maybe just around the corner is the promised land – the milk and honey. It is the fierce, yet naive hope expressed in the broadway hit “Maybe This Time” (see link to this song in our Sacred Journey Playlist).
It is the season of the Cautious Optimist. I am afraid to hope, but what else do I have left?
The problem is – Most Christians like to skip to the end of the story. That is cheating – but mostly cheating ourselves. When we do this, we cheapen the journey part – we rob ourselves of the surprise ending.
I have realized that we, as Christians, have forgotten how to feel our lives. We have forgotten how to sit with our angst, feel it, and come to the end of our selves. We have forgotten how to identify with those around us who are grieving, suicidal and conflicted. We need to sit a little while with the in-between.
THAT in-between is called advent.
SO – as Chris Linebarger advised, we need to play less of “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” and more “O Come O Come Emmanuel”. Our playlist should include more dirges like Leonard Cohen’s – “You Want it Darker.” Or U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Turn off the Tinny Christmas and turn up the BLUES!
Professor Mark Oldenburg, argues that Advent “excludes all those aids that would help keep the celebration of Christmas from vapid sentimentality, all those proclamations that remind us what it means that “the hopes and fears of all the years” were and are met in Bethlehem. Keeping Advent entirely as a preparation for Christmas empties not only Advent but Christmas of its meaning.
Gone is the notion that we are in the “meantime” between the Incarnation and the Eschaton. Gone is the opportunity for our honest cry that things are not as God has promised they would be. Gone even is the notion that God comes to us here and now, where we are, in our rush to pretend our way back to “when Jesus was alive.”
I think of all the people who say, “I feel so sad this time of year.” I know there are many reasons for this sadness.
As a Christians, we always remind each other to consider those people who are unfortunate, poor or depressed this season. But perhaps, instead, we should learn from them. Perhaps, instead, we should get in touch with our own misfortunes, poverty and depression this season. Perhaps this is the true calling of Advent.
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