friday five: the eve of Advent

At RevGals, MaryBeth writes: This time of year can be so busy with planning for Advent and Christmas, for those who work in churches and we who live close to them. Today, I invite you to sit quietly…as Mary sits in this phot…and consider five things about Advent. They might be images, practices, hymns, anything you like. Just let the thoughts wash over you. Be peaceful with them. Be blessed with them.

My love for Advent is steeped in the family traditions of my youth. Annual outings, rituals, the inner warmth of our home protected from the growing darkness and cold of winter all gave a glow to the season.  Church rituals have been less meaningful for me, perhaps because I inherited practices already in place at churches I served, and where those communities didn't feel inclined to revisit those choices. (Let me say that there wasn't anything wrong with them, but shaping them to add meaning for me wasn't an option).

So, five things... 

1) Sharing. Whether it was the creation of the family Christmas card, writing the family letter, helping mom with her homemade goodies of toffee and spiced tea, or singing Christmas carols outside the homes of friends, we spent family time engaged in activities that connected us to other people. 

2) As an maturing Christian who shifted from Quaker to Episcopalian in my late twenties, Advent hymns became precious to me. I especially loved hearing them played from the carillon of the chapel at the college just up the hill from my first home.

3) The Advent calendar. I don't remember the practice of using a calendar being a spiritual one, but it nonetheless instilled an awareness that we were in a season of marking a journey, and waiting with anticipation. This annual ritual made it so much easier to live into the spiritual practice of waiting when my faith began to bloom.

4) Purple.

5) Decorations. My mother chose a seasonal theme each year as a way to focus the decorations of our home.  The ones that stand out in my memory are the Magi, Peace, Joy, music, and the Twelve Days of Christmas.  Except, perhaps, for the "12 days," these themes emphasized the spirit of the season, instilling in me an abiding appreciation in my bones for the depth and meaning of what I would come to know as the Incarnation.  Little did she know that she was planting seeds...

friday five: advent confidential

At RevGals MaryBeth invites us to Advent Confidential. What are your favorite traditions, observances, hymns, or memories of Advent? Is there something you remember from childhood that you’d like to do again? A funny story you can share about the time the Advent wreath got a little over-lit? We are here and listening!

Growing up we were awash in traditions, some of which were distinctly Advent. I have so many great memories of that time, which makes this a particularly meaningful season for me in very personal, nostalgic ways.  As Quakers we had no liturgical traditions, but the season was full of wonderful, anticipatory activity.

1) The Advent Calendar. Hung on the back of our front door was a felt version made by my mother. My brothers and I took turns emptying the appropriate pocket each night to decorate a felt tree with tiny ornaments, culminating with a star at the top of the tree on Christmas Eve. 

2) Family shopping night. I don't know how many years we actually did this, but I think of it as a tradition. We headed downtown to the department store where my parents would help each of us kids shop for certain presents. Dinner at a nearby restaurant and a walk around Hartford's Constitution Plaza to view the holiday festival of lights was a part of the deal. I remember snippets of this activity, but the fact that it stands out in my memory must mean that there was some deep joy with much greater impact than the cold of a winter night.

3) Christmas themes. Every year my mom chose a theme that was the focus of decorating the house (and sometimes for our family Christmas card).  Among the themes were the Three Kings, the twelve days of Christmas, Noel, and Peace. She saved cards we received from year to year that depicted these themes, and there was usually a banner filled with several of them that was displayed hung on a doorway.  It is a tradition that I have only recently thought about putting into action myself.

4) The Advent candle. At times, rather than a wreath we had a single pillar candle with 24 marks down one side. Each night at dinner the candle was lit and allowed to burn down to the appropriate date before it was extinguished.

5) Baking and delivery of the goods. My mom had two consistent holiday kitchen specialties: homemade toffee and spiced tea mix.  There were several family friends who were regular recipients of this kitchen largesse, and as a family we would bundle into the car and go to the homes of these friends, standing outside the door and announcing ourselves by breaking into song--a carol, of course. The front door light would come on and the door would open with wonder and joy, and we would spend some time with our friends as we delivered our gifts. It is another treasured family memory.

friday five: the seasonal string around my finger

At RevGals Kathryn writes: It's a busy season and our minds get caught up in lots of different things. We all know that especially during this time of year we have to be intentional about the things that are important or we can lose them. What are five things you try to be intentional about, whether it be for this season specifically or in general?

1) This year I am trying to be intentional about making a daily record of what this season means to me. I have a great childhood to thank for implanting in my being a love for Advent--long before I understood what Advent was about. We had family traditions that practically overflow the memory banks, and I love each and every one of them. As an adult without children of my own I haven't been able to continue those traditions n the same way, but I do carry them in my heart with deep affection, and now with grandchildren I can do a little something here and there to extend the joy.

2) During this season I try to think of special things to do for the people who have touched my life during the year. This year I have colleagues for the first time in a long time, and I am enjoying "plotting" little things to do to acknowledge that I am grateful for them.

3) I am a Pinterest junkie, and I am endeavoring to implement some of the great ideas that I have pinned on my various boards. I've actually pulled off a couple of them, one of which was the wreath I made for my daughter-in-law for her birthday. (see photo). I'll actually have a two week break from work at Christmas, and my plan is to use that time to implement even more of the great ideas that inspire me.

4) Regardless of season, I am making an effort to stop myself from saying things "bluntly," and taking the time to reframe what needs to be said in a way that doesn't come across as critical or negative. There are some people in my life that tend to provoke blunt reactions, so my goal is to improve those relationships by taking the edge off how I sometimes respond.

5) There have been some significant changes in my world this year, and I want to be intentional about communicating to the people who were/are part of the good things that have come about how much I value those good things.


Bonus: I am trying to live from a place of gratitude more often, and so far, that hasn't been hard. I'm praying that the discipline of being rooted in gratitude will have life-changing consequences.

a poem for advent

A poem that speaks to me again and again as a companion in the spiritual live was written by Minnie Louis Haskins, an English schoolteacher, and read by King George VI during a Christmas broadcast to the people of England and Britain in 1939. My favorite verses are the very first, but all of it speaks to the heartbeat of Advent.


God Knows
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.

the color purple

I'm a sucker for the liturgical year, and Advent is one of my favorites. It's a bit ironic that, growing up in a family whose faith tradition was distinctly not liturgical, we honored Advent. We had a wreath and candle on the dining room table that was lit with ritual. We had a large calendar that Mom made that hung on the back of the front door. At times we had individual advent calendars, and though they were pretty and glittery and held their own mystery, the one that I shared with my brothers was preferred. The house was also decorated according to a theme of the season and the season to come. The twelve days of Christmas featured partridges in pear trees, or any of the other assembly; the magi took their places on top of the piano, on the mantel, or elsewhere in the house; heralding angels carried their harps or trumpets; doves of peace from Christmas card fronts formed a line down the wall... We made our way through Advent with anticipation, permeated by the signs and symbols of what was to come.

As a priest I bear the responsibility of holding the Advent reins, and offering up the power that the season holds for us. I come to it anew this year, traveling with a congregation that seeks to do much while lacking the resources to do what it desires. On parallel tracks, we look to use what we have, trusting that God will bless the effort and multiply that blessing in the lives of others. I recognize, too, that when God is setting out to do a new thing we dig in our heels and resist the breath of the Spirit that carries change.  That Spirit-wind comes anyway, and rattles the foundations where we have planted our feet so firmly. Our world shakes and things fall down around us, leaving us disoriented and discomfited. That describes my world these days. I am guilty of railing against it rather than shifting my rhythm and being in the tumbled mess that surrounds me.

In fact, it's not a mess at all. What surrounds me has comforted me against the pinions of hardship and the disappointments of my own limitations. Having recognized that, I can now lift my eyes to the metaphoric cracks in my walls and the leak over my head. I can respond to God's invitation to be part of the repair and renewal, and in putting my world back together we can choose new patterns, new colors, and new rhythms to suit the world in which I now live. Doing so helps me breathe.

I like purple. Some shade of it seems to suit just now.

friday five: do nothing

At RevGals Sally writes:
I am reading a wonderful little book for Advent it's title: "Do nothing Christmas is Coming!"

So this weeks Friday Five is simple.

List Five things you won't be doing to prepare for Christmas.

1) For the first time in thirty years I won’t be sending a Christmas letter.

2) Because of financial hardship we won’t be buying many presents: just for the kids (two) and grandchildren (2).

3) I won’t be baking cookies.

4) I won’t be making snow angels (this assumes that we don’t get any snow, a 99% accurate assumption)

5) I won’t be drinking eggnog.

And while you are doing nothing play the bonus, put your feet up and listen to your favourite Advent Carol, and post it or a link to it...

Like many, I adore O come, O come Emmanuel, but I have a special fondness for Comfort, comfort ye my people. At the time of a spiritual renewal in my life that led to my baptism, I lived just blocks away from the carillon tower of the chapel at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. I could hear the bells easily, and this is one of the tunes that was played regularly that Advent. Hearing the music evokes that time in my life that was full of spiritual stirring and seeking, as well as other memories of that place and time. It will forever be special to me.



Simple!