Keep Watch! ~ Advent Musings

Our dogs do a lot of watching. They like to stand sentinel over the forest floor from their deck perch. I suppose they may be scanning for predators or watching for family members to come home. I think that they are mostly just looking, hoping, for "happenings."  They don't want to miss anything.  They want to be alert.

Here we are, approaching the fourth week of Advent. We are watching too.  We are awaiting the birth of a Savior, alert for His return at the second coming, longing for Him to be born anew in our hearts and fill us with His love. 

We are watching, waiting for these things, but, what will they look like? The second coming is a happening unto itself, and certainly no man knows the hour. But the birth of a Savior, in the manger, in our hearts…could we miss it, if we are not watchful? Could we ignore the gentle tug of the Spirit on our heart-souls? Could we miss the stirrings of faith, caught up in the mixing of dough and the polishing of wood in preparation for what has already escaped our hopeful perceptions?

Are we watching while we wait?

A Savior is coming.

Pax Christi dear ones,

Keep Watch!

There's a Bobcat in the Dark

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There is a bobcat in our neighborhood.  She’s a brazen one.  She devoured a wild rabbit right in front of our neighbor -- unapologetically and without fear.  This is not good news for our three little dogs.

We’ve been making supervised “deck visits”, so that they can “take care of things” without any risk of being kitty chow.  I stood out there tonight in the cold and dark, waiting.  The stars are bright tonight – a million strong, studding a pitch sky.  I glanced out into the forest and had memories of tales of Hansel and Gretel and big bad wolves.  Funny, I’m very much at home in the forest.  These things usually don’t concern me.  We’ve plenty of bears, but they generally keep their distance.  When they do make their way onto a deck, it is generally for bird seed or a bowl of dog food.  It’s not so much our dogs that a bear is interested in eating – but, a bobcat, well, that is different.  A bobcat, especially one as large as this one, can hop over the deck rail from the forest floor below, grab a four-legged family member, and be gone in a flash.  I find myself staring out into the dark, alert to movement among the pines, and waiting for light to come.

The other day, someone mentioned to me that she really cannot get “into” Advent.  “I don’t really understand the expectation that all of you feel for something that has already happened.  The whole church year, re-living things that have happened in the past; I don’t understand it.”

It’s a reasonable question, I suppose.

I’ve been thinking about it – what she said -- ever since.  

Tonight, as I stood on the deck with our tiny dogs, alert for bobcats and more aware of the dark forest than usual, I realized something:  Advent isn’t really about the light, it’s about the darkness.  Christmas is about the coming of the light; Advent is about remembering the terrifying dark that necessitated the light’s coming.  We need that; we need to remember.

It’s awfully easy to get cozy with our salvation. Maybe you don’t, but I sometimes forget what things would be like without it.  I sometimes forget the price at which it was purchased, too.  Advent is about remembering.  It is about reliving the anticipation, the fear, the hope – that would have been.  It is about knowing the fear of bobcats in the night when familiar pines are shrouded in pitch and there are loved ones to hope safety for.  It’s about knowing the light will come,  and appreciating the value of a Babe in a manger and knowing He’s more than a cute platitude when he arrives.  It is about grasping in desperate joy for a Savior when God becomes man so that man might live, because we have seen dark and tasted fear and know the light is priceless.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel.  We need you now, more than ever.

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So Many Wicks and Flames...

My daughter has lighted a lot of Advent candles. When she was very young, I learned of the tradition that the youngest child lights the Advent candles. This made sense to me. By that point, our six long years of infertility had passed, and we had been blessed with pregnancy.  We could plan for each child to have his or her turn at the wreath, as the years went by, regardless of how many we were able to have. Of course, things never quite work out as planned, and the other six (or more) never arrived. We were blessed with one, despite our plans to the contrary, and that is enough. Our hearts are full.

That leaves her holding the candle lighter though...every night, of every Advent -- all the way until this, her nineteenth year.

This year, I handed the lighter to Dad. The kid deserves a break.

This got me to thinking about plans and traditions. I have an 18 year old. It's impossible to predict how many more Advent wreath lightings she'll be in our home for. The thought brings tears...

Tears of sorrow...
   Tears of loss...
      Tears of growth...
         Tears of joy...
            Tears of hope and anticipation...

Some day, she may be guiding a little hand wrapped inside of hers, lighting purple candles studding evergreen, and that is good. That is how it is supposed to be. That is why we light Advent candles in the first place -- because new things are coming. Births are expected. We look forward to culminations which will surely come.

As flames flicker atop crisp cotton, we'll be carried away on gentle winds of change to find ourselves in new places -- places we did not expect -- to find that we have arrived exactly where we had been headed all along. Candle lighters will spark and wicks will catch, in an unbroken chain of love and hope until we all return home -- our true home, where we all belong.

And our hearts will be full.

O Come O Come Emmanuel --and we, repeatedly caught unawares and full of untamed joy, -- we will adjust, and rejoice, and be glad for it.

God bless your Advent season.
Pax Christi dear ones,
~Michelle

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Second Sunday in Advent 2012 - In Pictures

O Come O Come Emmanuel...Come into our past, present, and future.

As we read the Scripture for Isaac and Rebecca tonight...how Sarah laughed at the impossibility of the possible, of having a baby at her age...I couldn't help but think of our own miracle baby.  The baby who wan't supposed to be, but became our everything.

Tonight's ornaments (We're behind!):
Noah (ark or rainbow) Genesis 6:11-22, 8:6-12
Abraham and Sarah (tent) Genesis 12:1-7, 13:2-18  Isaac and Rebecca (ram or lamb or silver pitcher or bundle of wood or altar) Genesis 22:1-14 

Our tree is filling up with lovely handmade ornaments from the Jesse Tree Ornament Swap. We are being blessed by tracing the lineage of the Savior and with it,  the story of mankind and our God.

Papa spent a good part of the afternoon convincing the jays that they really do want to eat peanuts right out of his hand.

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen. 
~Book of Common Prayer (PD)

P.S.: We're still thinking of hosting a Jesse Tree Ornament swap next year.  Elyse will need a set of her own one day, so we're planning ahead!  If anyone would like to be put on a list to be contacted when we organize a 2013 ornament swap, leave a comment!

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On Empty Mangers: The Progressive Nativity

 Eusebius (Guillaume Piolle). (Own work)
 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or
CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)],
 via Wikimedia Commons

My family can attest to the fact that I can get quite cranky about the placing of babies in mangers before they've been born. I mean, I get it: We all have the image of a complete nativity scene burnt in our consciousnesses. Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, shepherds, wise men, angel, animals...they were all there at once right?  They all belong in the standard Christmas scene, preferably prominently displayed upon the mantle the day after Thanksgiving.

Right?

Well...no.  Call me a liturgy Nazi, (you won't be the first), but today is December 7 and we are in Advent, not Christmas.  We will have twelve full days of Christmas, but this isn't one of them.  The thing is, this season is all about anticipating and preparing for his birth (and his coming into our hearts and his second coming...but that is different post).  In our liturgical drama, he hasn't been born yet.  We are preparing ourselves for his arrival(s).

So it really doesn't make much sense for him to be tucked, however lovingly, into the manger right now, does it?

I won't come into your home and steal your Baby Jesus away (really, I promise)...but might I impose upon you to consider tucking him away in a special place until Christmas Eve?  Might I encourage you to take some time to long for his presence? To build some anticipation? To seek after him and learn what it is to be watchful?

The progressive nativity, in which the scene gradually unfolds and changes over time to fit our present place in the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany drama, is gaining in popularity these days.  I think this is a good thing, and is a sign that traditional church year observance is gaining in appreciation.

 Eusebius (Guillaume Piolle). (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Right now, Mary is the only figure in our creche.  (Well, actually, I lied.  there is a donkey out.)  Next to her burns a small votive candle, "Mary's candle."  Jesus is present with us in Advent, but not yet in the flesh.  Mary is carrying Our Lord under her blessed heart.  We are looking forward to his birth.  We cannot hardly wait.  What a gift he is; what a priceless gift.  When he arrives, the Baby Jesus figure will be placed in our creche and there will be no more need for the votive. Jesus, the light of the world, will be in our midst.

God bless the makers of creches with removable babies.  Seriously, I love that. I would bake them all Christmas cookies if I could.  (Assuming that they are not all Chinese Buddhists or something...well, maybe even then.  Who says Buddhists don't like Christmas cookies?  But, I'm getting off track here.)

As time goes on, additional figures will be added to our nativity scene.  The shepherds will appear on a distant table across the room.  After the birth of our Lord, they will arrive at his cradle.  The Magi aren't even in the picture yet.

We do have a large "static" nativity that is all one piece.  There is no removing the Baby from that one, so I wrap him up in gold paper like the gift that he is.  He gets unwrapped on Christmas Eve.  Okay, I'm more than a little nutty, but you already knew that.

It's pretty difficult to live Advent in our modern culture.  It just isn't done by many people.  The little things, though, we have control over. There are little things that we can do to allow the story to gradually unfold.

Just a thought, from the liturgy Nazi.

Smiles,
~Michelle

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The Dark Stretches Long....Advent

As Winter settles and days lie darker and cold seeps in -- we wait.  It's fretful waiting. We believe the light will return, but it's still hard to trust.  There's something ominous about the dark.  Nerve set deep in pride crumbles in darkness. Noises in the distance spark alert and we don't know what hovers around us.

We feel alone.


But they tell tales. They tell that the light will dawn. They say that the light returns long and the chills will dissipate and there will be comfort and hope.

And so we choose to believe.

We prepare room -- in our hearts and in our homes. We light candles to tell silently the story of coming light.  We examine the dark corners in spite of fear of what lurks there. We sweep them clean and even enter the distant rooms where the sounds threaten. We clean them too, unafraid. Sin and dirt and clutter swept away and we trust the light will shine in those heart and home places and purify them with cleansing warmth and the promised Spring will come.

We plump pillows and bake cookies and lay runners on the mantle.  A guest is coming; we prepare him room. We speak sins and show kindness and grant grace and forgiveness.  We stand the tree of sticks and hang symbols upon it and tell each other the ancient stories of the promises of the coming of the light. All the while we huddle together when night falls in the black of winter and trust that light will pierce the darkness and we'll be saved from late hours spent stepping gingerly through room of black night.

As we draw closer to the promise time, a star appears shot through darkness and then we know. We know we were right to trust in a Savior from the darkness. We gather round the crib waiting, trusting. Peace descends. We have hope. Hope will take flesh.

...and that is Advent.

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First Monday in Advent 2012 - In Pictures

Our ornaments from the swap came today!

We waited until devotions for "the unboxing."

Every ornament is special.  What a tremendous amount of the time and prayer went in to this project from all corners of the US, and from Canada too!

We're a tad bit behind, so we did three ornaments tonight:

Jesse Tree or Stump 1 Samuel 16:1-13

Adam (sun or earth) Genesis 1:24-28

Eve (Apple and Snake) Genesis 3: 1-24

And so begins the story of our redemption and hope in Christ Jesus!

~~~~~

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Collect, Advent 1, BCP- PD US)

(By the way, this Jesse Tree ornament swap has been such a blessing!  We are so grateful for the time and effort that everyone put in, especially Jessica, who hosted...that I am considering "paying it forward" by hosting a swap of my own next year.  If you think you may be interested in participating, leave a comment so I can put you on a list as a "first contact" if I end up doing that.)

Blessed Advent!
~Michelle

First Sunday in Advent 2012 was here.

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