Advent: Waiting for Light

The Christmas season has been underway for a while. I’ve heard “Let It Snow” at least four times, and it’s not December yet. The decorations were out at our local Wal-Mart eight weeks ago.

This week the liturgical season of Advent begins. Advent is commonly seen as the “getting-ready-for-Christmas” season, but the reality is much more significant.

Advent is a good and appropriate and soul-nurturing season, because its focus is on quiet waiting. In the midst of ever-louder, ever-more-expensive, ever-more-hectic secular Christmas preparations, some intentional quiet and reflection can be mightily refreshing.

I hope some quiet can find all of us in this season.

Attachment to Accumulation

When I see the all the items in the weekly ad for an electronics store here, one word comes to mind: “landfill.”

Most of the items in the ad will wind up there in three or four years. Or, worse, they will wind up in the back of a closet not to be seen again.

My favorite of all the makeover shows of the last few years is "Clean Sweep," now sometimes seen in reruns on TLC. The premise of the show is incredibly simple--move everything from two rooms of someone’s home onto their front lawn and then sell or throw away half of it. Then move what’s left back into newly organized and decorated rooms.

The show is often a disturbingly vivid revelation of people’s emotional attachment to things--usually things at the bottom of boxes in the back of closets that haven’t been seen in years.

The show’s organizational expert was always very clear in acknowledging that all of us get attached to certain things, and that can be fun and life-enhancing. He would say that if a certain picture or gift is truly meaningful to us, we should recognize and honor it.

On the other hand, he would say that if something is important to us, it shouldn’t be buried in a closet--effectively lost. If something is buried in a closet, it is likely because it is not important to us. We just haven’t thought about it.

We all have lots of things in our lives that we don’t want, but we think are too good to throw away or give away, so we put them away. Often it’s stuff we have inherited or been given, and we think that we can’t get rid of it without offending the person who gave it to us--even if the person is dead.

Guilt is a powerful motivator for doing nothing.

The Season of Gratitude

Thanksgiving is the day many (most?) of us will reflect on what we are grateful for. Often people have told me that this is their favorite holiday of the year, because it is simple. We just gather for a meal, and give thanks.

Because most every other day of the year is focused on what we want that we don't have, it is a blessed relief to have one official day focused on the abundance and goodness in our lives. Even if some of us live very modestly in America, we are very, very wealthy by the standards of the world.

I’m not sure one day of gratitude is enough. In the last church I served, I took liberty with the liturgical calendar and declared the month of November the Season of Gratitude. We have plenty to be thankful for. Don’t get me started.

The Christian theologian Karl Barth called gratitude the best expression of God’s grace on earth. Whether you believe in God or not, this is a wonderful statement, because grace means that your life has meaning whether or not you think it does. And that itself is something to be grateful for.

As a logical concept, grace is very hard to pin down, and so is gratitude. Both of them are really about the great gifts we have been given, which are way beyond any “deserving,” and therefore also beyond any understanding. Thus gratitude is the best reaction to grace, and its best expression.

Reconsidering the Seven Deadly Sins?

Please — let's replace Pride

with Modesty, especially when it's false.



And thank goodness for Lust, without it
I wouldn't be here. Would you?

Envy, Greed — why not? If they lead us
to better ourselves, to Ambition.



And Gluttony, like a healthy belch,
is a guest's best response to being served a good meal.

I'll take Sloth over those busybodies
who can't sit still, watch a sunset
without yammering, or snapping a picture.
Now that makes me Wrathful.

--Peter Pereira from “What's Written on the Body.” © Copper Canyon Press, 2007. Reprinted with permission. 


The Good Guys and the Bad Guys

Quote of the day:

“Cogito ergo sum.” (“I think, therefore I am.”)

--Rene Descartes



Untrue truism of the day:

“East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet.”

--Rudyard Kipling

We often set up part of our lives as war. We identify an enemy and proceed to do battle.

Our main combat strategy is based on separation. We identify, categorize and separate ourselves from anything foreign--within or outside of ourselves.



Separation can take many forms. One of the easiest is to identify the foreign characteristic in another individual or institution and then either do battle with them or wall ourselves off from them.



We are constantly separating, as in:
the good guys from the bad guys,

stainless-steel appliances from white appliances,
time alone from time with people,
darkness from light,

BMW drivers from Ford pickup drivers,

evil from good,

work from fun, 

religion from science, 

sound from silence, 

heart from mind,

thought from feeling,

men from women,

serious from funny,

Americans from terrorists,

rich from poor,

gay from straight,

cool from uncool,

the country from the city,
the good old days from today.


We separate, categorize, and do battle. Are our thoughts distinct from our being, as most Descartes interpretations would conclude? Are there really two separate “beings” in each of us? Are they at war? Should they be?

This is very hard to talk about because conflict is around us everywhere. Sometimes it’s obvious, other times it’s not. Consider the kinds of battles we hear about in the news each day. Honest hard-working citizen versus indifferent big government. America versus terrorists. Gang versus gang. Celebrity husband versus celebrity wife.

Conflict is central to most great literature and art. And it’s what makes news interesting. Often the conflict is very simply drawn, as in the good guys versus the bad guys. Think 95% of classic western movies. Think Star Wars.

We seem to prefer hats to be clearly black or white. Yet our experience tells us that life is not a black-and-white enterprise. It happens in shades of living color.

Can we handle that, or do we have to continue separating, categorizing, and battling? Is it helpful to wall ourselves off from parts of ourselves? Is it helpful to see less-than-perfect parts of ourselves in others and fight with them?