SLOW WALKING ADVENT

I’ve been joking recently about how early Christmas seems to have arrived this year….I literally saw Christmas decorations side by side with early Halloween items in Denver, Boulder and here in our valley!  The Hallmark Channel began an early cinematic march towards Nativity, the Countdown to Christmas, because after all, “Christmas can’t come early enough this year.”  Even Sirius/XM radio debuted their Holly Christmas music station earlier this year.

My accountability partner schools me in what he calls the gift of the present moment.  The profound discipline of fully, recklessly inhabiting right now while releasing what has been and what may be.  As a professional student of the past and a erstwhile tourist of the future, I’ve always mimicked Janus, the Roman deity with two heads to look both ahead and behind. The present moment, not so much.  But it precisely here and now which is so rich with possibility and insight!!  I am who I am now, and will never be this exact same personage again.  Our Christian forebears exhibited shocking wisdom in placing this preparatory season before Christmastide, not to mention patience.  How do I best inhabit this present Advent moment?

For me this year, by slow-walking life.  No high gear this Advent!  I am setting up the inevitable Christmas decorations, but much more slowly and deliberately throughout Advent.  I’m cleaning out much accumulated stuff I no longer need, but not in my usual spasmodic frenzy.  No, I am taking daily time to pause, reflect, read, study and just think.  To keep less appointments and enjoy a much higher quality of interpersonal communication with all of you when we do visit.  To be open to the Holy Spirit desperately seeking to break into my frenetic world to draw me ever closer to God’s magnificent heart.  No breathless, panting Advent schedules for me.  I pray God never again!  How are you entering into Advent?