Christmas Cheer and Cups of Cosy

 

By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into a way of peace.

-Luke 1.78-79

Recipe for adding Christmas cheer:

- Ring the bell for Salvation Army 

- Advent Tea Calendar - a different tea to make every night. Cosiness in a cup

- Pressed Books and Coffee Christmas decor and book shopping

- Soft twinkle lights and candles to light to darkness of every evening

- Time with family and friends with gifts and good food

Directions:

- Add all ingredients to the daily agenda or the calendar (sprinkle love onto each one and enjoy the moments in your heart) and allow for reflection time on the great gift given by the tender mercy of God.

- May your heart be full, may your life be never the same when Christ comes to enter in.

Christmas is Near

What's this feeling like a pop of cheer?
Truly it is because Christmas is near.
More of Christ and less of us
Can we somehow let go of fuss?
To dive into love, the truest love of all
Separate from noise to hear love's call
A gift we have before us, unlike any gift
Something we scarce imagine; if we sift
Our minds and hearts, we find a need within
the deep place - a longing like something akin
To the mystical between worlds desire
We often fill with worldly mud and mire
Instead of looking up from said mud to see
The glorious present of Love, come down to you and me. 

Prepare - Wait - Trust - Faith

 

To prepare is to harness that usually unlikeable practice of waiting, for you don’t need to prepare for something already here. Preparing leaves in its essence the unknown. To prepare is to be in the darkness before the light is switched on. Preparing is filling your oil lamps and keeping them filled. To prepare for a future hope is to trust. You may not know when or how exactly it will happen, but you trust that which you are preparing for will come. Trusting leads to faith-faith in what you may not be able to see.

We have but faith: we cannot know;

For knowledge is of things we see

And yet we trust it comes from thee,

A beam in darkness: let it grow.

(Alfred Lord Tennyson)

Advent is a season of waiting. The Latin “veni” in Advent speaks of ‘coming’, which invokes an invitation to prepare and then wait in an eager expectation of the coming. For Advent, imagine yourself in the unknown pre-Christ’s birth time of history when the people of the world were in a darkness because the Ancient of Days was coming, but had not yet come. They could not see. That which was ‘yet-to-come’ was left to images and metaphors, the only way was to imagine in ways humans can. The O Antiphons are prayers/poems that lead us up to Christmas, each one describing Christ from ancient days without ever naming Him. They call Him by other names in their expectations and understanding of Him being all these things. These are poems  of anticipation, of waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. They are prayers of hope and longing at the same time. The names of each one:

-Sapientia (wisdom)

-Adonai (Lord)

-Radix Jesse (root of Jesse)

-Clavis David (key of David)

-Oriens (dayspring)

-Rex Gentium (king of nations)

-O Emmanuel (God with us)

In the spirit of preparing I read poems. Poems that cause me to pause. Words that squeeze so much meaning into very few lines. Poems that encourage imaginatively living before Christ’s birth to better understand the Advent hope. The Advent miracle of Love-the freely given Love that came down to meet us where we are. Poems allow a hidden divine presence to dance in light between the words and carefully coined phrases.

Poems invite us to dive into their words and images, in anticipation of what is to come–

If thy first glance so powerful be,

A mirth but open’d and seal’d up again;

What wonders shall we feel, when we shall see

Thy full-ey’d love!

When thou shalt look us out of pain,

And one aspect of thine spend in delight

More than a thousand suns disburse in light,

In heaven above.

(George Herbert)

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness-on them light has shined. (Isaiah 9:2)

Lord, You are our Lord, You are wisdom, the root, the key, the day spring, the king of all nations, and You are with us. May we seek You in all our preparation and through any darkness that surrounds us. May we pause with poetic words that draw us closer to You. To seek You always, in all things. Amen. (Written for my church's Advent Devo this year)

Slowing Down in Advent

Isaiah 40:3

The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

“Prepare the way of the Lord;

Make straight in the desert

A highway for our God.

It may seem counter-cultural. It sure is. It may sound challenging. Yep. That's right. You'll say, well that's not possible, my schedule is too full. I have too much going on. I don't have time. Especially this time of year when the calendar is jam-packed. Who has time to slow down to be mindful, meditative, and prayerful? 

Why do we resist slowing down so much? Is it our culture? Is it us? What are we afraid of? Missing out?

I think about this in the context of our culture and the idea of always having to keep up with everything. No matter what it is - trends, fads, music, business, slang, events. There is a sense of needing to check social media for the latest trend to latch onto, as if it is going to fill some hole in our lives, which by the way you didn't know existed until the trending video told you. 

It's not that there is anything wrong in these things in themselves, until and unless they become the thing you idolize. And we all idolize something. If it's not God, then it's something of this world. A person, a trend, any other thing, anything can become an idol. It is so easy to let something other than God fall into your number one place of idolizing.

Advent is all about preparing. Why do we need to prepare? Because our hearts so easily gravitate toward selfish desires rather than opening to the heart of God and letting go of our desires. We need the reminder to draw back closer to Him and let go of those things that keep us "needing" the things we idolize, being chained to them. 

Advent comes once per year, and we most definitely need the reminder to re-tune our hearts. But we can casually shrug it off and keep on going business as usual indulging in the cheerfulness of secular Christmas, or we can pause and take this time to draw closer to God and see how it changes our lives. This could be through many different avenues that cause us to go deeper such as (these are all reminders to myself and things I will be focusing on):

- Prayer time: Set aside 10 minutes (or an hour if you have it) to be in a prayerful posture. Sit with the Lord. You don't have to have words. A simple line to prayerfully repeat is all that's needed, such as "Lord, You are the true Light, prepare my heart for You."

- Advent readings and devotionals: there are so many to choose from, books, videos, downloads. They are usually short and offer insightful reflective prompts to set the tone for the day. 

You can read my church's Advent Devotional online HERE. Contributions are by pastors and laity of the church, and you may catch my own small contribution. 

- Decorate and feast with meaning: practice for the coming joy. Hold the mindset of everything being in celebration of Christ. His coming, His love, the gift of Him is why we give gifts. The feasts we have are in preparation for the banquets He prepares for us. The comforts of home can remind us of the dwelling He has for us in His Kingdom, which is here, begun already. We can see glimpses of that by curating such beautiful reminders in our days.

- Quiet times for reflection: funny enough my quiet times usually revolve around a cup of coffee or tea. Why is that? Making a delicious hot drink causes me to slow down and stay somewhere with it. It offers the perfect time to sit and be reflective. That can be alone or with a loved one. It can be journaling or some Bible reading and refection alone or with the other person.

Happy Advent  - may this season bring the light and love of Christ into your heart.