Dear Friends,
I’m writing you from that narrow place between Thanksgiving and Advent I. Which is to say that, if you’re a formation leader, this is a tough year. There’s just not a lot of time to get organized. Sure, it’s nice to have a minute between Advent IV and Christmas, but this week has worn me down. Or, maybe that was just how many pies I put on our menu for two. Could also be that.
The good news is, getting started with the Advent story is easy enough in a Godly Play setting - and definitely easier for me this year than last, since last year I had to make my materials by hand. I may not have an actual wreath (because my cats will eat it), or a great setup in general, but I have the story and all the words I need.
As I mentioned, I also have pie.
But looking at Advent I, well, it may just be the candle we need most this year - Hope. The Hope candle is also known as the Prophecy candle. It is the candle that reminds us to look for promises fulfilled. Because Jesus is that fulfillment, but right yet, we’re still waiting. You can hear the beginning of that story in this video:
And, of course, we’re waiting for more than just Jesus. That first coming, that Christmas miracle, feels more certain this year than our ability to leave the house safely in the coming months. We are trapped in the place of no hope, but we don’t have to simply let it be that way. One of the wonderful things about being human - not even about being Christian - is that we have the ability to change our mindset.
Last week, I wrote to you about gratitude, but gratitude isn’t a powerful spiritual practice or something we’re called to. It can actually change our brains, as described in this episode of Hidden Brain. And, when we are engaged in the world, when we aren’t just passively moving through it, gratitude is a natural response. You don’t have to feel it all the time, but it’s actually good for you. For a child-friendly frame of presence, I recommend “The World is Awake” by Linsey Davis (even though the world is always awake, and we need to be the ones who awaken to it. Kids are way better at this than adults, though.)
I hope you are finding ways to cultivate hope in your home this Advent. Play the music of the season, make an Advent wreath, whether it’s a real one with live greens, candles on a plate, or a coloring project. Make one out of toilet paper tubes or construction paper and hand prints. Be present together in this time of preparation.
This time of year, I’m also thinking of a few other important things. Even if you live in a more heavily Christian area, there are surely some mixed faith families in your neighborhood and even in your congregation. I grew up in NYC, so in my childhood, it was a lot families. This is an important time to tune in to how our messaging around Christmas informs our broader relationships. And what it means to raise children in mixed-faith families. Sometimes, it means loss because as a culture, we don’t do well with contradictions. Some generations ago, my great-grandfather gave up in faith tradition to marry outside it, converting from Judaism upon marrying his Catholic wife. In a season where we talk a lot about tradition, ask what that means for your neighbor. Stina Kielsmeier-Cook’s “Blessed Are the Nones” may be a place to start.
Another resource I commend to you, especially for this first Sunday of Hope and Prophecy, is this collection of Womanist Advent Devotions. We speak of Jesus as having come to set the captive free (and don’t get me started on that line when the traveling, regional Christian youth bands I grew up on in the ELCA were called Captive Free), what does it mean to live with the continued legacy of bondage through slavery and the prison-industrial complex and institutionalized racism? What does it mean that we often talk about sin as darkness, that Advent is this time of bringing light to the day, eliding all of the positive attributes of the dark and reinforcing particular ingrained notions around light and dark? How else can we talk about it? And how can we simply honor the dark?
And one last one for now, while we’re speaking of darkness. I love Gayle Boss’s “All Creation Waits,” an Advent devotional about how various animals from the northern hemisphere have adapted to cold and dark. As the text reminds us, “The dark is not an end but the way a new beginning comes.” Let’s be open to that in these short days.
In Hope & With Pie,
A. Bird