Dear Friends,

“You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.”

Happy (almost) new liturgical year! Let us go to the house of the Lord together –

As I sit here on this border between the remaining days of Ordinary Time and the first day of Advent, I am thinking about what we make of new beginnings.

I interviewed for my current job on the first Sunday of Advent 2022, visiting for the Advent Tree Lighting that I’m not about to finish my third year coordinating (I still need to order pizza and then, y’know, actually make the trains run on time come Sunday). My wife was a brand new vet student and my life - our collective life – imploded on a random November weekday. I was figuring out how to hang a shingle as a small business owner.

It was not the new beginning I wanted at the time, but it turned out to be an excellent one. All for the best and those things people say that aren’t always satisfying. Or maybe the Holy Spirit at work. People don’t tend to say that quite as much about suffering, but rather just about beautiful confluences.

It just so happened that my new beginning fell in a season of them, but our culture gives us an array of new beginning markers. Yes, our liturgical new year is the one the church has given us, but it runs us straight into the standard calendar new year. There are lunar new years, people who see their birthdays as starting or changing points, and of course the starts of school years and semesters. Pick your own fresh start. Pick more than one – but begin.

The Coming of the Light

The coming of the light in the form of Jesus Christ is a kind of beginning, a call to awake – but what shape will that take for you?

I am particularly fond of the notion of this season as one for becoming awake – alert, aware – because in Godly Play we talk about Advent as a time for slowing down and paying attention. We are summoned into presence to the mystery that is about to happen. So, what will you pay attention to?

I flopped a bit at #LiturgyOfTheLittleThings – a practice of noticing - but more on the posting and naming than on the noticing. My phone is full of photographs, the constant company of my cats, a space I carefully set up for children at our diocesan convention, materials prepped for formation programs, more cats….

I didn’t stop noticing, but the habit of acknowledging the noticing didn’t build. That’s okay. It’s okay to begin again. To try something else.

Maybe this is the season when, even if you don’t have an advent wreath, you light a candle each day. Maybe you learn a simple prayer and say it day after day. Maybe you practice calligraphy strokes, building towards making something beautiful, maybe it is holding your cup of coffee in your hands while it’s radiating warmth and feeling grateful for it.

And maybe you forget a day. Maybe the traffic home from hockey delays dinner and disrupts bedtime. Maybe there’s a birthday party to plan or attend. So you begin again.

Of course, the end comes eventually – this week’s scripture tells us that. “[I]f the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

Consider that exhortation a reminder that we not only can begin again, but that we must. For what if that coming happens in the gap? We can reassure ourselves that we have time to begin again, but we cannot lean into the pause. We must be swift – like the Henri-Frederic Amiel benediction: Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who make the journey with us. So… be swift to love, and make haste to be kind.

Find your place to begin. But not only that. If you have children, ask them what they would like to begin doing this Advent. Maybe it is something just for this season or maybe it is a longer practice. (Traci Smith’s Faithful Families for Advent and Christmas is full of ideas, but they may tell you about something from church school, something you did last Advent that stuck with them, or something they heard or read about and want to try.)

In the Advent workshop I offered the last two years with the Rev. Rosemary Beales, a participant described how a parishioner at her church had made everyone small crochet or knit purple pieces of material that they could carry around. It was small, fit in a pocket, didn’t “do” anything – except remind the carrier that it was Advent, anchoring them in the season, and in community. Maybe that is the sort of reminder you need. My rector will change his watch strap to match the liturgical color. I might check to see if I have a purple or blue cross to swap out for the green stone one I wear (some 15-20 years ago, I bought a collection of stone cross pendants of various colors, many of which are still around).

Eat the oranges for the feast of St. Nicholas. Make the saffron buns (or eat gingerbread cookies) for Santa Lucia. Look to the coming of the light. Pray about light. Sing about it.

You might sing Arise, Shine for this season of light… maybe even as you begin your day, perhaps waking children up. It’s an appropriate tune to the task.

Arise, shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you.

Resource Round-Up

• The Diocese of West Texas is doing an Advent podcast around stories of migration and movement. It’s bilingual and set up for reflection and discussion in groups. Episodes 1 and 2 are up now so you can begin getting ready. They’ll also be hosting live discussions on December 11 and January 8.

• Who is God? What a question! And it’s one you can explore through GraceSpace, the course platform associated with the Center for Children & Theology. It’s a free, self-directed program that focuses on how children talk and think about God and how adults can best participate in those conversations.

• Jodi Belcher from Building Faith has a great review up of Amy Lindeman Allen’s book “The Gifts They Bring,” focusing on its takeaways for empowering and including children and youth in ministry.

• I’m excited about the new Valerie Ellis book, Wild Faith: 52 Amazing Animals That Point to One Great God. This is precisely the sort of devotional that feels designed for actual children as opposed to what adults want for children.

• This Atlantic article from back in January is so important for all communities because we have some really troublesome cultural narratives around and ways of talking about children. We can’t casually allow people to say that they “don’t like kids” without recognizing that children are an entire disenfranchised class that we all belonged to at one point. They’re people, not turkey sandwiches. It’s one thing not to be called to parent or to work with kids, but we all do have to be in community with them in one way or another.

For my mostly-US-based readers, may you be blessed with plenty this Thanksgiving, and may you share that plenty, giving thanks for those who brought it forth to your table at every step of the way. And may your Advent be the right kind of new beginning for your life and your community.

Peace,
Bird