Advent

Photo by Anthony Delanoix on Unsplash

December 08, 2023

December sets up an impossible conflict for me. Is it just me? There’s a cascading series of expectations and demands for observing the holiday season that seem to wield enormous power, never mind that the demands exist entirely in my mind and the power is mine to grant, or not.

Also, the demands are far fewer and lighter now than they were when I had two children at home.

Still, whatever I choose to actually do about those expectations and demands, I can’t quite ignore them. They remain, like manic elves in my head, bugging me to deal with them. I’m spinning around from one to another, continually deciding what to do and how to do it, evaluating and adjusting my choices to bring them more in line with reality.

And there’s all the self-judgment: I’ve never been able to achieve the sparkle and magic that advertisers tell me I should produce — easily! while getting enough sleep and self-care and enjoying the season!

Yesterday I finished setting up for Advent, which began last Sunday. I’m late, but changing my house from ordinary time to Advent by the end of the first week is pretty good, given how late I do it most years.

The change isn’t big or complicated. I switch out the burnt orange mantel cloth for a purple one. On the dining room table I place an Advent wreath of fake evergreen boughs that I made at least twenty years ago. The mantel already has a string of white lights because we leave them up year-round. Yesterday we added the menorah with the first candle plus the shamash, the “helper” used to light the eight candles of Hanukkah.

My husband is the Jewish one, but I would say that we both grew up confused. He was raised with an Orthodox grandfather and a Christmas tree with presents every year. I was given the dual stories of Santa Claus and the baby Jesus and the clear understanding the one was a fun fantasy and the other a serious history.

In the annual cycle that some Christian churches observe, Advent begins the new year four weeks before Christmas, a time devoted to preparing for the arrival of God as a human newborn. The preparation is spiritual, a slowing down and leaning in to the growing darkness of winter’s approach, nurturing the hope of some kind of rebirth.

I’ve always aspired to this spiritual practice, swimming against the cultural tide, in the same way that I aspire to a practice of Shabbat, a weekly day of rest. However, I’m not a strong swimmer on my own, literally or figuratively. Just as I’m much more likely to do any physical exercise with a group, I need community support and camaraderie for tough spiritual exercises.

I’ve been a member of many different Christian communities, and most of them observe the liturgical year. If our real lives went according to the Christian calendar, we’d be partying from December 25th to January 6th. However, in all the communities I’ve experienced, there’s a little bit of Advent riding comfortably alongside the Christmas trees, shopping, carol singing, cookie baking, and parties throughout the month before Christmas.

This kind of both/and thinking, which comes naturally to my Christian friends, is much harder for me. Among the nine Enneagram personality types, I’m a One, which means I tend toward a perspective that there is only one right way to do most anything. (Mahatma Ghandi and Osama bin Laden were Ones.) But as I continue my spiritual work to become healthier and more serene, I can hold two opposing views at the same time (sometimes). Then I remember that what seems right for me isn’t right for everyone, and that knowledge sets me free to value my relationships with all their needs for messy collaboration and compromise.

I’m free also to explore paths of spiritual growth beyond the mostly 20th-century, Western Christian traditions that still dominate, while continuing in relationship with my loving and supportive Christian community.

In her reflection for Advent, Week Two, Sarah Bessey says, By the time you get to the middle of your life, you have logged a few dozen spiritual awakenings and at least half that many versions of yourself.

I just finished a course titled The Great Midlife Declutter, which I heard about from my friend Stephanie Kazdan. In this four-part series I was challenged to imagine the person I want to be in December 2024, the better to see the things I need to change in my present life. By the end of the course, I committed to creating a vision board, with a due date of the Winter Solstice.

I know nothing about vision boards and I’m not a visual thinker, so I don’t expect this to be easy. However, to zoom out and take in the view of who I am and might become, breaking from my usual focus on what I must do (another Enneagram One tendency) is the path that seems to be emerging from the fog, inviting me into my next spiritual awakening.