Advent Approaches
Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash
December 13, 2024
Recently I noticed, with some surprise, that this Substack is a year old. I didn’t celebrate the milestone at the time, as I had other things to write about; but now, looking for a good topic on the way to the winter holidays, I revisited what was catching my attention a year ago. This is the start of my general review of 2024 and the goals and intentions I set, to discover what has changed for me and what remains.
As I look forward to 2025 I’m wondering, what is most important to me now? What do I value? What stories am I telling myself, about myself, that I need to reconsider? And the hardest and most important question: How and where will I be called to serve?
I published three posts last December, beginning with Advent. December encompasses Advent for Christians worldwide, who devote four weeks to spiritual waiting as they prepare to celebrate the Incarnation. Last year I maintained (sort of) my countercultural resistance to starting the Christmas season at Thanksgiving (if not weeks before) and ending it on December 25th. This year, I don’t care so much. I care enough to put out the purple mantel cloth, but not the Advent wreath and candles.
We bought a plastic tree, after several years of trying different varieties of potted trees and bushes, none of which was notably successful. We set the new tree, 4 feet tall, on a small table in front of the large family room window. The tree came with lights on, and we can use the remote to toggle between white and colored lights. It’s pretty and cheerful and fun. We’ll add the decorations this weekend.
I belong to a church, which is a spiritual as well as a temporal community, but my spirit now is wandering, unmoored, only tangentially attached to the Christian religion. Speaking of spirituality, I’m always looking for definitions, as I’ve not been able to invent one that sticks. I should keep a list of other people’s definitions, starting with this one, from Jeanna Kadlec:
… The vast majority of those who consider themselves “spiritual” are interested in, or experience, that which cannot be touched or explained by the five material senses. … To me, spirituality is synonymous with an open-hearted curiosity about the world beyond that which we can materially touch. – welcome to the grove, Dec. 1, 2024
The word “advent,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, originates in Middle English, borrowed from the Medieval Latin adventus, meaning arrival or appearance.
An advent is coming to our household this month. It has a spiritual dimension but is definitely something we can and will materially touch. I’ll write about this in a couple of weeks, after the arrival, but for now I’ll give you some hints, …
… like this, just for fun.
Updating my spiritual practice needs to start with an honest and transparent accounting. I don’t do “devotions,” which I imagine to be spending 45 to 60 minutes reading scripture and other spiritual writings, journaling, and praying. My style is more fluid. I’m in motion, up and down constantly, interrupting myself to get snacks, wash dishes, do a quick chore or five. This habit also tends to make my writing go very slowly, and it’s a major factor in my embarrassing lack of progress in reading.
Soon there will be an increase in the number of interruptions throughout the day, and these will be not necessarily of my own making.
Ideas still come to me most easily when I walk, so I’m still taking frequent walks to the kitchen and occasionally outdoors, which is colder than I like.
Soon I will be taking many walks outdoors, every day, in all weather.
Photo by Megan Nixon on Unsplash
I will choose a word for the year again, but this time I’m doing it with some gentle guidance from a free workbook by Nic Antoinette, which you can find here. (Scroll down to Workbooks for the People—they’re all free.) On the introductory page of her Word of the Year workbook, she says,
This workbook isn't about goals. It isn't about creating a perfect, shiny 10-step plan for anything. Instead, in the pages that follow you will find a series of prompts to invite you into a conversation with yourself about how you most want to feel and who Incoming You might be.
In 2025, I expect to learn more about how I want to feel and who Incoming Me will be.
I’ll have an unconditionally approving companion along the way.
