Advent is here, and the color is deep purple. We’ve gathered our harvest and celebrated a feast of thanksgiving. We’ve remembered our “dearly departed” loved ones throughout November. The Christian liturgical year has ended and we begin a new one on the First Sunday of Advent. Soon we’ll celebrate the Winter Solstice, the calendar year will end, and a new year will begin.

Advent means “coming,” a period of weeks set aside in preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas: in Bethlehem in ancient Israel, yes, but more importantly, in our hearts. The German mystic, Meister Eckhart, tells us it’s not good to be sentimental about baby Jesus in the manger at Christmas. “What good is it to us for the Creator to give birth to his Son,” he asks, “if we do not also give birth to Jesus in our own time and culture?”

Jangling Lists or Leisure?

I make mistakes this time of year that make it difficult for Jesus to be born in me and in our world. My friend Patricia Greer wrote a poem in her Whispers of the Soul that lists some of them: “December should be a time of waiting / but I rush and flurry; December should be a time of stillness / but the lists jangle. There was no room at the inn; / there is no room within. The silence of the star calls / urgently….”  To keep myself balanced, I meditate on this wisdom from Grace Noll Crowell I found in an old Reader’s Digest decades ago in my parents’ home: “I shall attend to my little errands of love early this year, that the brief days before Christmas may be unhampered and clear of the fever of hurry. The breathless hurry that I have known in the past shall not possess me; I shall be calm in my soul and ready at last for Christmas… I shall have leisure.” These women hint at contemplative “practices” perfect for Advent: quiet waiting, stillness, silence, creating “room within” like room at the inn. “Go slow… so you can go deep,” writes Pat in another poem. How do I go slow?

Contemplative Practices

I make an Advent wreath and light the candles every morning and evening to set the tone for this season. On December 12, I celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the “revolutionary” who communicates with us in “flower and song.” I pray the “Oh Antiphons” from December 17-23 and mark the coming of Winter on the Solstice. Most importantly, I don’t party during Advent and burn out before Christ “comes.” I wait until Christmas Eve and then celebrate the full Twelve Days of Christmas.

Over at sandandsky.com, Dave Denny offers his reflections on Advents past and present and recommends “Thanksventing” before Adventing.  And don’t forget our beloved Christmas anthology, Season of Glad Songs. Dave and I poured everything we love about Christmas into this book. Well, almost everything. The mystery of Christmas, the feast of the Incarnation or embodiment, the Word-Made-Flesh, is too profound for any anthology.