Cracking the Surface of Advent

Posted on: 12/01/2010 15:30

How do you prepare for Christmas? Where does considering what Christ’s birth means fit in with your baking, shopping, decorating, and visiting? Or does it? We’d like to hear from you as you consider what two writers said about how they approach Advent in the November 2010 Mandate.

Before he was ordained, the Rev. Matthew Stevens—a United Church minister of Mohawk and Irish Métis heritage who is a staff person in London Conference—used to celebrate Advent with his family by lighting a wreath with five candles representing peace, hope, joy, love, and Christ. They’d have calming after-dinner readings and discussions, but then, he says, “[I] allowed ordination to replace a natural and gentle progression with frantic ritual.”

After years of failing to find reflective time during Advent, Stevens started walking his dog for an hour each morning. When he was out in God’s creation, he rediscovered the peace, hope, joy, and love the Advent candles represented. “It was here I was reminded that these four words are action verbs,” he writes.

The Rev. Jeff Cook of Transcona Memorial United in Winnipeg says that, for him, “Advent is the sound of ice cracking below the surface.” It reminds him of the skating rink his dad used to make in their yard, which cracked below the surface when the water hit, creating tension on the surface and below. Now, he’s reminded of that whenever he floods a rink in his back yard for his own sons.

Cook says that cracking ice also reminds him of John the Baptist crying in the wilderness or the baby Jesus whimpering in the manger. They lived in the Roman Empire, but helped God create cracks below the empire’s surface. Now, Cook tries to listen for the sounds of ice cracking below the surface when he prepares for Advent.

So what about you? Where does considering what Christ’s birth means fit in with your Advent and Christmas preparations? Or does it? How can you crack the Advent surface to give it more meaning for your life and family this year?

Mandate's blog

Comments

Faerenach

Posted on: 12/02/2010 16:59

It seems a bit strange I think, but every year Christmas hits me in a different way. This year, I've spent a fair amount of time being a strange mix of smugness and contentment as I realize that Christmas nowadays still holds spiritual meaning. Religious or not, there's that feeling that at this time of the year, for whatever reason, it's about love and peace and celebrating life's values - not about greed or power or empire.

But it also feels like it's about spending money. When Black Sunday hit this year, and the reports started coming back saying that expenditure figures looked bigger than ever, I shuddered. Was this about Christmas, or about consumerism? Of course Christmas is used as seductive gift-wrapping by fawning marketers as early and often as possible... but what hangs in my thoughts is about those buying these gifts. Are they really thinking about what they're giving?

This year, I'm off to Spain again for a handful of days after Christmas. Last time I was there, I was fascinated by their deepset cultural traditions that make the Magi the ultimate gift-givers - not Santa. Traditionally, kids wait until Epiphany to give/receive gifts, to see the parade of the Wise Men coming through the town. And that made me feel there's something to giving gifts; it just depends which ones.

This year, I'm using the Magi as my gift gurus. I'm going to try hard to find gifts that mean something - that aren't just because they're what we think someone would like, but that they represent something profound about the relationship I have with the other person. Because the best gifts are always as simple as that.

Mandate

Posted on: 12/03/2010 14:09

Your comment about Spanish traditions reminds me of when I went to Mexico for an exposure visit years ago. It was in December and I learned of the Mexican tradition of posadas, where people re-enact Mary and Joseph's search for a place to stay by visiting their neighbour's homes. The focus of Christmas there was on the nativity.

A few days after I returned to Canada I found myself in a mall, where I was overwhelmed with all the focus on Christmas shopping. I thought to myself, we've got it wrong and the Mexicans have got it right when it comes to Christmas.