Prepare ye the way for the Lord! Advent is back. It always seems to come at exactly the right time, when I need it most.
For me, Advent is the Joy Time, and Lent is the Serious Time. (Easter is its own thing entirely, usually culminating in an excessive brunch with wine after church, followed by a decadent nap due to an infusion of carbs rather than an infusion of the Holy Spirit).
Many of us at Maggie's Farm measure the beat of our inner lives more by the church cycle than anything else. Hunting season is great, fireplace-and-book season is fine, boating season is great, trout season is wonderful, but Advent, like Lent, takes me out of The Circle Game and into another world.
(However, we are not so pure and holy here that we do not dig Santa and gifts and all that. We love Santa, and utterly believe in him. We dig pagan Christmas trees, too.)
Advent, as I experience it, is an annual month-long pregnancy: a chance to deliberately contain and nurture the growth of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Christ, in our hearts. That's the miraculous and mysterious possibility, and every year it is different because we are different and our faith and knowledge are different. Advent is holy, but Christmas is just for fun.
When I was a kid, our Congregational Church had Christmas morning service. That was a good way to begin the day: celebrating a birth is a wonderful thing in itself, but celebrating a holy birth on a frigid snowy morning, with the scent of pine everywhere, and cheery people in overcoats shouting Merry Christmas! across the lawn or parking lot is exhilarating. My church does the usual Christmas Eve candlelight service, which is perfect, which always brings tears, and which I hate to leave, but I could use a Christmas morning service too before the eggnog, feast, and festivities. Preachers tell me that nobody will show up on Christmas morning anymore.
Photo: Out my window today. Black niger seed on the left, seed mix with cracked corn on the right. The tray is not only for the ground birds like the Juncos and doves - it's also to prevent too much seed from falling on the ground and attracting rats. If you have a rat problem, feel free to steal my design. The tray is a Home Depot window screen stuck into a wood frame I cobbled together.
