Happy New Year!
We will celebrate Chinese New Year on January 23rd. September 23rd we celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, but the Christian New Year, the First Day of Advent, was last Sunday. Advent is the season of repentance and preparation for the Birth of the Christ-child, the incarnation, God With Us, Emmanuel.
If you were lucky, five minutes after you ate pumpkin pie and put away the leftover turkey, thoughts turned to Christmas. I know of many families that skip straight from Halloween ghosts to Christmas lights, but this is not the preparation of Advent that I am talking about.
Advent preparation is about getting your heart ready. Christians used to fast during Advent, not deck the halls. We used to pray and meditate instead of racing to get everything done just so.
Advent is supposed to be a reflective time, but in modern America, where there seems to be so little time for reflection, it is one of the busiest times of the year. We get time off of work and class and still run out of time to accomplish everything on our list. Too often we celebrate the expectation of this radical birth by focusing on the expectations others have of us. You may have family that expects the traditional 15 types of cookies or children that want the hottest sold-out toy. Neighbors expect this year’s lights to outdo last year’s display.
The problem of these expectations is that they defeat us—they make us feel inadequate because we cannot achieve the perfection we assume others need of us. We can never achieve the perfect Christmas (or Hanukah or Solstice, etc) when we prepare a show or a tradition instead of our hearts.
Advent is not supposed to be about feeling inadequate or going into debt. The freedom Christ promises is directly the opposite. So in celebrating Advent I have a few tips:
- Repent of your sins and open your hearts rather than your wallets.
- Practice forgiveness—towards others and yourself. Forgive yourself for the ways you have broken relationships and forgive others for their mistakes and fumbles. Where total forgiveness is not possible yet, take a small step.
- Have only appropriate guilt. Do not feel guilty for things you cannot achieve or hold yourself to ridiculous standards.
- Allow yourself to feel the Hope, Joy, Love and Peace of the season, even when times are tough.
- Focus on the most important thing—relationships—and preparing those.
Happy New Year—may it be a year of openness, readiness, and love,
Stephanie