A Stark Advent

We're going the wrong way with Advent!

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

Since I find myself rethinking so much these days, why should I give this Advent season a pass?  I will not.

When I see ancient things “catching on” these new and modern days, I want to run the other way. Advent has caught on, now and it’s more of the new thing to do. It seems like Advent is becoming a fad.

I dissent. I dissent to the exploitation of waiting. I dissent to the popular fake wreaths and the pretty fake snow flakes. I dissent because all this layered, modern plastic beauty has nothing to do with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. It has nothing to do with millenniums of waiting in hard places and persevering in difficult times. Pretty Advents have nothing to do with living and enduring in an occupied land by a foreign government imposing laws, taxes and tirades. Red bows and purple candles do not adequately reflect the refugees fleeing for their lives. Sequined bows reveal nothing of their tears, discomforts and more waiting. We’ve gotten it all wrong.

I’ve noticed my “in-box” full of new Advent offers; new stuff to make it all more meaningful. Pardon me please, but Advent is getting popular and the new fad should make us take pause.

Yes, take ‘pause’—that’s the right word.  Because, if Advent is anything at all, it is the invitation to pause from the merchandising madness of influencers and to go into the deserts and wait and wait and wait till the heart aches and cries out for a Deliverer. Then, maybe, we will understand the meaning of Advent.

There, having said that. I can find my pine bough of evergreen and a lone candle to burn and to sit in the desert of my own heart and wait with you.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!

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So, obviously, I got triggered this year by all the hype about Advent. And so, in being triggered, I took that as an invitation to write a new poem about this.  Here’s my poem titled, “A Stark Advent.”  It will win no poetry prize. I did not write it to win a prize. I wrote it because there was fire in my belly when I saw my email in-box this morning, just a few days before the first Sunday of Advent.  And it was like, well, it was like I just had to speak into this maze of marketing and whirl of spiritual busyness we are about to enter. This poem is the result.

Poetry is personal. Poetry is a window without curtains or blinds into the poet’s soul.  It is an invitation that says, “Hey you, over there, take a moment and look into this window and see if you see what I am seeing. Well, do you see what I am seeing? Do you sense what I am sensing? Do you feel what I am feeling? If not, move on and have the courage to move on. But if a line or two catches you and gives you a hook to hang something on in our heart, then just ponder it. Poetry is the invitation to ponder—not fix; to reflect—not repair; to muse—not make music.

Thank you for encouraging me to do my inner window work through prose and poetry.

Steve