We always meant to observe Advent. We really wanted time for meaningful reflection but there were cards to mail, gifts to buy and wrap, parties to host and attend on top of all our normal responsibilities. As spiritual leaders we found ourselves pulling out the stops for everyone else’s Christmas but not focusing as thoughtfully as we would have liked on own Advent experience.

The Christmas season can distract us all from what we most truly want. So, we’ve learned it helps to have a simple devotional guide.

One resource we use is Advent Reflections by one of our spiritual mentors, Ruth Haley Barton, founder of the Transforming Center (www.transformingcenter.org.) It has powerfully spoken to us so we wanted to pass on some of Ruth’s thoughtful insights to you.

The season of Advent gives us the opportunity to practice waiting for the light of Christ’s coming into the dark places of our world and our lives. Advent literally means “arrival,” and the themes of this season sensitize us to the coming of Christ—not just back then—but now, in the places we long to see his presence and need his intervention.

There are four heart movements or invitations in our waiting for Christ’s arrival—typically, one for each Sunday before Christmas. Here we add Christmas Day as the fifth invitation. Each of these can also be experienced all at once or every few days the week before Christmas.

• We encourage you to PRINT this blog and between now and Christmas take a few intentional moments to allow the coming of Christ to actually affect the present conditions of your life.  Or use it with family and friends as you gather for holiday meals.

 

 1.  Waiting:

Waiting is a necessary and humbling aspect of ordinary life and spiritual life. Waiting is that in between space, on the threshold of what is to come but nothing yet has appeared.

You have left the tried and true but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else. It is when you are in between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer. If you are not trained to hold anxiety, how to live with ambiguity, how to entrust and wait, you will run…anything to flee this terrible cloud of unknowing.                   Richard Rohr

Advent is the opportunity for us to practice waiting. We allow ourselves to be aware of those areas in our lives where our own human striving has not accomplished what is most needed.

Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening where you are and that you want to be present to it.     Henri Nouwen

“ Beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come…keep awake…I say to all: Keep awake.”   Mark 13

*Personal Reflection: Where do you experience this strange juxtaposition of harsh news and hopeful birth? How do you sense God inviting you to be alert for Jesus’ coming even in the harsh realities of life?

Prayer: O holy God, there are dark places in my life and in my world I want to avoid—places that feel quite hopeless. Give me courage not only to wait for you in these hard places, but to be alert with expectation, alive to the hope that your light will soon come and that something new is on the way.   Amen.

  

2.  Confession

There are obstacles in our lives that hinder Christ’s coming. Rough spots that need to be smoothed over with understanding, crooked places that need to be straightened out with truth-telling, valley’s of wrong behavior that need to be raised up, acknowledged and confessed.

May God give us the grace to recognize and name any obstacles to his coming as the sins they are. May Christ give us the courage to make our confession to him and to each other- so we can find forgiveness, comfort and healing.

“ A voice cries out: “in the wilderness prepare the way of the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill be made low, the uneven ground shall become level…then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all the people shall see it together…”             Isaiah 40

* Personal Reflection: In confession we come out of hiding. We name our sin to ourselves; to God, to a spiritual friend or group and to the person(s) we have offended. In what situation are you most likely to hide or minimize your sin right now? Acknowledge your resistance and fears to God, inviting him to remove any obstacle that might hinder Christ’s coming in your life.

Prayer: Gracious God, my sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what my lips tremble to name, what my heart can no longer bear, and what has become for me a consuming fire of judgment. Set me free from a past that I cannot change; open to me a future in which I can be changed; and grant me grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image, through Jesus Christ, the light of the world.   Amen.

 

3.  Centering:

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John…he himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.       John 1

From this passage we see John was aware of who he was and who he was not. He knew he was not the Light and he knew he had been anointed to testify to the One who would bring true enlightenment. He refused to be pushed off center when the religious leaders questioned him. He is a wonderful example of simplicity and focus during the ultimate season of distraction.

During this season we too run the risk of being pushed off center. We kill ourselves to keep up with what the season requires while dying on the inside. We find it impossible to stay focused and discern the true spiritual meaning of things. Advent is the perfect time to practice testing everything so we can hold fast to what is real and good.

• Personal Reflection: How can you simplify and eliminate distraction- even in small ways- in order to seek the kind of enlightenment John talks about?

Prayer: O God of peace, I pray that you will sanctify me entirely, even during this season’s busyness and distraction; may my spirit, soul and body be kept sound. I do desire to keep awake and alert to all the ways the Lord Jesus Christ comes into my life amid impossibly full days. O God I know you are faithful and that you can do all this.     Amen

 

4.  Prayer of Indifference:

“ Then Mary said, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”   Luke 1

When we pray the prayer of indifference we are saying, I am indifferent to anything but God’s will. We are saying we want God’s will more than our own comfort or safety, more than ego-gratification or keeping up appearances, more than our own pleasure, more than whatever it is we think we want.

It is a state of wide openness to God in which we are free from undue attachments and have the capacity to relinquish whatever might keep us from choosing love. Mary expressed profound readiness to set aside her personal concerns in order to participate in the will of God.

There is the prayer for indifference: we are open to the gift by asking for something we do not yet have. And there is the prayer of indifference, which is answer to the above prayer- the ability to say, in truth, I am indifferent to anything but the will of God.

• Personal Reflection: In what aspect of your life are you less ready or even resistant to being completely open to the will of God? Ask God for the readiness and surrender that will enable you to say wholeheartedly, I am indifferent to anything but the will of God. 

Prayer:  Father I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you. I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me…Into your hands I commend my soul, I offer it to you with the love of my heart…I give myself, I surrender myself into your hands without reserve and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.  Amen

Charles de Foucauld

5.  Celebration

• Christmas Eve/Christmas Day

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.”  Titus 2

The celebration of God with us- the Feast of the Nativity- has come. We celebrate the Incarnation – not that God descended into human form but that he lifted up our humanity into divine life. The Incarnation of Jesus makes it possible for the redeemed life to be lived out in this flesh, on this ordinary earth. The Nativity ennobles the lowliest aspects of everyday life; God chose to be born in a stable, with animals and shepherds as his first visitors…the humblest things are exalted. God with us in the flesh! Elevating every aspect of our human existence as a place of spiritual possibility and divine visitation! This is the best thing that’s ever happened to us; it is the gift that keeps on giving.

Thanks be to God! 

*All excerpts from Advent Reflections by Ruth Haley Barton

*** David & Caron’s NEW ebook, “Nothing to Prove: You are enough; You have enough; You do enough” is now available. For more information or to purchase it, CLICK HERE.