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Well it’s the day before Thanksgiving, and I just want to send my warm wishes out to my blogosphere pals. I am thankful for those of you who I’ve had a chance to meet in the past few months, and for those who I haven’t yet had the opportunity of meeting. I am grateful for your prayers and thoughts, especially recently as we have dealt with the SoCal fires and their aftermath.
Having Michelle’s parents in our home during the holidays will be fun in some ways and hectic in some ways. I’m sure that Friday morning I’ll be mounting my trusty extension ladder to hang the Christmas lights. By Friday night I’m guessing that the 8ft. inflatable Christmas bears that Marge bought will be greeting all who pass by our house. Yep, it’ll be fun in some ways and hectic in some ways. More fun than hectic, though.
I’m hoping to find my way into balance when it comes to celebrating the festivities of the holiday season without giving in to mindless consumeristic waste. It is important to Michelle and I to let her folks go a little crazy with Christmas decorations and all, mainly because it’s something they really truly enjoy, and giving them a place to do that is a gift to them. I may roll my eyes at some of the things that go up, but that’s totally o.k. with me. I really would like to create a space within all of this, though, to participate in the tradition and practice of Advent. We are still planning our first gathering on Sunday afternoon, so hopefully that will set the stage well.
One of the potential inner conflicts that I anticipate is that in the middle of the festivities of Christmas, it’s important that we remember that Advent has its darker side. When we light the candles each week, we do so to remind ourselves that the world is a harsh and difficult place to be . . . the kind of world that needs the hope of a coming Light. We have to realize that even the hope of the coming Messiah is the discomfort of knowing that we’ve only tasted a little of Him. His Kingdom may be in the here and now, but we are acutely aware that His reign has not yet fully been experienced here. Our hope does not disappoint us. But it does make us hungry. And even while we gorge ourselves on gingerbread cookies and turkey and egg nog, we cannot fill ourselves, because we really want the Bread of Life.
Celebrate friends. Our Savior has come. But don’t settle for half the story.
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