Friday, December 7, 2007

How Did Advent Accelerate?

Adapted from "How Did Advent Accelerate?"
by Amy Ard


As a child I found no joy in an Advent calendar; all those little flaps and doors and bite-size pieces of chocolate signified nothing more than the fact that Christmas was still a really, really long time away. Especially as I got down to the last few doors, just a few days before the big event, time seemed to take on a pace as slow as molasses sucked through a straw. Admittedly, the coming of the Christ child was not what had me wound so tight. It was the portly fellow in the red suit who delivered untold delights on my living room floor that made the Advent season so terribly long. While the object of my desire may have been misdirected, the spirit of Advent was palpable. I was waiting for something big and it was taking a very, very long time to arrive.

How odd that the older we get, the faster Advent seems to fly by. Barely has the Thanksgiving turkey been devoured before we find that we're out of time to prepare for Christmas. The units of time have not changed over the years; a minute is still 60 seconds, a day is still 24 hours. How is it, then, that Advent speeds past us when once it crawled along?

Perhaps it is because as adults when we want something we can usually find a way to get it without waiting very long at all. When we do have to wait longer than expected -- someone decides to write a check for their groceries or the line at the coffee shop is out the door -- we get antsy, even angry for the delay.

Advent should be a time for slowing down not speeding up. On Christmas Day we celebrate a world transformed by the birth of a small child. What if we lived as if the world might be transformed once again? Our faith tells us that how we keep ourselves busy ourselves during the wait is important. We are not called to lives of idle desperation but active hope. Would Advent creep up on us if we truly believed that the world might be so transformed again by something as unassuming as a child born in a manger? How would you prepare your household, your family, and your neighborhood for a gift so radical and promising?

This year I'll try to wait (the active hopeful kind of waiting) as if I believe that my most impossible dreams - a world where no child goes hungry, no sick are left to die, no bombs explode - could be made real. The anticipation will certainly rival anything from my childhood. I'm waiting for something big this year but I've found that God's gifts always surprise.

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