'A Time That Represents Real Life'

Disclaimer/Point of clarification: In this article, I am referring to the Season of Advent which marks the beginning of the Christian year and leads up to the celebration of Jesus’s birth, not the festive and famous Aldi wine calendar type of advent…though I do not discriminate. I mean, I am writing from my perspective and experience as an ordained cleric in a Christian faith tradition, so this all kind of tracks. Anyway, happy reading!

My current situation:

• Dangling from my ears are gift-wrap bows disguised as earrings: Check! 
• My hair in place thanks to a Santa hat barrette probably designed with toddlers in mind: Check!
• Donning the newest shirt design for Javidad (a beloved PICU tradition, y’all!): Check!
• System of a Down playing festively in the background: Check!

A notification popping up that the additional $6 per month has cleared the bank, ensuring that I won’t miss the newest, cringiest, and, arguably, the most awful movies set in a charming small town sprinkled with holiday magic and a dash of drama that culminates in a delightful chance encounter between strangers whose love blossoms as predictable as the fake snowflakes fall

It’s a whole vibe up in here…a vibe that perfectly highlights the beauty found within the Season of Advent—part Pollyanna and part doomsday, and that, my friends, is why I love Advent. It gets me! Advent creates a sacred space where blasting System of a Down while donning festive and, borderline, ridiculous outfits is not only acceptable, but expected.  

It is a season of paradoxes; a time to manifest an alternative world; a time to raise big questions; a time to prepare for something new and different and never before experienced. Advent is a time that represents real life—the joy and the sorrow. The already and the not yet. The vulnerable and the protected. The need for connection and the need to unplug. 

Life—what a beautiful mess.

And y’all, I will gladly share all the beauty of my life!

However, I am a bit more hesitant to highlight the mess of my life.

There are not a lot of places (or people) where I feel safe exposing my mess—the places where I lack, the sadness that I feel, the isolation that exists.

The desire to hide the mess of my life is especially poignant during the holidays. It’s hard to be excited to watch your child open gifts on Christmas morning and feel sorrow that your parents choose not to be part of your child’s life. It’s hard to be grateful you are alive and mourn that the person you love the most is not…and as strange as it may seem, these incongruences is where I find hope.

When others share or are real with me and offer me the privilege to know their mess, I am reminded that I am not alone in my mess…and that offers me hope!  

So back to this Advent thing…

To me, Advent offers a hope for a community that is built, not with Lego blocks, but within the paradoxes of life. A community where the hard things are met, not with one more string of lights, but with curiosity instead of judgment. A community where sharing brokenness and pain guides you through a Blue Christmas with shared laughter and healing. And like that gift from someone who knows you better than anyone else, you unwrap a community that might be different than you ever imagined and, surprisingly, exactly what you need.