Advent Word - December 20 - #go - “Go Dawgs.”

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

I went to visit someone today for what was probably the last time. He's one of the first people I met when we moved to town, and we were introduced by a mutual friend who knew that both of us had a deep love for both the Episcopal Church and the University of Georgia Bulldogs. This gentleman wasn't a member of our parish, and he didn't live in town, per se, but we saw each other off and on around the community and at funerals here and there over the past number of years.

In the last month or so he came by to visit, and we talked for a while. He left me with an envelope that had a lapel pin in it with the University of Georgia "G" logo. His note said, "Once a dawg, always a dawg. Wear pin with pride." And then, he drew a smiley face on it, much like the same smiley face on the styrofoam cup that sits next to it, given to me by the friend who introduced us in the first place many years ago.

I can't say that I know B well, but I know he is well-loved and well-thought of by his friends and his community, a fact made clear in the long list of names who signed the sheet to get into the building where he is. And I don't know how much time he's got left in this life, either. But he said to me at some point today in our talk, "No matter where you go, always be kind." It's a maxim that's served him well. As he laid there hurting, there was no panic or fear. He was hurting, yes, but he also had a peacefulness to him in knowing that he's run his race faithfully; he's lived into his faith fully; and his mark has been left on those he's known and loved.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

And Go Dawgs.

Advent Word - December 17 - #pray - “I'll have a blue Christmas without you; I'll be so blue just thinking about you.”

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

I'll freely admit I wasn't looking forward to this portion of the Advent Word with the "Way of Love" words. I've been helping lead a class on those steps, and while they've been on my mind, I just couldn't get an image for "turn" or "learn" that I liked enough for an instagram post. Today, though, was different. I kind of knew ahead of time what we'd use today.

As some of you know, tonight was our first "Blue Christmas" at our church. I've thought about it for years, but this year was a chance with the right energy and the right atmosphere for us to try it. I had lots of uncertainty and nervousness before it and during it, but the service itself was beautiful and rich, and I think everyone who attended felt like they got something from it.

What was striking to me was the cross-section of our membership who made time to be with us, who made themselves available and vulnerable to show everyone else there that they were hurting or sad during this holiday season, a time when we're all supposed to put on a brave face and sing the Christmas songs with gusto. I'm thankful for those who came, and I'm thankful for those who helped make sure that we did the service and who trusted us enough to encourage us to do it.

Most especially, though, I'm thankful that I got to be a part of something that hopefully gave someone some peace and solace in a time when it's hard to find that. I look forward to the chance to refine the service and make the necessary changes, and I look forward to sharing this service with people for years to come.

Advent Word - December 14 - #gather

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

For the first time we invited our confirmation mentors and their spouses or significant others over for a thank you dinner, of sorts. My wife has wanted to do this for them for a while, but I haven't been able to get my act together to extend the invitation and find date for it. It's one of those times of year that it's impossible to get everyone together, and I was glad we were able to gather as many people as we could. My wife worked most of the day to get a good, hearty meal for us, and she made some incredible sweet treats for dessert. We all got to eat, the kids made lots of noise, and it was a good night.

I take a lot of pride in my confirmation mentors (see how I claim them as my own?), but it's not because of anything I do with them. I ask them to give up their Sunday afternoons for three months in the fall, and they come and hang out with sixth graders for up to an hour and a half. They help them navigate through Bible study and church history, and they build relationships with the kids that I hope will continue to grow as they all continue at our church.

What I'm especially grateful for, though, is watching them grow in relationship with each other. Some of them have a passing familiarity with each other through other things at church and around town, but nothing brings people together like the shared experience of an overnight lock-in with middle schoolers. And because we get to work so closely together, I learn a lot from them, too. They see some things I don't see, and they help to make the class better over time. It's not a small effort for them to undertake, and I hope they understand and appreciate how important their work is. And as a priest, I hope I can remember the importance and necessity of showing gratitude to our lay people for their ministries as I continue in my time in the Church, too.

Advent Word - December 12 - #water

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

A few weeks ago a few of us around here cooked up an idea for an evangelism project to represent a different voice of the the Church for our monthly arts festival downtown. We'd heard that some of the voices representing Christianity down there were more aggressive and fear-inducing, and we wanted locals to know that we, the Episcopal Church, were indeed present and available and open on the holidays.

As usual, it was just an idea from me that a dear friend took off and ran with. She enlisted the help of other churches, recruited helpers to staff the tent, and gathered over 30 dozen homemade cookies and had plans to brew over 200 cups of hot chocolate. We had flyers that listed all of the Episcopal churches in town along with our Christmas service times and website, and our hope was to invitational to the patrons of the arts festival.

Alas, it was not meant to be, at least in the form we initially planned.

The weather has been dreary all day, and around mid-afternoon the temperatures dropped, and the skies opened up with the rain that had been held back all day. The well-planned and well-intended "Cookies and Cocoa with the Episcopalians" was called for rain, and now the task becomes what to do with all of those cookies. My friend and colleague is already planning ways to use them (caroling through downtown; visits with local businesses; or even a hospitality station at the courthouse), and I’m thankful for her energy and creativity.

The grace here is that there was energy around the project and the idea. This is something that we in this convocation can build on, and it's something we can look forward to doing again sometime. I'm thankful for the ministry of all of those who worked so hard on the front end to make this a reality, and I'm bummed out that we got washed out by bad weather. All that said, it makes me look forward to the next time we're able to get together, and it's a reminder that there are people in our community and our church who want to share the Good New of Jesus Christ and who want to go out into the community to invite people into our churches.

Advent Word - December 11 - #confess

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

My wife and I started our annual rewatch of Lord of the Rings tonight. It's one of our traditions to put it on and watch the extended editions over the course of a week or 10 days (half of each movie a night, leading to needing six nights to watch it). We do this because we saw them initially around the holidays when we were in college. And the holidays, of course, are often about marking time and traditions.

I'll confess that I am sometimes a Grinch about following this particular tradition. It's about 90 minutes of movie a night, sometimes closer to two hours. I'm already tired, and since I'm so familiar with them all by now, it's so easy to doze off and fall asleep, which in turn makes me grumpy. However, there is something about being so familiar with these movies that allows us to make time to watch them and still have a our regular conversations. These movies are part of our tradition around here, and we make space for them so that we can also have our time with each other.

We've all got traditions and rituals that we keep. Some of them we keep begrudgingly, and some of them we keep because they connect us to something bigger (as we move through Advent and draw closer to Christmas, this will likely come up again for me here). Our opportunity, I think to see what those traditions might be and see how the continue to shape us as individuals and as people who are a part of a something larger. And as I wrote about the trees earlier this week, the keeping of traditions, be they at home or with family or in church, also help us to welcome others into the fold, giving them a place and opportunity to claim their spot as a member of the group.

Advent Word - December 10 - #grace

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

For at least the last eight or nine years, we've had one of those Christmas elves in our house. It was given to us by a friend before our daughter was old enough to know what it was, and I guess in the next year or so after that our elf Jonathan began to visit our home each Advent. Our elf has never been an agent of the state reporting back to the North Pole about the behavior of our kids. Instead, he started out as "agent of Advent," and the kids would get a felt ornament to add to a tree when they completed their Advent mission, but as they've gotten older he's gotten more into different kinds of mischief and hijinx. I can't wait to put together an album of sorts of all of his doings because it'll be fun to look back on and remember, especially as the kids get older and get more knowledgeable about the "Christmas secret."

Last year and this year, though, the elf has gotten kind of tired. He's not into as much mess-making, and he's kind of run out of places to hide. So instead, he just moves from spot to spot. And while there isn't the excitement of finding him every morning and seeing what he did the night before, it is still something that they do when they think about it. Something like, "Did you find find Jonathan?" Or "I haven't found Jonathan yet." As slow a the elf has gotten in his age, though, there does still seem to be at least a little bit of magic and mystery involved there, and for that, I'm still grateful.

Ultimately, I wonder, though, if the grace that was shown in those early years of the elf and all of his tricks bringing them joy and happiness in the morning and excitement throughout Advent is still being shown through them to us, to me, as they seek him out and try to hold on to some of that magic and imagination of the season. They may not know it or realize it, but them continuing to play along makes me so happy. And if I'm honest, it's going to be a little bit bittersweet to me when they want to start participating in the elf's tricks, too. But you know what? There's grace in that, too, because hopefully they'll have learned, in some small measure, the purpose of this season is pouring out onto others the grace we have received ourselves.

Advent Word - December 9 - #root - “I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground.”

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

I struggled with “worthy” yesterday, but I saw a lot of great ones coming from the #adventword tag on Instagram. One that really stood out to me was the picture of a friend from seminary with the caption, “I am worthy just as I am.” For many of us, it’s hard to come to place and that realization, even when we’ve attained what society would call success. It’s a bummer, but sometimes that just how we are.

Tonight, though, when I was out with the dog, I looked up, and I saw a tree that had (finally) dropped all of its leaves. I love seeing the barren trees this time of year, and I especially like seeing a barren oak in the middle of a field. I can’t pinpoint why, but I think it’s because when we see a barren tree, with all of the branches exposed, it’s as close as we’re going to get to seeing what that tree’s root structure looks like. I know that sounds silly, and it’s not terribly profound, but it works for me.

And I think about it because, as we all know, the roots of a tree grow towards nutrients: good soil, water, anything else that tree will need. When we see the branches of the tree, we see that tree reaching up for all that it can get to. More sun, more air, more rain as it falls. As the seasons change, the tree changes, too. The branches may reach in different directions (like the ones about to grow into our house), and the roots certainly grow as the tree tries to reach it’s greatest height.

Again, nothing profound here. Just a brief mediation on the beauty of a tree. Take a look at one of the barren trees around town. It’s simply really cool to see. And then, notice it as it changes over the next few months, too. And then, think of you may have been changed in that same time.

Advent Word - December 7 - #unity - "In essentials, unity."

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

If you came here from my Instagram post, you'll have noticed it made a joke about the "unity" some Alabama friends had in finding a UGA garden gnome as a gift for us prior to our ballgame against LSU. Living down here, there are lots of Alabama people, Auburn folks, and a smattering of the rest of us. It makes for an interesting fall, but it also gives lots of fodder for easy sermon material about loving your neighbor and your enemy, who can sometimes be the same person.

In our tradition, we speak a lot about the importance of unity. We pray from a common book, we eat at a common table, and we drink from a common cup. We might think of these acts as simple acts of routine worship, but what they really speak to are the deep bonds we share with the history of our tradition throughout the world and within our local community. As simple as it might sound, whenever we come to communion, we make a bold statement about our view on the importance of unity in the Church. Mind you, this doesn't mean absolute agreement, because that's an impossible task, but we do hold up the importance of sharing in that meal together.

In the Little Church we have a tradition of everyone staying around the rail until everyone has received communion. In other words, no one leaves until everyone has been fed. That would be a terribly inefficient practice in the Big Church, but the Little Church gives us that chance to make a strong practical statement about what we're doing at communion: we make a profession of our belief in being drawn together, drawn together in unity, to the great banquet of the Lord. At that banquet, there is room enough for us all.

Advent Word - December 6 - #house - "Our house...in the middle of our street."

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

One thing we see a lot of in the office is people calling for help with utility bills or finding housing or even a night shelter. We've only got so much to spread around, and it's always hard to tell someone "No" or piece together the story they're telling. It's overwhelming just to hear their stories, and I can't begin to imagine the very real struggles so many of them are going through. And lately, we've found out that many of the shelters in town are completely full. The men's shelters, the women's shelters, and the family shelters are full of waiting lists. It leaves those in need needing to constantly call to check with the agencies, and that adds an extra stressor to their already stressed lives. It's an ugly cycle.

So many of you, when you come through and see these downtrodden folks sitting in the office, are so kind and welcoming. Earlier this week, one of them wanted something to drink, and one of you went down and brought them a glass of water. Other times, we've had folks so tired and weary that they fall asleep on the couch, and you'll walk quietly through the office, giving them a chance for a brief rest. It may not seem like it, but in those moments, you're blessing them, giving them a moment of dignity in the midst of their struggles. You are taking ownership of your roles at the church, and you are welcoming strangers into your house, into your home.

Thanks for being that way. I know it's not always easy to know how to respond in those moments, but responding with kindness and hospitality is never the wrong way.

Advent Word - December 5 - #raise - “We’re waiting on something that’s already happened.”

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

I joked in my Instagram post for today that I like to put up Christmas lights to lower our property value so that the city doesn't raise my taxes, but the reality is that it's just one more way to bring a little light into these days when it gets so dark so early. I've always got plans to do something really tacky with them, but I never get to it because there's only so many free weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we'd rather enjoy them for a few weeks instead of being tired from putting up too many. 

Maybe next time.

I used to try to be a stickler for Advent (and liturgically, I think I still am), but with two kids and a wife who LOVE Christmas and want to start listening to Christmas music before All Saints Day, there's no way I'm going to be able to hold off on putting a Christmas tree up any later than the first weekend of December. I've also learned, though, that life is too short and the kids grow up too fast for me to be a stick in the mud about it. If you've ever seen someone get scolded by the Advent Police online for enjoying Christmas before December 25, you see it's not a real flattering look.

You see, in Advent we're waiting on something that's already happened, and we're looking forward to something that we hope for in the future. That is, we're waiting for the celebration of Christmas and we're anticipating the Second Advent. One of them, we know is coming soon. And the other, we wait patiently for just as our Jewish brothers and sisters wait patiently for Elijah. Part of that waiting is preparation, and whether those sticklers out there like it or not, part of the preparation is putting up the lights early because, y'all, the light has already broken in, and sometimes it's an overpriced strand of LEDs that help us remember that.

Advent Word - December 4 - #humble - "Humble yourself!"

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

I wish I could say there was always some profound reason behind the quote I put in each title, but it's usually just the first phrase that pops into my mind. For today's quote, it's simple something some of the players of the University of Georgia 2018 Rose Bowl team were heard saying to Baker Mayfield following UGA's overtime win: "Humble yourself!" Granted, a player from a victorious team calling this out to a vanquished opponent is not the greatest sign of humility, but, as I said, I normally just use the first line that comes to mind.

As I think about the word #humble, though, as it's given to us for this year's Advent calendar, and I struggled to figure out where to go with this one today, I remembered a prayer that we say whenever we have a Rite I service at St. Paul's. We call this the "Prayer of Humble Access," and it's been found in different spots in different prayer books throughout the history of the church. In case you don't have your prayer book handy, here is the text in its entirety:

"We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen."

It's a beautiful prayer, and as we pray it right before we come up to receive communion, it helps to put us into a proper frame of heart and mind before we come to the altar rail with one another. As I read it again this morning, I was struck again by the reminder that we don't come to the table "trusting in our righteousness." Instead, we come to the table, many of us on our knees, with our hands outstretched, asking for something that will fill us up, asking for something that we don't deserve and that we haven't earned, but trusting, nonetheless, that God deems us worthy to receive the bread and the wine of communion, to be welcomed at the table, to come into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Advent Word - December 3 - #time - "What is time?"

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

(This post contains spoilers for the Pixar short Forky Asks a Question: What is Time?)

Last weekend I watched a Pixar short with everyone's favorite spork (Forky, from Toy Story 4), and in this short film he asks Rex the dinosaur, "What is time?"

Rex replies, "Now is now, stuff happens, then it's later. Time can be future or past." It's clearly a complicated concept coming from dinosaur to a toy fashioned out of trash, and it leads to a moment for Rex as he looks longingly at the past, wishing he could have been with his fellow dinosaurs. He then says, after explaining an asteroid to Forky, "The asteroid always wins; time is a way to be forgotten." As with many Pixar productions, moments like this make kids laugh and adults realize the depth of the truth, but there's always something else to be discovered in the relationships shared by these characters.

For us, the idea of time is also a complicated one. It sometimes goes too quickly, and other times it can't pass fast enough. Some days, time seems to move both too slowly and too quickly, or maybe that's just Monday afternoons. As we grow older, living through linear time, things to seem to pass us by; I look at the list of top music on iTunes or turn on a top 40 station, and I feel like I've entered a land where I don't understand or recognize anything. For some of us, this can be scary; it can make feel left behind. When that happens, we get defensive and reactionary, and that's no good, either.

Liturgical time, though, is different. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, as time moves forward on our calendar, our time in the Church moves more like a circle. We repeat the same events and rituals over and over; we experience them differently as more of them pass by. This is a good thing; it reminds us that we are ever-growing and ever-changing. Every experience has left us with another mark so that we can experience God and the mystery of the Church year in a different way each time.

And that leads me to this. At the end of Rex's existential crisis, Forky says to him, "You know what? The future and the past sound great. But I like the now; I get to spend time with you." Often we get caught up in thinking about how things were, how they used to be, the good ol' days. It's important to remember them; it's how we keep our stories fresh to share with new generations. We also need to look to the future to prepare ourselves for whatever else may come. But don't forget the now. As Rex says, "Now is now, stuff happens, then it's later." We won't get these moments back, but don't think of that as something to be bothered by. This season that calls us to slow down gives this reminder to us as a gift, a gift to make sure we spend time wisely now, so that when it is later, we can reflect on this time joyfully.

Advent Word - December 2 - #visit - “Come. Sit. Visit for a minute.”

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

Most of you are aware that at St. Paul's we have a generous "open-door policy" in terms of office doors. If you come around, and one of the doors is open, you are welcome to come in and visit for a bit. Sometimes we'll have the door shut because of a call or because we're working on something, and Katherine will let you know whether it's a good idea to knock on the door or not. It's a joy and an honor and one of the great privileges of ministry to get to know your stories, and we all love to know that you're comfortable enough to come around during the week, too. For years, we've had someone come around a few times a week to sit and chat, and over that time, I've pieced together a bit about him and his faith, and we've built a relationship of trust that only comes through shared time together.

Often, I'll bump into one of you across the street at Carpe Diem, and many times that's led to an extended visit. In those moments, I get to learn about what's happening in the the life of your kids; learn about your plans for the holidays; learn about whatever else might be going on. It's more than a Sunday morning conversation, and it's less formal than a scheduled appointment. It's a moment of grace where we get to meet other where we are and share in a moment of fellowship.

As we continue through the season of Advent, make time in your life for these visits with those around you. It's a busy time, but part of the point of this season of preparation to make sure we slow down and get ready for something just over the horizon (per Father Pete's sermon yesterday). Making time for a visit to build or strengthen a relationship, or just to have a conversation with someone, is part of the preparation.

NB - In the writing of reflection, there were multiple people who came through the office, so it was nice to see that I wasn't imagining something that wasn’t really happening. :)

Advent Word - December 1 - #unexpected - “Look at the chimneys.”

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

As I sit here this morning, my body is recovering from our family's trip to London for Thanksgiving, and I am becoming re-acclimated to this time zone. I don't know how long it'll take me, but if it gives me some quiet mornings to get up as I readjust, I'll take that as an extended gift from our travels. As I was trying to go back to sleep earlier, I kept thinking back to our trip, and I continued to think of today's word "unexpected." I don't know what I expected when we went over there, and I'm sure the days ahead will give me more to contemplate, and I imagine that there will also be a few more reflections that lean on that experience.

What I'm going with this morning, though, is tied into a phrase I learned a while ago.

"Look at the chimneys."

The idea behind this phrase it two-fold. First of all, there don't have to be actual chimneys around; the point is to simply look up to take in the surroundings around us. The second part, of course, is that the looking up causes us to open up our chests, breathing in fresh air and oxygen, which is a pretty good thing for all of us to partake in.

This phrase stayed in my mind as we explored the city because otherwise it was so easy to look down and try not to trip on a raised sidewalk or step on a pigeon or fall into the gap on the Underground. I had to remind myself, and I had to remind my kids, to look up. In the midst of being around the paintings and portraits that we've studied and read about or walking through Westminster Abbey surrounded by the tombs and remains of so many people who have been so important to our history and culture (I got to see where Geoffrey Chaucer was buried which made me remember my high school English teacher who had us memorize the prologue to his work!), it was so easy to forget to look up to see the incredible molding in the National Gallery or the vaulted ceilings in Westminster Abbey or even the various kinds of architecture that exist in a city as old as London.

Something happens when we look up, when we look at the chimneys. We see the beauty of the world, and we see how unexpected that beauty can be. Whether it's part of the naturally created order or created by the hands of humanity, beauty and wonder exists all around us. As we wait with expectant hearts during this season of Advent, look up, and see what unexpected beauty can be seen.