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.
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