Saturday, December 19, 2015

Advent 25: AND NOW WHAT?


The only problem with anticipation is, what do you do when the thing you've been anticipating comes to an end?  


What do you do when the Big Day has come and gone?  What then?  With Christmas only a couple of days away, it's worth considering.

We all know the stories about how people get depressed every year after Christmas because they suddenly feel like there's really nothing to look forward to.   

And it's actually quite easy to understand how this could happen. After all, for weeks we have all thought and talked and planned and acted with one central focus in mind: the holiday celebration.  It seems natural, even inevitable, that a sense of letdown might follow such an outpouring of energy.

(Well, unless you're one of those people who is so absolutely sick and tired of the whole holiday season by now that frankly you can't wait to pack it all in and get back to normal.  If that's you, you may want to skip the rest of this post, since obviously you need no coping mechanisms for post-Christmas blues.  And there's the silver lining you've been looking for!)

For the rest of us, though, the ones who come crashing back to earth and find the return to the mundane somewhat jarring--and maybe on top of it we have a touch of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)--not to worry, nil desperandum....


Remember those signs that say "Today is the beginning of the rest of your life"?  Well, they're absolutely right.

After all, Advent is merely a human-made construct intended to help us focus INTENSELY, during these few weeks, on what we actually should be focusing on ALL the time:  living our lives more thoughtfully and with more awareness in the presence of God.  For Christians, this means opening our hearts to God in Christ at Christmastime--and then practicing that openness through all the days of the year. 

Advent is meant to help us start up our engines if they've been idling. Or to tune up our engines if they need it.  But it is definitely not a season that says once you've got everything up and running smoothly it's okay to shut it down. Quite the opposite. 


Here's the good news:  Life is a never ending process.

Here's the bad news:  Life is a never ending process.


Our life-long learning never ends, it just begins again in another form.  Like a circle.  Or a spiral. 

And that's a comforting and even exciting thought.


In the middle of winter I discovered in myself an invincible summer.  
~  Albert Camus


From the day we arrive on the planet 
And blinking, step into the sun 
There's more to see than can ever be seen 
More to do than can ever be done 

It's the Circle of Life....
~The Lion King






 








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