Advent as Anti-Society

{LOVE.}

I’ve written before that we have slow mornings at home. We play and read, we sit on the couch and look out the windows for a while, and there is no rush.

And the more I practice this, the more I need and treasure it, and the more I mourn for our society in which so many people are pushed out their front doors before they’re even awake in the mornings.

Advent is a slow and steady thing.

It’s a day after day, year after year reminder–

we are the people of waiting.

Steady and strong.

And what of Jesus? What do we learn from him in this season?

He was ironically part of his society and a protestor against it, all in one.

We certainly have something to learn from that, and in this advent/Christmas season, we have space if we really need it– we have those trees in our backyard, that river down the road, that book that sits dusty by the bed waiting for us to read it.

To be Anti-Society is to fight the holiday madness with cookie baking and story time and meditation.

And to be Anti-Society this advent is to also acknowledge that as we wait for the Christ child to return, we live in him, in his love.

We walk and breathe and see the holidays as something alive and good, too, even in the difficult wait.

We rest and respond.

We take our moments slow.

And we acknowledge that we are beautifully alive.

In Potawatomi culture, any inanimate object used in ceremony takes on animacy in that setting. So a pipe, a pair of moccasins, tobacco, cedar, or sage come to life.

These things come alive because they are infused with prayer, with living, with sacredness in the presence of Jesus.

And so it is with our advent days.

May we walk them in ceremony, in prayer, in sacred steps.

May we believe that we ignite the world around us with the love of this second advent week, because we are never alone.

Christ was born into a society, grew into a man within it, died because he was bound by their rules.

But then again, he knew better.

He worked hard and slow, went to the mountains to pray, broke bread with his friends and family.

And he made the cave of his birth come to life, the padding used for his bed sacred and real, the gifts given to him at his birth suddenly more meaningful than could have been imagined. He made the cross he died upon come to life, a tool used for death suddenly a symbol of resurrection life and love. Even the cloth he was wrapped in, that cloth that was infused with spices and oils, became an active thing when it was found in the empty tomb.

You see, Advent is about seeing LIFE around us infused with the LOVE of Christ.

Advent is the waiting, but it is waiting with anticipation because we know that a life truly alive is so worth living. We hold onto that, and we fight societal pressures that make us think anything different.

It’s the week of love, friends.

Love your life and watch it come alive as you wait.

Amen.