Advent Day 1: Preparation

I think that most folks' exposure to Advent is in seeing Advent calendars filled with chocolate as an impulse purchase in the checkout line of a grocery store. You might have even opened them yourselves as children, with the understanding of it as a way of counting down the 24 days until the real big party: Christmas. In a sense, that is true, but there is also so much more to the season that makes it even more vital. 

In terms of the calendar for those in a liturgical church tradition, Advent is the four Sundays before Christmas. It is a season of preparation. A time to do some spiritual housecleaning in preparation for the new guest. It is a time of gestation, where something new grows within you, fertilized from all those around you. It is meant to be quiet, reflective, and peaceful--sometimes a difficult status to achieve in the flurry of shopping, parties, football bowl games, travel, end-of-year business, parades, light-hanging, decorating, wrapping, eating, and general stressing-out which fills December for most of us anymore. 

In that frenzy, a simple Advent calendar can be a fantastic method of remembering to take a moment, daily, to open a door to another reality. To that end, I have decided to make a daily entry of spiritual nature as a way of opening my internal Advent calendar. If you decide to read along with me, I hope that you will find the exercise helpful as well.  Blessed Advent! Sarah