Advent 2017 - a look back

It seems to me that our Lord answered my prayer.  

My disaffection for the way churches and most followers of Christ celebrate the birth of Jesus and his first advent has grown.  Since I did not foresee significant changes occurring in the wider church and since our own holiday preparations continued to focus largely on exchange of gifts, beautiful colors and greenery, Christmas music and sermons that were becoming ho-hum - my, what a Scrooge I was becoming.  But I have written about that previously.

So I prayed for the Lord's deliverance.  Change me; change my attitude about Advent & about your coming.  Now looking back over the recent weeks in December I will suggest that some changes have taken place in me and in my willingness to enter in.  Several pieces and people contributed to this formation-in-process.  I write in-process for it remains for me to continue in the direction and in the spirit of what I will identify as a Spirit-directed movement.

• I "happened" to land on a web site that I had never noticed or heard reference to in the past. The Advent Project from Biola University offered daily reflections that combined Scripture, visual art, music, poetry and brief comments.  Perhaps it was the integration of what was unfamiliar to me from the arts that primarily got my deeper attention.  Also, several of the contributors' comments served to awaken nuances of Christ's first coming in relevant ways - for me.
• Additionally, I paused with almost each reflection to write a few words, phrases or a poem to highlight what had particularly struck me.  They have found their way - in scribbled fashion - into a journal gifted by a son more than a year ago.
• While visiting Rachel and family, we joined them on Christmas Eve morning at their church in Gainesville.  The congregation had been depleted by the exodus of students and others for the holidays, so the singing was quite weak.  The pastor's youthfulness was in evidence, though he had obviously prepared thoughtfully.  I found myself caught, however, by his question at the conclusion of the sermon: What would it be like if we focused on Christ's second coming during Advent?"  That focus appealed to me at this point in my spiritual journey.  I found myself considering more carefully the real return of Christ, and prayerfully hoping to be more captivated by that eventuality.
• Remembering benefits from a personal read-through of the book of Revelation last January and taking to heart its invitation/promise:  Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near - we two spent New Year's Eve listening to the Apocalypse chapters 1-13; then, on New Year's Day, concluded with chapters 14-22.  Mysterious, uplifting, scary, Ultimate.

Check back in December 2018 for next developments.