The 1st

It's that time of year again where I try to blog each day. I do this for Lent and Advent as it helps me to focus each day on the spiritual preparation that leads up to Easter and Christmas.

I had all sorts of ideas of what I might do for Advent but as the simplest idea is usually the most achievable I'm using Mary Fleeson's Advent prayers and the daily readings and meditations from The Northumbria Community, probably with a bit of Richard Rohr thrown in! Ok, that sounds more complicated than it is.

The prayer card suggests that each day you write down something that makes you joyful, something which you're thankful for and something which you feel helpless about. Whatever your belief system this is a useful way to evaluate and reflect upon your day.

I've been off work all this week to try and prepare myself (both physically by sorting out stuff at home, and mentally by finding some head space) for Advent. For the rest of the world Christmas has already begun, but in my tradition of the Anglican faith, and especially for myself as a priest, it's a time (like Lent) of spiritual preparation, patience, anticipation and waiting.

Four years ago on Advent Sunday I preached my first sermon, all about the anticipation of Advent. It's a difficult balance to find between wanting to celebrate - to immerse myself in the festivities around me - and to keep it as a time of preparation. Chronicling all this in the blog helps me to hold that tension and keep that balance.

Today: I found joy in laughing with my family at the cinema (Paddington 2 - pure distilled joy), I am thankful that I was able to take leave from work this week and I feel helpless about certain unstable world political situations.

Reflection:
Hurry is an unpleasant thing in itself, but also very unpleasant for whoever is around it. Some people came into my room and rushed in and rushed out and even when they were there they were not there – they were in the moment ahead or the moment behind. Some people who came in just for a moment were all there, completely in that moment.

Live from day to day, just from day to day. If you do so, you worry less and live more richly. If you let yourself be absorbed completely, if you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Scripture:
The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love. — Galatians 5:6