Ask for God's Light This Advent

Friends

    Peace be with you

    This weekend, we begin the great season of Advent. Please stay in Advent and don’t rush to Christmas. On November 16, I had a wonderful evening at the Paramount Theater watching the movie Home Alone while Orchestra Iowa played the music to it live. It’s the second or third movie that I’ve watched this way and, even though I suspect it’s meant to help ease people into listening to orchestra music, I love it. There is something especially thrilling about watching the orchestra make the music I associate with the movie, mostly done by the paradigmatic composer John Williams. My only tinge of regret is how heavily Christmas themed that movie is. I tend to think of it as a movie about a kid hilariously foiling a couple of thieves from stealing from his house but there’s a lot of Christmas in it and it was TOO SOON! So, I’m encouraging you to not usurp Advent. 

    Advent is a time all about preparing the way for the Lord. It can be a good time to go to confession, though, in truth, being conscious of serious sin is a good time to go to confession, not just one season out of the year. A better way of preparing the way is to think of the darkness in your life and bring light to it. I can get rather pessimistic. I’m not a big fan of basketball, for instance. Please don’t take offense if it’s your favorite sport, it’s just not mine. I find, if someone asks me about it, I tend to complain about how the players don’t care like they used to and how they get away with traveling and double dribbling a lot more than they used to. See what I mean? I complain. I should look for something good in basketball. I can, undoubtedly, find bad things happening in basketball. What if I asked Christ to shine the light on good things happening in basketball? Maybe I’ll find a story about the University of Nebraska basketball players traveling all the way to Bellevue, Iowa to put on a clinic in support of a little boy with health problems. 

    Do you have family members or former friends you struggle to get along with? Maybe you could ask God to shine his light on that relationship. Ask God to open up a way to communicate with them. Personally, I know some of my friends are upset at me about some of my political stances from the last election and I’ve put off talking to them about how we can get along because I fear the conversation won’t go well. I’m going to turn it over to Jesus and ask him to shine his light on how I might best have these conversations. 

    In some ways, Advent is like watching a sunrise; something most of us probably don’t do. It doesn’t happen all at once and it’s darkest right before the first rays of light appear. But, when it starts, it goes as fast or as slow as the sun wants to rise. Part of that has to do with our expectations of what “fast” and “slow” means. But part of it is also just watching it and noticing it. When we notice darkness in our lives, we can’t run away from it. We can’t always fight it and expect a good outcome. But, we can turn it over to the Lord and let him shine his light on it.