Like a blanket...

Dear Friends,

Days of preparation. We all know the holidays are a busy time - parties and dinners and gatherings and shopping for gifts and decorating. For some of us, this is a much leaner year, in terms of shopping, of buying - but is it also a year of less activity?

The season before Christmas - the Christian Festival of Light - Advent, meant Coming, or Waiting. Advent is a precious season of its own, so often forgotten in the lights and the loud music and the activity that surrounds the holidays. We are not much inclined toward the deeper, darker seasons. But we all have our dark seasons of life - those times when the darkness engulfs us and there seems to be no end to our suffering, to our waiting for this to pass. And that is the season of Advent, that season of sombre waiting.

However busy you may be this season, take time for the Waiting, for the activity that is not an activity, but a kind of active stopping. Sit when you don't feel like sitting. Stop when you have too much to do. Breathe when your calendar overwhelms you. Honor the darkness that is within you, as well as the light.

Warmly,
meb