Hello, friends and Joes (plumber Joes, G.I. Joes, regular Joes, cups of Joe, and pilgrim Joes). Today is the first day of Advent and I'm drinking and smoking and writing to forget a horrendous game of Madden 18 where I threw a pick-6 tied 14-14 in the 4th with under a minute left on the clock. Football doesn't get me in the writing mood, win or lose, but definitely lose, and especially a loss like that. I'd be better off going to the gym, working out my temple of the Holy Spirit, but I've already ran 2 miles today and if I don't start this now I'll be up until the second day of Advent.
I think it might be easier to take a loss like that on a beach in Kona, Hawaii as opposed to a small town in Northeast, Indiana where the quaint, historic downtown has more sheet metal than freshly pointed old brick. But thems the breaks. And now it's December, and it's colder, and darker, and I have to write each and every night until Christmas comes. Last year I followed a $15 liturgical calendar which I think I ordered again last week but it hasn't arrived yet. This year I'm using Christmastide by Phillip Tickle to Sherpa me through Advent.
I also have Walden and part of Thoreau's journal next to me, just in case. In his Dec. 6th, 1854 entry (age 37) he wrote:
After lecturing twice this winter I feel that I am in danger of cheapening myself by trying to become a successful lecturer, i.e., to interest my audiences. I am disappointed to find that most that I am and value myself for is lost, or worse than lost, on my audience. I fail to get even the attention of the mass. I should suit them better if I suit myself less. I feel that the public demand an average man - average thoughts and manner - not originality, not even absolute excellence. You cannot interest them except as you are like them and sympathize with them. I would rather that my audience come to me than that I should go to them, and so they be sifted; i.e., I would rather write books than lectures.
And so I blog. And I try to avoid Thoreau's danger, and I do not cheapen myself, and I deal with no stares from disinterested audiences, or yawns or glances at the watch. I write for me, not for consumption. But come as you are, read if you wish, join me on this pilgrimage. Journey through Advent with me, pull it apart, test it for yourself, until Christmas morning comes and we can put it all behind us for another year. But for now, God is coming. God is on the move.
What would you do if you received news that "God is on the move"? Thank you Amber from this morning's Advent sermon for this Lewis-esque imagery.
God is on the move.
I read Lion and the Witch a few months ago but suddenly I feel the need to read it again.
If I heard that "God is on the move," I know what I'd do. To borrow a phrase (nay, a judgement) from my friend, Jennifer, I'd let the mystic inside me finally win out against troll. That's not just some saying she came up with, that's her sermon for me, that's her "repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand." That's lady Jennifer the Baptist tellin' me to check myself before I wreck myself. And it's Advent that maybe gives us the eyes to see a Facebook comment as something more than a Facebook comment, maybe a sermon, a cold drink after a run under the Thanksgiving sky, a "come on down to the river to pray," where you can relax those jaw muscles and let your paramour love you as much as she wants, all the time, whatever it takes. That's the danger Thoreau doesn't discuss, of cheapening yourself - not for others, but for yourself. To avoid, to protect, to get on with life. Advent is not the season for "getting on with life."
Jesus said to his disciples: "Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come."
I'm nowhere near as good at this as Ben Camino, who had me clapping along with his Ironic Advent Meditation as he insulted some Ordinary guy from Ohio. "You insulted him a little bit, [Ben], you got a little out of order yourself," so sayeth the great Robert De Niro.
Ben, I read a book called Perks of Being a Wallflower when I was 16 during Life Science class and "Landslide" was a big part of the penultimate driving-a-truck-through-a-tunnel moment in that gay, emo, early 2000s paperback novel, or at least that's how I remember it. A girlfriend I was trying to impress always carried it around in her bag and so I read it. That's not where I first heard the song, mind you. I was a classic rock kid. Creed and the other 00s bands were shit to me. I wanted Zeppelin, The Eagles, AC/DC. I knew "Landslide" was from Nicks, formerly of Fleetwood Mac (I listened to "Go Your Own Way" when that same girl was both breaking up with me and when I finally broke up with her). Ben, "Landslide" is really important to Millennials. It meant something to us. It may be the only thing I remember from Life Science.
"Can I handle the seasons of my life? I don't know."
Maybe the best thing about that song is the guitar picking, or Stevie Nicks' ghostly voice.
"I've been 'fraid of changin' 'cuz I built my life around you."
That sticks. That really sticks. Can I build my life around no one? In a cabin? In the woods? I want to. I don't know if I can. I don't know if I'm called to that. Or maybe I'm called to that and more. In the space in between. Between the woods and something else. Between the waiting and the arrival. That's Advent. This weird space where "Landslide" means something and doesn't mean anything at all and you find the meaning in the beauty and you listen to it on YouTube and Tom Petty starts playing, a voice from beyond the grave, another rock star I listened to when I was 17. "Learning to Fly."
"The good old days, may not return, the rocks might melt, and the sea may burn."
I don't even know what that means, but I learned something from it. Sometimes it helps to have a songwriter point out the obvious. And at least it wasn't Creed.
In Christmastide Vespers Office for the Sunday of the first week of Advent, there's a prayer:
Almighty God, give all of us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in that last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
If you're in this with me, if you're reading your way through Advent, burning your candle, then I guess we ought to prepare for life immortal, "The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and it may now send its shoots upward also with confidence. Why has man rooted himself firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above?" That's the quote from Thoreau I put at the top of this blog a year ago. We are made for these times. If you think you aren't quite right, remember: you were made for this. That applies to basically everything, unless, I guess, it's sinful, in which case it doesn't apply, and if you feel like you're made for something sinful, well, you've got bigger problems than this Advent blog can handle. But it definitely applies to Advent. We were made for this.
Today was the first Sunday of Advent. We made it through. Maybe hope sustained us, maybe it was the veggie omelet from Johnny's in Huntington. I hear a 2am train in the distance and it's lulling me to sleep. Be well, pilgrim. I'll see you tomorrow.
~~~~~
You are my amante. I love you. Tomorrow/today is Monday. Have courage. Life is good. You are good. You are better than good. You are a woman made to wait on the Lord and worship and serve and love and lead and you do these things well. You are an inspiration to me, your overcoming, your cooking, your advice. I am 2 beers, 5 blunts, and 2 cups of coffee into this first Sunday of Advent and I tell you baby that if it ain't you it ain't no one, you're my amante, that's Spanish for lover, and that's a good thing. You're a good thing. In 7 minutes it's gonna be Monday, the first Monday of Advent, and I love the feel of your cheeks, your face, on my lips, under my nose, and how your face moves into a smile when I kiss you there. Today is Advent and I'm waiting on myself to be the man I know I can be for you. Amen.
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