Not your normal Advent reflection

I'm posting the Advent Week 4 picture because we're just about there.  I haven't followed through as I intended with any of my Advent commitments, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time commenting on that.  There have been a few moments of grace this season, and I'm so thankful for that.  But the season has also been very difficult: for people in our country, for some people around me, and for me personally.

We all know about the tragedy in Newtown, CT.  No description is necessary to explain that there is pain surrounding the tragic and senseless taking of life.  In fact, I would say no description could do justice to what those in Newtown and those connected to Newtown are experiencing.

My extended family has experienced the unexpected loss of a much-too-young beloved life, and one who is like family to me has experienced losing someone who has lived a long and beautiful life.  While age and circumstance may sometimes affect the level of surprise one has when losing a loved one, age and circumstance don't dictate how loved a person is and how much that person will be missed.  My heart aches so much when people I love are hurt.

Last night was the beginning of my Christmas "vacation" from work, and it should have been fun and relaxing.  It was horrible.  The friends I mentioned in my Advent Week 1 post, the ones to whom I sent the Christmas card and invitation to talk over what had come between us, none of them have responded to me.  I had my annual Christmas party, and I couldn't invite them because they didn't want to talk to me.  They used to be the first on the list.  On two separate occasions, I encountered one of them.  (Two different people on two different occasions.)  Last night was the second of those occasions.  Suffice it to say, the silent rejection was made more than clear last night, and the evening ended with tears in the car and a truly crappy beginning to what is supposed to be days of joyous celebration.

Sometimes those four little candles on the Advent wreath seem to mock the idea of hope rather than instill hope.  In so much darkness, whether in the world or in my own little corner of it, how much darkness can those little candles light?  And while the Light may have come into the world on Christmas, can the celebration of that day really dispel darkness in the world? in my world?

I'm sure that when Jesus was born, there was disappointment and even some despair when the angels and the magi went away and the world appeared to go to back to normal, a normal that was oppressive to so many people.  I bet that the world seemed very dark to people at times, even though Jesus was a little child growing up into a man who wasn't just man but was God, and this God-man would change the world and eternity.

Jesus didn't make the world perfect, and he didn't take away pain and suffering in this life.  He couldn't because that would take away our humanity.  He never wanted it to be this way, but the choice in the Garden change everything.  Jesus has lived through pain and suffering himself and stays with us during times in our lives when we endure it.

When Jesus fulfilled the promises of the prophets, he did so in ways that no one imagined.  Sometimes that hurt or angered people who refused to participate unless Jesus did things on their terms.  And probably learning that life isn't really about getting what we want is one the most important things that we can learn.

I can't bring any of the Newtown victims or my family's loved ones back to life.  I can't trade places with any of them.  I cannot make my former friends want to give and to seek forgiveness, healing, or peace, or even make them recognize that they have been wrong, too.  There is nothing I can do to make my hurt disappear.

The Christmas season (which, in the "real" world) starts sometime around Thanksgiving, is very difficult for people who mourn the loss of a loved one, struggle with depression, are lonely, or have so many other "hidden" hurts, injuries, and sorrows.  The constant barrage of images, movies, and scenes of the "perfect" Christmas highlight what is missing and sometimes makes a hurting person feel alienated and more alone.  It can highlight the darkness in one's own life.

And so those four little candles, and then the light of Christ whose birth we prepare to celebrate, well, I have to let them remind me that there is someone who is with me, with my family, with the world when times are unbearable.  He is bigger than the unbearable, and he can bear it for us and with us.  And some day, every tear will be wiped away.  That is the ultimate hope to cling to as we draw near to Christmas.

Advent 2012: Week 1

Going into Advent, I was REALLY certain I was going to be able to dedicate myself to preparing for Christmas like I've never prepared before.  I was committed.  I was going to set aside so much time for God he was going to get bored with me.  It all sounded so good and I really thought that yes, this year, I'd be ready to celebrate the Incarnation and the Second Coming on December 25th.

I literally didn't make it through Sunday Week 1.

This year, children/youth in our faith formation and school programs at Saint Ambrose have received a weekly journal to help them focus on the "People of Faith" from each of the Sunday Gospels.  Week 1 focuses on the Prophets.  Since I am asking my catechists and my students to pray with the Gospels and reflect with the journals each week, it seemed only fair that I do the same.

I was really proud of the fact that I read the Gospel and worked on the journal several days in advance.  I was prepared for the Sunday liturgy by reflecting in advance, right?

Each week the journal asks the students (and therefore, me) to make some sort of commitment to help us live as People of Faith, following the example of those in our Gospels.  The reflection for Week 1 asked me to list four things I would do to show that I am a "Person of Faith" and to prepare for Jesus' coming.  My four responses were:

• Read "The Little Blue Book" daily
• Write a Christmas card each day to someone I've been meaning to contact - no generic cards to people I see all of the time.
• Write a weekly online reflection
• Go to confession once during Advent

So Advent, Day 1, I was up too late the night before.  That Day 1, I slept in, zipped over to a Christmas family reunion, and then zipped to work (in time for 5:00 PM Mass, since I didn't get up in time for morning Mass).  After work, I came home and wrote a post for www.puckettspond.com, where I am the Editor.  By the time I finished, it had reached the wee hours of Monday morning.

Drat.  I'd already messed up my Advent commitment, and it was just barely Day 2, so early it doesn't even count as Day 2.

I could barely keep my eyes open, so I wasn't going to write a card.  I wanted to do my reflection a few days in advance, like the previous Thursday.  But, what was one more day late going to hurt? There will be opportunity for confession, and anyway, there are quite a few things I don't want to face just yet, so I put that off.  At minimum, I could read the Little Blue Book before I went to bed.

Since it was Advent Day 1, the LBB suggested making an Advent commitment.  Easy!  Not only had I made a commitment, I'd already made four of them!  However, as I kept going through the entry, my heart sank.  Right there, in the entry was the "suggestion" that the reader (me) write a Christmas card to someone I was not on good terms with.

Ah, crap.

That LBB reflection, added to a few other recent things, was clearly an invitation by the Holy Spirit  (read:  really strong suggestion) to reach out to a small group of people with whom I used to be close friends.  I had been trying to figure out how to talk with these friends, and I hadn't been able to do it.  In fact, I'd given up.  I'd been so hurt that I decided it was easier to push them away all the time, even when they were in a place where they accepted me.  It was better for me to give up the good times in order to prevent the bad.

But the HS was basically telling me I HAD to write these cards.  Of course, I had free will in the matter.  It was just one of those moments where it was clear that the HS was really telling me that was the best idea.

Great.

It's not fair for me or for these friends to put any other details here, especially because we have never talked about any of this.  Today was the first day they could have received my Christmas cards.  I don't know yet if they did.  My hope is that they will accept the invitation to peace, whether our friendship continues or not.  I try not to care, but I do, so very much.  And I struggle with frustration with the Holy Spirit for urging me to put myself out there once again.  Despite all my failings (and they are SO very many), I try so hard to make my friends and family happy.  I hate that I fail and I hate that I'm not good enough most of the time, and I hate that I have felt so hurt and betrayed, and that I haven't had the courage to stand up and stop it before it became this disjointed.

And so I return to Sunday Week 1's Gospel, which I originally assumed would be the focus of this reflection.  I should know better than to make assumptions when it comes to the Holy Spirit.  In the Week 1 Gospel, the world is experiencing extreme tribulations, scary enough that people die of fright.  And yet, the Gospel urges us to vigilance and to persevere through the extreme difficulty.  There are some truly bad situations so many real people experience in our world - natural disasters, political wars, and abject poverty.  At the same time, those of us who are blessed with relative security most of the time still experience difficulties that seem beyond our control.  I truly believe the LBB, and even this Gospel, was meant to make me think of the friends I mentioned above.  I believe that they deserved a contact, whether I gain peace or whether I am spurned.

Truly, this is such a difficult Gospel.  What does one say?  For me, I have a feeling that my idea of a quiet, small introduction to the season was torpedoed early on; how do I keep the focus?  How do I handle my former friends completely pushing away?  How do I handle it if they try to make an effort?