Happy New Year!

Yes, I mean...today, November 29th, 2009. Today marks the first day of a new year. I didn't hear of any New Year's Eve parties. But maybe there needs to be a New Year's Eve party! For most this day passes in silence with hardly a notice. I didn't hear anyone talking about their New Year's resolution either. And likewise there were far fewer adds on television about losing all those "holiday" pounds. Yet, maybe this is why we need to have a New Year's Eve party. No, not to help us lose the pounds, but to help us think about how we will live out the first season of this new year. Most people are still recovering from calorie comatose and shopping mania so there is little energy to even think about another party. Yet today is a special day. Today is the first Sunday of Advent. For churches across the world who join in rhythm with the Christian calendar today was in fact New Year's Day. Maybe next year there can be a party. I'm not sure there is a need for fanfare or fireworks. There is just a need for awareness and intention.

Happy New Years!

It is time to begin again. It is time to reflect on what has been, be present to what is, and look forward to what we hope will be. And we have a season--called Advent--to help us do this. The culture around us (even the Christian culture) wants to skip right over the season of preparation and head right into the second season of the year--Christmas. How different the season of Christmas would be if we prepared, listened and waited well during Advent. Mothers who give birth have themselves a season of preparation, listening and waiting. Imagine if a child was conceived and birthed all in a day. I imagine most of those births would come with more shock than joy. And isn't that what often happens with Christmas? We are shocked that it is here already and stressed by the obligations and expectations that come with its arrival. We are totally unprepared and unable to be present with what awaits us. There is so much more for us than shock.

As this new year begins with the season of Advent we are invited into a life of preparation, listening and waiting. There isn't a more difficult time of the calander year to prepare for God. Life is so full of other preparations. The fullness of time gives us all the more reason to prepare for Him. How will we prepare? We are invited to carve out space to listen to what God has done, is doing and will do. In the hustle and bustle of December so many of us could use moments of silence and stillness to help us focus ourselves back on the one who holds our time. As we listen during Advent we prepare ourselves to experience those grace filled moments when God reveals His incarnated presense; the presence that comes through His Spirit at work in us for others and in others for us. Our listening is a posture of waiting. We wait to see with more clarity what God is doing in our lives and in this world. We wait with hope. For one day we will see His work come to perfection--in us and in the world. Yet without preparation, listening and waiting we'd never even notice that there is a living God who is preparing for, listening to and waiting for us.

Happy New Year everyone! May we all prepare, listen and wait this Advent Season for the living God among us.