The Season of Hope

This week we celebrate hope. We light the prophecy candle on our Advent Wreath and focus on the hope of the coming of the child that will save us all.

St. Paul tells us that there are three lasting things: faith, hope, and love. I find it hard to separate hope and faith. When I see one, I see the other. But hope has a character of its own. Hope is not simply an emotion or virtue, it is a way of life.

I had a professor once who told me that hope is an unsatisfactory view of the present, a satisfactory view of the future, and a commitment to change. Absent the commitment, it’s not hope.

It’s whining.

We whine well. We have perfected complaining. We blame. We rationalize. We pout.

But do we hope? Are we committed to making a change in our hearts, our homes, our lives? Do we desire that which we do not have and are we committed to letting God work through us to achieve it? Are we willing to place our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit?

Are we willing to allow hope to stand beside us like a friend, no matter how desperate we might feel, knowing that with the help of the Spirit, life can be better?

Or are we okay with whining?

Have a good week.

Waiting

I had a few visits with mom and said my goodbyes.

There will be plenty of time to reflect on her life and the gifts she gave her children, but for now, we wait. When I arrived, she was in a wheelchair. When I left three days later, she was in bed nearing the end.

It was a heartbreaking scene as she began vocalizing all the pain and confusion and memories and whatever else was flowing through her mind. The sounds echoed up and down the hall – a combination of screams and moans and howls and cries. You could make out a few words here and there, but the clearest was, “Help me….”

The anguish of a soul not ready to go home, perhaps fearful of what awaits or simply a person in pain, only made worse by the inability to articulate.

Finally, the staff got its act together enough to give her medicine and my sisters and I ducked out before the younger sibling stormed the castle, enraged by my speaking truth to her supposed power.

Mom is on morphine now, if only to keep the screaming to a minimum and to take advantage of modern medicine’s gift to the final journey: a peaceful transition.

Advent is the season of waiting. So as we wait for the coming of the Christ child, we also pray for another child of God to head home and rest in peace.

It’s time once again for the story to be told

The readings this week are all over the place, especially our Gospel readings. We hear about the genealogy of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, the prediction and conception of John the Baptist, then back to the Annunciation and final, on Friday, Mary’s visit to Elizabeth. Yes, the readings are all over the place.

Still, they are a good reminder about what we will gather next week to celebrate – God in the flesh. The miracle of the incarnation. Not unlike all of us, scattering from store to store, room to room, shopping and wrapping, dusting and decorating, this time of year is filled with a story here, a story there, a time-honored tradition of where the tree goes and who puts the star on top, and then a pause to reflect on why we do what we do.

The miracle, the wonder, the amazing bits and pieces of the story remain. There is great beauty in the truth of the story. God skips nothing: not the frantic eruption of birth or the numbness of death – through Jesus, God enters fully into humanity, even as He invites us to share in His divinity.

When I was a child, we would go as a family to the Knoxville Nativity Pageant. Every year. And every year, the narration was the same, the actors were the same, the parts were the same, the choir sang pretty much the same songs every year. And yet it was powerful and inspiring every single year. There was a line at the beginning and the end that I remember well. I can still hear the man’s voice when I close my eyes and think of those hard, wooden chairs and the smell of that parking garage.

“It is time, once again, for the story to be told. A story of peace. Of goodness. Of God as Man. It must be told. And it’s greatest beauty is its truth.”

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. May we be prepared to greet you.

Anticipation

The children are planning for Christmas. They are making lists and comparing them with each other, making sure that they do not overwhelm Santa or Mom and Dad. I think they also want to make sure they do not repeat on one list what is asked on another.

When we moved to Connecticut, we started a new tradition. The children’s list can include only four items:

One thing you want.
One thing you need.
One thing you wear.
One thing you read.

For the sake of tradition, we also allowed one thing from Santa. The practice requires thought, planning, and maybe a little scheming. In the end, however, it has been a great move. Gone are the days of the endless list of toys that will litter the basement – we already have plenty of Legos for that. Gone, too, are the days of trying to count to make sure every child receives the same amount. The lists are simple and direct. Needs are identified and answered. There are still “family gifts” like the Nintendo Wii that appeared a few years ago and still haunt us, or the Lego Millennium Falcon, which did not actually get put together until just a few months ago, so it is not as if anyone is cheated by the new tradition.

The youngest has been asking for a few days when we can start decorating, but until the leaves are out of the yard, it just seems too soon. The liturgical calendar requires we “do” Advent first, but I think the tree may appear this weekend. After a whirlwind few weeks of attending the National Catholic Youth Conference and celebrating Thanksgiving on the road, visiting family and friends, and going to the movies (you really should see Coco), the school bus arrived on time this morning and the family is settling back into our routine.

I am taking a few days off this week, making use of the vacation days I will lose if they go unused. There are plenty of chores to do around the house, but my guess is that I will work from home while I pretend to get some reading and writing finished for school.

As we head towards the season of waiting, may your week be filled with the hope and anticipation that can always be found this time of year in a house filled with children.

~pjd

Waiting

We have lots of projects at home that are almost finished.

The sunroom is waiting for trim around the windows and tile around the doors. The attic is waiting for the access door for the under-the-eaves storage and trim around the baseboards. The basement is waiting for trim and a few doors. All of them are waiting for funding.

But the important pieces are together. We made a conscious decision when we moved in that the first projects we would tackle would be the ones that benefited the kids most. The sunroom and attic only got tossed in because, let’s face it, when you have the guy here doing windows in one room, he might as well do both rooms. Same for the drywall guy.

Maureen and I will frame a room without hesitation. We’ll even insulate and conquer the electricity. Our good friend Fr. Joe comes to visit and we put him to work with a drill. But doing drywall is an art and we have a guy, Yves, who does it like no other. Unfortunately, that means he also is booked way in advance. We have used a substitute for some other projects and always end up going back to Yves. So this time we are waiting for him, at least for the pieces of drywall needed around the windows in the sunroom.

But the basement has come together nicely. Fr. Joe and I hung the screen a few weeks ago and we wired all the speakers before we put the walls up, so those are finished too. The carpet went in a few weeks ago and this weekend we painted the shelving we built and unpacked the rest of the toys. With the unpacking of the Tonka trucks and Fisher Price Little People houses, airports, and village, the seven year old announced, “Finally, it’s our basement.”

They waited a long time to unpack their toys and since the toys are filled the shelves, I announced there is really no room for any new ones, so Christmas should be easy. That was not well received.

Still, for Christmas in our new house we have adopted a new tradition. Four gifts: one thing you want, one thing you need, one thing you wear, and one thing you read. The kids have had a great time narrowing the choices down and discerning between “need” and “want” – (i.e., “You want a puppy. You don’t need a puppy.”)

We are still in negotiations about whether Santa will bring an additional gift. Since dad tends to buy anytime there is a sale and then store things in a closet, Santa’s chances are looking good.

When all was done and we settled down to watch a Sunday night (extra) movie, the eldest child commented that Advent should be easy for us. It’s been a year of waiting. Waiting for house, waiting to be reunited, waiting for rooms to be ready, waiting to unpack, waiting for people to visit. There are still many boxes to go and not enough pictures on the wall to satisfy all the children, but we are still sorting out furniture and what goes where. It seems that the waiting will continue.

May your week be blessed and your Advent patience be abundant.