Saturday, December 14, 2013

Slow Advent



Recently I received an email from Orion magazine, an excellent publication which began this way:

"I believe that slowness is an act of resistance, not because slowness is a good in itself but because of all it makes room for, the things that don't get measured and can't be bought."
Rebecca Solnit Finding Time Orion Magazine

You’ve heard of Slow Food and Slow Money; there are also movements for Slow Gardening, Slow Cities, and Slow Parenting. Orion is Slow Reading—thoughtful, deep, imaginative, carefully researched, and concerned with the more complex ideas and problems and joys of our time. 

It made me wonder if I am honest about Advent in my practice, despite what I say from the pulpit and in print. Advent is meant to be a time of meaningful reflection on Jesus' first coming and the prospect of the "time between" which the season represents. I find that I am physically slowing down from my "able to leap tall buildings in a single bound" early years of ministry. Ordained at age 25, in an earlier phase of ministry,  I was here, there and everywhere in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I just can't do what I once did, nor do I really want to, although I'm not immune to guilt about it. I find myself awake in the early hours yearning for the experience of Jesus in my spirit, not more Jesus talk. 

I don't want to be heretical, but I would be pleased if Advent was a time for less churchy stuff rather than more, and that we chose to live expressively and faithfully through all the seasons of the Christian year. Or at least that there were more contemplative moments. I suppose I'm saying that somehow choosing"Slow Advent" would be spiritually and physically beneficial.

Are there ways you choose to opt out of the break-neck speed of the season or are you "all in?"  Is this just me, or do others of you feel that Slow Advent isn't a bad idea? Could it be an act of faithful resistance?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Good idea to take some time to chill out whenever you can during this busy season - the result of not doing so can mean the start to a sick New Year!

colinm said...

We put up the tree today. That's it-lights and deco's can be added later. While we assembled the tree we listened to Handel's Messiah. "For unto us a son is born...for unto us a son is given".