Question: “How do you eat an elephant?”
Answer: “One bite at a time”
(insert chuckles here)
This well-known question / answer combo makes the point that you can tackle big questions, issues, topics or tasks if you just appreciate their bigness and then work things through slowly and steadily, bit by bit. Christmas is such an elephant. The story of Christmas, its significance and impact, is huge. The concept of God coming to live a lifetime on earth, starting out as a poor, vulnerable baby is mind-boggling in its implications for what life means and each of our places in it. Trying to get our heads around such a story and its implications is like eating an elephant, and not something that can sink in for us if we stop and consider it for just one day of the year.
This is what “Advent” is all about. Advent means “coming” or “arrival” and is a season of reflection in some church calendars that takes place in the month before Christmas Day. The idea of Advent is to eat the Christmas elephant one bite at a time. There is an appreciation of the bigness of the significance and impact of Christmas, and a valuing of taking time to reflect on it in the lead up to Christmas. With Advent, there are daily readings, prayers, reflections, hymns, special foods and colours, and ceremonies like the Advent Wreath. All of these “tools” are designed to help people to focus on the Christian message behind Christmas, so that they can step back from the other more commercial or vaguely warm and fuzzy messages of Christmas that flood our TV screens and mailboxes during this silly season.
I struggle with the Christmas season – and I’m a Christian! Something that has enabled me to survive the season without going completely nuts, is to carve out some time each day to remind myself that the most important thing .
If you are interested in doing some daily Advent reflections over the next month, there are plenty of options on the internet. “Just google it” as they say... I was looking around the other day and found 5 really good options – some of which were just PDFs of readings, others readings, prayers and reflections, and then some other online options that involved clicking here and there or subscribing to receive daily email reflections on your computer. I’ve included the two online options for you to have a look at:
Answer: “One bite at a time”
(insert chuckles here)
This well-known question / answer combo makes the point that you can tackle big questions, issues, topics or tasks if you just appreciate their bigness and then work things through slowly and steadily, bit by bit. Christmas is such an elephant. The story of Christmas, its significance and impact, is huge. The concept of God coming to live a lifetime on earth, starting out as a poor, vulnerable baby is mind-boggling in its implications for what life means and each of our places in it. Trying to get our heads around such a story and its implications is like eating an elephant, and not something that can sink in for us if we stop and consider it for just one day of the year.
This is what “Advent” is all about. Advent means “coming” or “arrival” and is a season of reflection in some church calendars that takes place in the month before Christmas Day. The idea of Advent is to eat the Christmas elephant one bite at a time. There is an appreciation of the bigness of the significance and impact of Christmas, and a valuing of taking time to reflect on it in the lead up to Christmas. With Advent, there are daily readings, prayers, reflections, hymns, special foods and colours, and ceremonies like the Advent Wreath. All of these “tools” are designed to help people to focus on the Christian message behind Christmas, so that they can step back from the other more commercial or vaguely warm and fuzzy messages of Christmas that flood our TV screens and mailboxes during this silly season.
I struggle with the Christmas season – and I’m a Christian! Something that has enabled me to survive the season without going completely nuts, is to carve out some time each day to remind myself that the most important thing .
If you are interested in doing some daily Advent reflections over the next month, there are plenty of options on the internet. “Just google it” as they say... I was looking around the other day and found 5 really good options – some of which were just PDFs of readings, others readings, prayers and reflections, and then some other online options that involved clicking here and there or subscribing to receive daily email reflections on your computer. I’ve included the two online options for you to have a look at:
1. http://www.caritas.org.au/advent/
2. http://i.ucc.org/FeedYourSpirit/Subscribe/tabid/101/Default.aspx
Okay, that’s it. Enjoy your Christmas elephant...
Shalom
