Raise your glass!

I know everyone says this, but that doesn’t make it less true – it is almost impossible to imagine or believe that we are nearing the end of the second week of January 2013?! Especially since 2012 is still lurking around unashamedly as the huge elephant in the room. At this point I feel I have to confess that “discipline” is one of my 5 strengths, which means that I love having even the false sense of security that everything in my life is either neatly tied up with a bow already, or fast approaching that state. 

This is especially true over the Festive/New Year Season – a time advertised as a time of rest, of looking back and evaluating, and a time for planning ahead. And all of this is advertised as usually taking place in utter calm in some or other meditative position, with the most beautiful of surroundings. This picture, this idea, makes me feel happy and calm – even a little in control :) And yet, that is not how life works…Instead of calm and beauty and meditation, I find myself still sinking knee-deep in last year’s unfinished things. There is no time for “filing” and “clean-up” and “beginning anew”, for 2013 is already starting to pile things onto the heap that has spilled over from 2012 – some of it new, some of it old with new faces, some of it just old.

Which means that, instead of the rejuvenated and shiny me that I was hoping would lightly skip into this new year, it’s just the same old me…maybe even a little more tired…Not exactly the romantic picture everyone dreams of, I know.  A picture that is so firmly etched into my being that I have been struggling to write a new blog post – simply because I am not feeling all champagne bubbly.

So, what do I say to myself? How do I inspire myself, and the possible one or two others out there who are having the same experience as me, to “keep on trucking”?  Even though last year has decided to tag along, and this year is already proving complicated? Maybe by starting with two age-old sayings that, at least for some of us, will always prove to be true – “That’s life” and “Shit happens”. 

Yes, it did not work out as I secretly, romantically (and naively) hoped for. But it can still be mostly a good year! Some of the things I have to drag along aren’t things I can get rid of. But some of them I can. Some of my time being taken I cannot take back. But some of it I can. I cannot always be in control of every aspect of my life, but that doesn’t mean I have no control. It’s as easy and as insanely difficult as that. 

Which leads me to a prayer my grandmother always gave me - one that frustrated the hell out of me because that’s not the life I wanted – that makes all the sense in the world now: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen.” – Reinhold Niebuhr

My only New Year’s resolution? To create (read force!) space into every day to pray this, to be with God. I have a feeling that the rest will take care of itself.

'Tis the Season!

Four of us were sitting around the table on Sunday evening, lamenting a little because of the Christmas “celebrations” to come. Not because of Christmas as such, but because of all the drama that usually accompanies the festive season – and if you’re not lucky enough to live in “Seventh Heaven”, you’ll know what I mean. Then someone mentioned that they have a friend, an outspoken atheist, who is more excited about Christmas and making it special than all of us combined. How strange…and yet not…

Christmas has become everyone’s special day, but for all the wrong reasons. For when almost all of us think about Christmas, we think about the logistics of the day and the gathering. We worry about what gifts to give, and we dreamingly anticipate what we might be receiving. On the day we might go to a Christmas service, or we might sing a few Christmas hymns and read the Nativity Story. But then it’s on with the busy rigmarole that Christmas has become.

Now, lots of churches have instated the celebration of Advent, with a candle being lit every Sunday of the month approaching Christmas. The whole service might even be centred on the theme that accompanies each of the four candles. But how much of that goes home with us? How much of that can be seen in our every day leading up to (and following) Christmas?

“The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before. What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God's [back] fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running, for rushing, for worrying, for pushing. For now: stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon.” - Jan L. Richardson

How much of what Christmas has lost is because we - those of us who believe there is a reason for the season - have lost focus. Have lost the spirit of hopeful expectation. Have given up on celebrating the promise that Christmas is. And so, let us approach Christmas with an expectant hush, rather than a never-ending last-minute rush. In this will our witness be found. Will it change the way the world sees and celebrates Christmas? Little by little, it might. Will it change us? Without a doubt!

“During this Advent season as we celebrate the new relationship between God and his people, may that be mirrored in our renewed relationships with spouses, children, family and those near and dear to us. May we speak tenderly to each other amidst all the rush of the season and transform the shopping days till Christmas into the true Advent of Christ.” - Casely Essamuah “You keep us waiting. You, the God of all time, want us to wait. For the right time in which to discover whom we are, where we are to go, who will be with us, and what we must do. So thank you…for the waiting time." - John Bell