Shopping Spree and Me

Black Friday.  The two word in themselves seem a bit ominous to me.  Like some galactic space phenomenal space novel  or maybe an event of biblical prophecy. No such event though. The term "Black Friday" was coined in the 1960s, although I was still in high school in that "out of the way" town in Wyoming and never remember hearing the phrase until, maybe, the 80s. I do remember hearing and getting involved in helping kickoff the Christmas season when we moved to Florida.  I've since learned the "Black" refers to the ink pen when accounting records were kept by hand, and the red ink indicated a loss; black in profit.  Ever since the start of the modern Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in 1924, the Friday after Thanksgiving has been known as the unofficial start to a very marry holiday shopping season. My interest peeked a little bit when finding that the concept has caught on in the last couple of decades in Canada and as far away as Europe.  I can't wrap my mind around the fact that thousands of Americans cress-cross borders and the Atlantic with Canadians and, especially, Germans to buy gifts and celebrate the approaching Christmas season. Yep, yep, yahoo, I just can't wait for the evoking me into seller competition, steep sales and loud advertisements to make for a frenzied scene and the need for more stamina. Ya, right! Even preferring to watch from the house or shop I'm still not going to be able to miss the fervor that has already started with the internet, radio and television blaring advertisements of becoming involved. Not mentioning the hectic race that occurs in traffic and lines at the hardware store.  Beginning tomorrow, I'll be on guard as folks lace up their tennis shoes, preparing to outrun me, come Friday, to wherever and whatever, as if wherever will collapse and whatever will vanish by Saturday.  I'm thinking that probable I ought to just stand real still for a few days. For me, easier said than done.

Sitting here, this morning, I do realize that in the past, the commencement of the Christmas shopping season has sadly overshadowed the commencement of a far quieter season. The season of Advent!  I'm going to be intentional this season about watching for the signals of the coming of Christmas.  I was hit between my eyes when I read the words of Joan Chittister: "Advent is about the spirituality of emptiness, of enough-ness, of stripped-down fullness of soul." Now isn't that a far cry from the hustle of the holidays that is a race for storing things up? I'm not going to allow, as some years gone by, speed-hoarding through the days of Christmas preparation cause Christmas itself to become anticlimactic. "Long before December 25th everyone is worn out," said C.S. Lewis more than 50 years ago, "—physically worn out by weeks of daily struggle in overcrowded shops, mentally worn out by the effort to remember all the right recipients and to think out suitable gifts for them. They are in no trim for merry-making... They look far more as if there had been a long illness in the house." I think I've got it right; it's going to be quite the opposite.  This Advent is going to be a season meant to slow me down, letting it open my windows of awareness and health, to trigger consciousness. It's going to be all about finding the kind of quiet and the sort of emptiness that can expectantly offer a place for the fullness for You, God, as an infant I hold closer and more intimately to my breast.

Of course, no matter how quiet my heart, I know that You, the incarnate Christ will still be a mystery. But I'm continuing to find that mystery, like beauty and truth, is well worth stillness, wonder, and contemplation. And this mystery—the gift of a God who steps into the world He created—is rich enough to make my distracted soul bow. "Let anyone with ears listen!" said Jesus repeatedly throughout His life on earth. "But to what will I compare this generation?" he added. "It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another, 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.'" Matthew 11. Yes, I can open my mind to hear the great and unsearchable things I do not know, things like the Incarnation that I may never fully understand but have always been invited to know further. Or I can simply look for all of Christmas to correspond with societal whims and unconscious distractions.

You will come regardless. The hope of Advent is that it is always possible to make room for You. I was reminded awhile back of a young Jewish woman by the name of Etty Hillesum who wrote a remarkable set of journals during the darkest years of Nazi occupation before being sent to Auschwitz, where she died in 1943. In one of her entries, Etty wrote, "Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes." I'm thinking that Advent can be this simple; the invitation of Christ is this simple. I have ears and I intend to open them. I refuse, while contemplating Christmas to compile aggressive lists and budgets, put in endless labor, or spin in fretful commotion.

Father, God, thank You for convincing me that Advent is about the riches of being empty-handed; so that I can fully hold the Mystery before me and nothing less; empty-handed, like You, Who came down from heaven without riches or power, but meek and small—and full, expectant, and enough. Amen