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By this time of the year most of us have inundated by Christmas stuff. Shopping, cards, decorations. I see these houses with so many lights and do-dads that you can hardly get in the front door. I don’t think even Santa will be able to navigate through all those lights. Christmas is not presents nor cakes nor chestnuts roasting on an open fire or even family members coming from all over. Christmas is not even church services where we all go to enormous lengths to say "ta-da" to this holy time. I love all these things, but they aren’t the real Christmas. Christmas is mystery at its heart. 

I was visiting a 90-something-year-old who had just asked how things were going. I admitted I had too much on my plate and felt overwhelmed by it at that moment. She said, “I can’t remember the last time I was overwhelmed.” I was annoyed and ungenerous in my heart.

I bathed my 10-and-a-half-year-old daughter and washed her hair for the first time in at least six years. Thanks to her broken ring finger on her right hand, and a midnight blue fiberglass cast that can’t get wet, she needs help. At first, it felt odd to me, cleansing this independent and maturing child of mine. The last time that I did this, her body was mushy with adorable baby fat, and the tub was filled with bath toys.

I started singing in church choirs when I was  a teenager. There I learned to read music and find acceptance among the grown up singers. It was my church’s choir director who helped me find my spiritual voice again after a car accident that fractured my larynx. I went on to study vocal music, compose hymn lyrics and sing in choirs at my college, seminary and several churches over the years. There is a special kind of relationship that forms among choir members. Something about those rehearsals, with their jokes, irritations and prayer rituals, creates a spiritual bond that can’t be replicated anywhere else.

I got a phone call and it made me angry. It was a follow-up call from a local agency that helps people in trouble in our community. I had phoned them a while back, hoping for some context, some background on a particular couple who was asking our church for material assistance. But they hadn’t had time to respond and a decision had to be made. The people I was talking to were desperate. They couldn’t wait.  “Yeah, we know all about _______,” they said.

Recently I went to an ordination. I got to be present when a new pastor made her vows, promised to be faithful, put on her stole. I was thinking about how tired I get, sometimes. I was thinking about how everyone says the church is declining, on its way out. I thought back to the weekend before. It had been a busy Saturday at church.

How do you serve and support a healthy small faith community? That's one of the core questions of my doctoral research, and I've been wrestling with it as I've pored through dozens and dozens of books dealing with every form of small church life.

Advent is a time to keep watch for the unexpected comings of God, to prepare our own hearts to make room for the Blessed One, and to be ourselves signs to the world around us of divine compassion and justice. In a month that is already far too busy and rushed, these ten general practices are not offered as one more to-do list to work through, but as ways to slow down, take a breath, pay attention, and make room in our lives for the birth of the Holy.

Some children’s greatest fears live underneath their beds, and their parents have gotten up many a weary night and gone to their child’s bedroom, flashlight in hand, lifted the covers, shone the light on the dusty floor, and proved, once again, that there is no monster. When I was a boy, I had a recurring dream about a giant, scowling, and mean-eyed lumberjack.

Where do we see the holy? Where do we catch glimpses of grace? Where is God most present in our world? Maybe we think of grand cathedrals, where centuries-old art and architecture reflects the beauty and glory of God. Or perhaps a glimmering ocean sunset where the light dances to a tune of divine artistry.  But rarely will we think of a dirty homeless person rambling in the street.

Advent is upon us, and I’m just not feeling it this year. Granted, it is only the first week, but I’m not sure I can muster up all the mystery and purple and candles again this year. On Sunday I heard myself say in my sermon something about making our hearts ready to receive the Christ Child this season. I said it as I have said it every Advent for the last 21 years. And later while I was doing the dishes I realized that I haven’t the foggiest idea what I mean by that.

In one of the cabinets of my office, I keep a small glass holder big enough for a single tea light candle. I received it my first semester of seminary, during which I'd taken a class called Spiritual Formation. It was an oasis during a rough period of adjustment.

In the aftermath of last night's rioting in Ferguson, Jeff Krehbiel, a friend and colleague, posted a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. on his Facebook page.  Clearly he was not addressing the events in Ferguson, but the words ring true for today's headlines and for today's America.

I had a massage from an excellent massage therapist recently, and discovered my body is full of knots. What was supposed to be a relaxing experience became a confrontation with unaddressed pain, as I discovered that I am in pretty bad shape.