Advent: Hope

This Christmas season I find myself reflective and content. A year ago lonesome and homesick, Patrick and I practically wished our favorite time of the year away for longing of friends and family. But this year, we find so many reasons to celebrate, to be grateful, to embrace the season of Advent rich with tradition and ceremony. A year gone by has created a home of sorts, a new family, friends evolving, and months full of experiences that inspire us to keep working, and dare us to hope.

With lights strung all over our apartment, stockings hung under a window that allows soft tropical breezes through and a little Christmas elf making home time all the more fun as we chase him around, delighting in his world of discovery and easy entertainment, we find ourselves joyously slipping into the Christmas spirit.

Last night Patrick and I accepted an invitation from some MCC missionary friends to join them and their larger circle of friends for a kick-off to Advent. We were invited back to Alexis and Ben's house (the people I shared Thanksgiving with) for an Advent service. A gathering of other Americans living and working in Haiti were there, some new to the country, others with a year or more under their belt and all working for development, global awareness, political action, peace, and justice in the spirit of love. When we arrived, scents drifting from the kitchen triggered strong olfactory memories of home and transported me magically to my parents' home where spiced apple cider always brews in the kitchen welcoming us home after a usually cold and long trip home for Christmas. Instead of cider, one of the guests was simmering mulled wine on the stove, and sending spiced warm scents into the night air. I nearly cried. I've always been highly influenced by my senses. Smells can transport me through time linking me instantly with favorite memories or moments. In a breath, my whole mind and soul was home for Christmas, and emotionally I was prepared to begin meditations on Advent, the celebrations of family, friends, life and spirit.

With hot tea or spiced wine, we all gathered outside under white Christmas lights strung above, swinging on hammocks or lounging in chairs visiting and getting to know each other. Alexis and Ben put together a beautiful worship complete with mini bonfire, an Advent wreath, Christmas carols and readings from the Bible centered on hope. One participant brought his guitar to softly accompany our songs and everyone took turns reading from the program. I felt immediately filled with the contemplative spirit, settling into the traditions and reflections of my faith during a time when I feel the most hope for new-beginnings, when the presence of God for me is in every flicker of candlelight on faces around, every soft glow of twinkling lights, in every prayer and heavy in song.

I’m glad to have this outlet to meditate on the Christmas season. Not only was the service intimate and meaningful, but it was really fun to get introduced to some new people. Makes life here feel more like LIFE when you are interacting with people you can slip into easy conversation with.

A week behind in the Advent calendar, the theme of our first night together was hope.



In truth, I am a Christian by culture. I believe God works in the world through all life, residing in the hearts of all, regardless of religion or creed. I feel the spirit riding on the wind, blooming in the earth, whispering into the ear of those who honor life and love through whatever context they understand the world. I don't believe in a exclusionary God and trust the spirit is bigger than human interpretation can comprehend. There have been times I've found myself struggling with my identity as a Christian when frustrated by certain things preached or done in the name of Christ. So to stay sane in a world of radicalism and intolerance, exculsionism and fights for power, I tend to focus on the spirit of God and life that I believe exists in all things.

Yet I grew up knowing Jesus. Ultimately I see the world through a Christian context, no matter how much I can appreciate some other truths and traditions of the world's beliefs and religions. I grew up inspired by the life of Jesus, by his radical teachings on how we should treat each other, on social justice and on our relationship with God. I have been heavily influenced by how I understand Jesus's message on how to live and work in a way that moves our world closer towards God's Kingdom on Earth.

With Christmas and the season of Advent comes the reminder of what I like the very most about the faith of my birth. During Advent, Christians are reminded to recognize God in the most simple, the most humble of creatures and moments. Advent reminds me that the spirit of God and Life is everywhere, in even the ugliest of human situations, the poorest of conditions, the darkest of corners. The stories of Christian Advent tell us that angels sang for the lowly shepherds on a hill, doing their rancher's duty of tending to sheep while cold, tired and under-appreciated in their society. Advent reminds us that God can be found in a barn, a manger surrounded by the organic scents of livestock. God cherishes even the couple too poor to deliver in a hospital or home. God exists in the heart of an infant child, the most innocent and vulnerable condition of our humanity. If God lives in the homeless, the rejected, the vulnerable, the tired, the war-torn, the poverty-stricken, the dirty, the smelly, the exhausted, than there is always hope. I like that best about Christmas, that simple reminder that I need not look to a church with the fanciest of stained glass windows or to the richest and most powerful of home, country or situation. I am challenged to hope when reminded that God is in everything, the spirit all around me, and I just have to see it, feel it, breathe it, believe in it, take hold of it and live it.

So despite life suffering under the conditions of our unbalanced societies, politicians not living up to our expectations, corruption that seeps through our institutions and war that dirties interpersonal relationships as well as the relations between countries, we are challenged to hope. That challenge forces us to see the world differently, to recognize the spirit of God in all things, and to react accordingly.

After a year of witnessing some of the most heartbreaking of conditions, the most vulnerable of victims, I cling to the hope of the season. Hope that one day we, as humans, will get it right. Hope that one day no child will go to sleep hungry, no roof will leak, no person will feel alone in this world packed with humanity, no landscape will be abused, no foreign policy will focus more on economic gain than compassionate understanding. I dare to hope. I dare you to too.