Advent: How to Resist the Culture and Clutter of Christmas

The lighting of a candle is symbolic and one simple way to resist our culture!It’s not too early to greet each other with this saying, “Happy New Year!” Our calendar marks the date of January 1 to begin a new page turning of our calendars. But actually, this season of Advent marks the beginning of the church year.The life of the Christian Church begins this week, the first week of Advent. Advent is a season of time, observed in many churches as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus. The term is a version of the Latin word, meaning "coming".Celebrating Advent is one of the most meaningful ways I’ve found to prepare myself for this season. Though I wasn’t not raised in a liturgical tradition, Advent has become the hallmark for me to prepare myself for not only Christmas but the new calendar year as well. When I practice Advent, I get the opportunity to yet again, start my life over. I am invited to step out and away from my old ways and to begin new ways of living better--living in a different rhythm; living in a deeper--more sacred way.Culture and commercialism seem to shape our understanding of time more than a significant season such as Advent. Christmas decorations were up months ago. Parties are planned. Cards are sent and the festivities have begun. We hurry on to the NEXT holiday, skimming the surface and lapping up any real meaning we can find in these crazy days. Yet, when we practice the celebration of Advent, we begin a way to resist culture. We have the opportunity to anticipate the coming of Christ---both the first time and also anticipate the coming of Christ in his return. If we don't resist our culture, we will be absorbed by it. Advent is the simple way to choose to live in a different way in the next month--the next season of your life.Advent begins a four-week journey of waiting. We pause each day to take some time to wait. Here’s the clash with culture which is now so opposed to waiting on anything. In our 24/7 world, which is always “on” and always “available” Advent teaches us to resist the culture of consumerism and materialism by actively waiting.Four weeks of waiting---and each week marked by a different candle which is lit reminding us to wait—not hurry through these days. Each candle as a significant meaning. I'll be blogging more about the meaning each week.This week, the candle of “Hope” is lit. How we all need hope. I live in a region of the country where a Policeman was violently shot and killed just a few days ago, as were two other innocent civilians. Violence in Paris. Violence in the Mid-East. Terrorism. It's too much it seems. Violence in our own hearts by such much busyness. Outer violence takes over the news and spotlight but inner violence is caused by such much hurry and scurry and no time more than right now. The monk, Thomas Merton wrote, “To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns (Which party? Which event? How can I get all I have to do ‘done?’; to surrender to too many demands (you already know what you have to get done by the end of the year); to commit oneself to too many projects (all the things you WANT to do but how will you get it ALL done?”; to want to help everyone in everything (we want to extend our love and care but how do we do this and to whom?) is to succumb to violence.” [Emphasis is mine]. [tweetthis]Advent is a way to give me renewed perspective every day! And how we need a new perspective with so much going on around us and in us![/tweetthis]The Bible is filled with stories of violence. Bad things happened to good people. Wars, natural disasters and disease are all recorded in the stories of the Scriptures. Yet, after each violent period of time---there was the message of Hope. All is not lost. All is not over. There is hope.God is author of time and history and in God’s time table, there is no bad ending. This is why Advent is so important and powerful. When we light a candle, we light the candle in the HOPE that more light will come than we have right now. Though the candle may burn with a diminished wick, it’s still lit and through time and in time, the light will burn brighter.Advent is choosing to resist the culture and to slow down not hurry. Advent is the time for community to do the same.Here are some suggestions to begin Advent this week.

  1. Get a candle and place it prominently in your den or living room. Light it each morning and sit in silence for 10 minutes BEFORE you start your day. Resist the culture of hurry by starting slow.
  2. Read this online article for more helpful background and suggestions: https:/www.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/series/introduction-to-advent/
  3. Get 4 candles and some greenery and make a simple Advent wreath. Practice the lighting of the candles each Sabbath and take an extended time of silence.
  4. Practice silence each day and use Solitude as an exercise to get away from the noise and busyness in the midst of your day. Take a walk alone. Sit outside on a bench. Sit in our office/cubicle alone with all your technology “off” or on airplane mode for two 10 minute breaks in the day.
  5. Read this excellent blog where wonderful resources are recommended: Best Advent Resources for 2015
  6. Start today. It's not too late. Resist the culture and choose to wait!

  

Feeling divided, exhausted and overwhelmed?

Feel Fragmented? It's become the new "norm" for life? But it doesn't have to be this way!One, if not the leading cause of burnout and living on empty is that we live divided lives. We live as if our life works best according to a silo mentality. A silo mentality is living in a paradigm of life that puts your work life in one silo, your relationships in another silo; your health in a silo and your spiritual life in yet, another silo. Then we try to keep all the silos full.It’s an illusion to live in such a way—to live as if we can spin our plates or fill our silos keeping everything in balance. Living in an illusion is called denial. Denying the truth will not set a person free. There is a better way to live!We have one heart and the heart cannot be divided—or at least we should not attempt to divide our hearts. We have but one soul—and the soul we have been given needs to function as a whole—and not be splintered or fragmented.The word “integration” offers us a way to navigate the swirling whitewater of competing demands and rivaling priorities. When we move forward to integrate our lives, we bring together all the silos—whether they are empty or full and seek to live one life in one way and at the same time. We are not divided. We are not fragmented. We are not spinning plates.The word “integration” means "to engage in the act of combining parts to make a unified whole." The English word for integration is based on the Latin word which means, “renewal.” To live one life—to live in an undivided way is perhaps one of the deepest ways we can experience renewal.As I travel and continue my work with leaders across the spectrum of ministry and the marketplace, the clarion call I continue to hear is this: “There has to be a better way to live—than all of this craziness that I am experiencing. I am more and more concerned. It's as if we are living intoxicated lives--living nightmare and forsaking a life Jesus described that we could actually live. People 50, 100, and 2000 years ago had challenges like we do in our own day. They did not have the modern "conveniences" we have today such as fast food, email and texting. With all our progress though, we have not figured out a way to live undivided-to live our one life in our one body with our one family and a few friends. We're bankrupt when it comes to how to live life in a better way.[tweetthis]To move towards integrating your life—not managing your silo is the key.[/tweetthis]We get confused and dazed by all the roles we have in life. Many of us wear many hats. We coach a team; serve on a committee; work hard in our jobs and want to love our families well. But ever since the Industrial Revolution and the creation of the light bulb and now technology, we have become intoxicated with the notion of needing to balance our lives. The Industrial Revolution violated any notion of feeling integrated. It was precisely here that we exploited children and yoked them to the yoke to be producers of goods. The light bulb violated natural time and with the dawn of the light bulb, we found we could do even more—become even more productive. We rested less; slept less and enjoyed life less. Technology made us to be always on and always available. Now tethered to gadgets and iphones we are more enslaved and less happy---but more productive.Yet in the 6th century, a man by the name of Benedict of Nursia in Italy, developed a model for how to live an integrated life. He established a certain way or “rule” where he recommended moving through each day in a certain and defined boundary. He took the four basic movements of his expanding community: work, study, prayer and rest and then established defined times that you move into each movement. A bell was used to usher people from their work to their rest. When the bell chimed, people stopped what they were doing—whether they were finished or not and moved to rest. They knew that work is really never, ever done. Work will be there tomorrow. It wasn’t about trying to finish all the tasks. It was about a greater goal…a goal which allowed hard working folks to live in a sustainable rhythm. We've given up bells today. We're always on and always available. We feel empty and live our lives in a quiet sense of desperation. We can do better---and we need to do better because the life you are living now, is the only life you will ever live. You will not get another life; another body; another opportunity to live your life. Now is the time.Today, we have no bells. We are consumed. We are over-worked and over-extended and we live our lives living an exhausted life.To begin to live in a new paradigm will call for a radical shift in how you see time and use time. The goals of life will shift. You will cultivate a new paradigm of your time. Rather than manage your time and time manage you; you will foster a way of life that will include all you really need to do in lifeI often hear from folks in ministry: “I never get to pray or read my Bible as I want.” Their spiritual life feels bankrupt. I often hear from marketplace leaders a sense of feeling breathless and living on “thin ice.”David prayed, “Give me an undivided heart that I may praise your name (Psalm 86:11). He, like so many of us expressed his own desire to live in a sustainable rhythm. He wanted his life to feel like a whole life—not a fragmented life.Ezekiel describes God’s desire for us—that we would live our lives with an undivided heart (Ez 11:19).I’m encouraged that God’s heart for us is to live in an integrated way. It’s just that we have become confused in all of our productivity that we now feel more dead than alive.To live integrated means an awakening to how I treat my body in all I do. To live in a sustainable rhythm means, “Enough. I’ve poured out all day long. I now need to rest. I now need to heed the bell and move to something else—something that can and will replenish me.To live integrated means that you want friends who want this same thing. We need to encourage each other when we see someone stopping and lively sanely.To live integrated means a wake up call for the 21st century church which often lays even more burdens on the shoulders or people than offer them a true sanctuary. The spiritual life may not be about adding MORE to your life---it just may mean, doing less. The modern church must awaken to the spiritual rhythm of Sabbath—a rhythm established by God lived out in the early church. We learn to “cease” (which is the literal definition of Sabbath and give up the foolish notion that we and our jobs are indispensible. Every pastor is really an “interim” leader and will be replaced. The same is true in the marketplace. So, if this is true, why do we feel so yoked to our jobs? There is another way to live that offers us a way to live in a sustainable rhythm and it begins with a new paradigm of integrating your life. Here are some ways you can experiment:

  1. Set you phone to ring at the end of your day and then leave work.
  2. Implement a day a week that is technology free.
  3. Spend more time outside.
  4. Take time between each meeting to reflect and integrate how you are feeling with what you are doing. Give yourself 10 minutes between appointments for example.
  5. Set your iphone to remind you to pray and lift out of your work several times a day. Read a Psalm. Walk in silence.
  6. Make your bedroom a technology free zone for life and rest. Do not sleep with your iphone. Sleep with your spouse!
  7. Do not bring phones to the dinner table. The table is a place of gathering, not updating your status!
  8. Use the Benedictine movements of life (work, rest, study and prayer) and come up with no more than four categories that will define each day.

Questions to explore: 

  1. Is the way your are living your life sustainable?
  2. If you could move towards living an integrated life, what would you week look like?
  3. To explore this more, read Chapter 7 of Inside Job “The Leader’s Rhythm: Exploring the Lie of the Balanced Life. Order the book here! Get a free chapter and more!