Advent: Wednesday, Week 1

Advent readings for today:

Psalm 79
Micah 5: 1-5a
Luke 21:34-38


I've felt for some time now that my morning meditations had an emptiness to them. I assumed it had to do with the relentless busyness of my new role -- managing a community podcasting station is a very time-consuming activity.

... and then I thought, well -- maybe it's my reading material (I always read before I meditate); maybe I needed something new and different to read. So I thought I'd try something I hadn't tackled before: Ram Dass's Be Here Now, and I ordered a copy -- which arrived yesterday.

It wasn't at all what I expected, so I'm not sure I ordered the right book. But what I see as I flip through is the same sort of messages everything else I've been reading has been giving me, so I have this sort of been there done that response; it's not meeting my needs.

So then I thought -- I've been away from my faith a long time. Not that I've lost it, I've just been so careful in this blog not to inflict my Christian leanings on anyone; not to mention words like Jesus and God. But have I been depriving myself in the process? Because faith for me was always very rewarding, full of juice and relevance.

And at that point I remembered that ten years ago, when I first started this blog, I did a series of Advent meditations. Maybe I needed to take some time off and just re-publish those. So I went back and looked at them, and then I realized that we are in a different lectionary year. The official readings for most mainline churches are broken out into 3 years -- A, B, and C -- so that over the course of a three year cycle we basically get exposed to the entire Bible. The readings I used for the meditations in 2008 (the year I prepared these) were for year C, but now we're in year B. What to do, what to do...

So I've decided I will use the same images, but update the words to the readings of year B. It works for today, at least, so perhaps it will work for the rest of Advent as well? We'll see. At any rate, I invite me to join me on a faithful walk through Advent. And if Bible readings are not your cup of tea -- well, then, come visit after Christmas, when I'll be back on the old spirituality-not-religion path again.  Farewell for now: I wish you a joy-filled Advent, rich with compassion and generosity, and the merriest of Christmases. -- Diane