The Mother of God - Pelagonitissa
by john snogren
Egg tempera on panel with gold leaf.
[11 by 9 inches]
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Advent
by barry brake
editor's note: this is the next installment
in a series on the Christian calendar
by Barry Brake - special to Communiqué
As I write, it is the first day of capitalist America's favorite season -- most folks call it "the holiday season," and it refers to the time between Thanksgiving and New Year's. It's characterized by overdoing everything, from spending money to eating food to wasting paper. And though for many it's a time of stress or depression, there is also a sense, or at least a simulacrum, of good cheer that warms the heart; underneath it there's a recognition that it's a special religious time, and a special family time. If you only go to church once a year, if you only see your folks once a year, it's probably during the "holiday season."
Christians celebrate this time too, and call it Advent till Christmas day. (Christmastide then goes for 12 days, ending with Epiphany.) And for us, especially in America, it's also characterized by those things I mentioned: overdoing, overspending, stress, cheer, family. But there's an important difference. And that is that we are intensely aware that this is all to celebrate the birth of the greatest person, ever.
Jesus of Nazareth, Christ the King, Christ the baby. Equal parts pageantry and hush. Heaven and Nature sing. Tender and mild.
ADVENT
PROTO INDO-EUROPEAN *gw(e)m-yo- to go or come
LATIN venire to come, adventus arrival
Advent n (first in print before the 12th century): the four weeks immediately before Christmas, commemorating the first and second coming of Christ
In my first piece for this series, I had this to say about Advent, and I'd like to say it again:
Advent is a time of richness, when we adorn our houses and bodies with deep rich jewel colors, green against red....when we overwhelm our appetites with thick meats and spiced wines, and fill our nostrils with pine and firewood and cinnamon and chocolate: the heavy robes of plenitude. These are things we do instinctively and rightly.
We also do the flipside instinctively: we turn down the lights and use candles, we strum a guitar and sing songs with adjectives like silent, holy, calm, bright, tender, mild, heavenly. Little, still, deep, dreamless, silent, dark, everlasting. Love's pure light; solemn stillness.
Is there anything like the holiday season? And to think that we do all of this as a preparation, a welcoming. We welcome the newborn Lamb of God; we welcome the triumphant Lion of Judah. How wonderful that we do it so joyously. While John the Baptist urgently readies us for the Savior's birth by yelling, Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand , and while prophets like Joel envision the final day as a Spielbergian millenarian panic, we Christians, knowing what's ahead, ready ourselves with quietude and reverence -- and with bells on. Put on your glittery green sweater, your corduroys, your festive earrings, your green-and-red tie, your once-a-year socks, and deck out your church with lights and banners and velvet, and plants that never heard of Fall.
Drape your house with ornaments, inside and out; decorate it with tinsel and the garish art of children. Fill it with the smell of cookies, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.
And the music. Let there be Baroque. Let there be D-major. Bring out the trumpets; we're not going to wait for Gabriel.
By the way, is it odd to you that we celebrate the First Coming simultaneously with the Second? Did you even know that Advent had that double meaning? Look at the inner verses to "Joy to the World" sometime, and you'll see that in God's calendar the Coming Of Christ To Earth is one big event. The ransom of us captives is a giant swoop.
O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel. That's my favorite song in Advent. Whether it's the minor key, or the monkish restraint of that simple, haunting melody that so exquisitely expresses the yearning we all have for salvation, I always sing it with a tremble. So lost in lonely exile here. And then the spine-chilling volta -- that high note stabbing out of nowhere: "Rejoice! Rejoice!"
Pain and rejoicing, reverence and jubilation. The Hallelujah Chorus and Silent Night. We need our full range of emotions as we greet the sputtering infant, and as we greet the shattering conqueror-God.
My wish for you is that in these highest days you would recognize how lavishly wealthy you are (if you're reading this you are very likely in the wealthiest 5 percent of humans in history); that you would enjoy and adorn yourself with that wealth; that you would give lavishly to those who have, literally, nothing; and that you would adorn your spirit as well. My wish for you is that you would -- with every aspect of your life -- bow in candlelit reverence, dance in joy, cry in pain, sing in exultation for the Advent of Christ.
Prepare Him room.