Tag: advent

by jad

This Advent

Christmas is next week and soon it will be Epiphany, and then I’ll be boarding a flight I’ve been anticipating for a long time. I can’t believe it’s almost here. A few days after the news first broke, a coworker who’d experienced similar heartbreak and had been there for me in the long, liminal months of waiting, walked into my office with a silent, sad smile on her face; I smiled back and said: “The hour has finally come, huh?” She said: “Yeah…” Well, the hour has been striking ever since, and I’m still here in this liminal time — … Continue reading “This Advent” →

by jad

If We Deny Our Happiness

Today’s #AdventWord is “joy” because this coming Sunday’s traditionally called “Gaudete Sunday,” from the Latin word for “rejoice.” Gaudete, gaudete!Christus est natusEx Maria virgine,gaudete! This got me thinking about the ambiguities of celebration in the midst of suffering, and how even Bethlehem couldn’t bring itself to celebrate Christmas last year, out of respect for Gaza. Even my mother wondered if I’d find decorations hurtful coming home after five Christmases away; I said no. In fact, I was looking forward to seeing them again. I found a poem called ‘A Brief for the Defense’ by Jack Gilbert while thinking about joy … Continue reading “If We Deny Our Happiness” →

by jad

Red December

Behold the lambBehold the lambNot one stoneAtop another will stand. There have been a couple more full circle moments lately. New starts to old ends; resets with fresh means. This is one of them; a return to trying again. Taken at the second session of the @seattledsa new member winter cohort. They used my camera to take a group shot too but posting that one isn’t my style. Also: remember the communist I bumped into at Folklife? The one I took a portrait of with the Polaroid Go I’d borrowed? I finally popped into one of the cell meetings she … Continue reading “Red December” →

by jad

Advent I

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the start of a season that’s become a bit of a barometer of my mood every year. There have been years when I was energized and engaged, turning the weeks before Christmas into an art project or two, often using the prompts made by @adventword. And there are other years when I felt the exact opposite: drained, dejected, and disengaged. This year feels different in a new way. I’m somewhere in between. I’m busier than ever before, but I don’t want the same old rituals. Or maybe I want to engage with them … Continue reading “Advent I” →

by jad

Let The Reader Understand

Over the years journeying with Christ, I’ve found myself returning again and again to the same sort of affect when searching for God: a sense of feeling God’s presence most deeply in the margins and fringes—the uncanny things that reach out and grab ya, as the Halloweentide song goes. My theological reflections have almost become predictable; sooner or later, I’ll be using the word “strange”—and this Advent reflection is no different. What a strange line we have in this already bizarre Gospel telling by Matthew: “let the reader understand.” It’s the only interjection of its kind in the whole New … Continue reading “Let The Reader Understand” →

by jad

#AdventWord 2022—Messenger

Today’s #AdventWord was meant to be a collaboration, but it didn’t quite come together that way. And yet, even though someone else picked this word out for me, MESSENGER just happens to be one of my more favored from this year’s list. Charlie Brown wasn’t the first to wonder about the meaning of Christmas. From day dot, the Christ event has been the riddle that somehow turned the key on a cosmic mystery; everyone could sense it, but few had the words to describe what it meant, and we still fumble with the language til now. For me, the meaning of Christmas … Continue reading “#AdventWord 2022—Messenger” →

by jad

#AdventWord 2022: Christine

// Every year for many years, I took part in an Instagram ritual called #AdventWord, first on an old account, then here—every year except the last, when I just couldn’t; the very idea of ritual exhausted me. // A few weeks ago, I checked in with myself to see if anything had changed. Things had. I wanted to mark the season again, but only if I could do it with others. So that’s what I’ll be doing this year; not every day – just when it feels right. I hope it feels right for you too. // Today’s word is WALK. … Continue reading “#AdventWord 2022: Christine” →

by jad

The Meaning of Zero

What is the meaning of life? If I were trying to be funny, I’d respond to that question with a “yes.” Because, yes, that is exactly it—meaning is the “what” of life. We seek it, we make it, we unmake it & remake it—we are compositional beings all the way down. Even when rejecting meaning, as in the convulsions of postmodern nihilism, we are reacting to that very same “what”—what? “Why, it’s nothing,” comes the answer. The what is no-thing and so—wait for it—that “so”? That’s meaning. If you are reading this, you are making sense of it under the … Continue reading “The Meaning of Zero” →