First Sunday in Advent - Waiting in Hope

Advent begins today. It's the first season of the Christian calendar prior to the 12 Days of Christmas which begin December 25th. Advent means 'coming' and is a celebrated each Sunday by lighting four successive candles which symbolize the coming of light into the world at the birth of Jesus the Christ on Christmas Day. It's my absolutely favorite season of the liturgical year and has been since I was a little girl and purchased this little brass calendar with my Nana for the grand price of 15 cents. Obviously, my cherished Advent calendar needs a little cleaning and proper candles if I'm going to be able to use it the rest of the season.
And that is appropriate - because Advent is about preparing; preparing ourselves and organizing our lives in such a way that we are ready to not just celebrate the Christmas holiday, but preparing ourselves and organizing our lives in ways that tell the world that as Christians, we proclaim Jesus Christ to be not just Infant Holy, Infant Lowly but King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Traditionally, the first candle of the Advent season symbolizes hope, expressed poetically by the words of Charles Wesley in 1744;

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee.
Israel’s strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art;
dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart

Born thy people to deliver, born a child and yet a King,
born to reign in us forever, now thy gracious kingdom bring.
By thy own eternal spirit rule in all our hearts alone;
by thine all sufficient merit, raise us to thy glorious throne.

Earlier evenings

So, this is as bright at it gets at 5:00 PM anymore and it will only get steadily dimmer and darker through the next 7 weeks. I am totally okay with that, too. I like being able to experience four distinct seasons. As the last of the fields are harvested and lie farrow over the winter, we find a new place to draw our energy as well. And I like that as the temperatures get cooler there's a corresponding encroaching darkness that beckons us to seek light and warmth from one another. Very often we are home but we also gather in public places indoors and out for festivities as well. It's a season that signals contemplation for me. Without diminishing the fact that there are persons that don't have the blessings of a warm home or shelter, I thank God for the blessings in my life. And those blessings include a regular rhythm that ebbs and flows not on just a daily basis but throughout the year. I think I've heard a teacher phrase it this way:

"To everything there is a season, a time to every purpose under heaven".
Ecclesiastes 3:1

This time next week

It will nearly be dark and day light savings time will be over!

tempus fugit

Time flew the hands right off the kitchen clock. The little bird peeping out the hole has been taking a break the last week or so here in the kitchen at the Homestead. It's a darling little clock that fits just right on the wall near the stove and across from the back door. However, it's one of the most temperamental battery operated clocks in existence and finding the clockworks with just the right shaft length is not an easy task. Until it was taken apart last week in anticipation of new works being shipped, I had no idea how much I used this clock to keep me on pace while cooking, cleaning, and keeping track of comings and goings.

what time is it?

I know there are some of you reading this excited about the "extra hour" of daylight coming on Sunday. I hate to inform you of this fact, but there will be no "extra hour" on Sunday, it will be taken away from the morning's sunlight. Instead of waking up and rising with the sun, it will be dark in the morning now. I don't know why we think changing the clock gives us more than what we had before - it just changes how it is distributed. And in actuality, there is one less hour to the weekend than normal. Springing ahead actually means losing an hour out of the weekend. I know there are pros and cons to the whole springing ahead thing. I thought about listing all the cons and the reasons I dislike it so much, but since I am already losing an hour out of my weekend I'm going to use the remaining time I have allotted to me this weekend by spending it in other pursuits. Maybe when we get the hour back in the fall, I'll use that time then to express fuller thoughts on the silliness of thinking we can manipulate time. For now, I am pretending it the clocks have already moved ahead. I don't have to be anywhere on time till church Sunday morning.