The Christian liturgical calendar includes two periods of preparation - Advent and Lent. Advent is that four week period that precedes Christmas; Lent is the forty day period that precedes Easter. That for which one prepares are different with each holiday, and in this blog I'd like to address Advent. I'll explore Lent sometime next year... (Hint: Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent is on Wednesday, March 6, 2019.)
In Unity and New Thought, we recognize the Advent period as a time of preparing for the renewal of the Christ spirit within. Put another, and possibly more practical way, its a call for us to question if, or in what ways, we might have lost sight of the fundamental truth of who we are - invididual embodiments of divinity. Our theology is very idealist (related to the school of philosophy called "Idealism"), and while it may be easy to grasp the concept, expressing the concept requires vigilance.
For example, we seek to "accentuate the positive" as the song goes in all areas of our lives, yet on closer inspection we may discover that we are in fact harboring and expressing negative thoughts about ourselves or others. Advent, then, is a time to acknowledge where we have strayed from the golden standard and have a "rebirth" of consciousness - symbolized by the birth of Jesus in the world. Each one of us then can experience spiritual renewal. That's a wonderful thing to celebrate!
The Advent themes support this process: we have FAITH (aka hope) in the rebirth of our Christ consciousness; we experience the PEACE that comes from the rebirth of our Christ consciousness; we grow our ability to LOVE as a result of the rebirth of our Christ consciousness; and we feel great JOY with the rebirth of our Christ consciousness.
It truly is a wonderful time of year!
Merry Christmas,
Rev. Russ