Advent at the Hermitage

Advent has always been a difficult season for me.  When I was a parish priest it seemed as though all the cancer diagnoses and vehicle accidents and family traumas happened between the first Sunday in Advent and Christmas Eve.  Now, as an instructor in a small college, it's final exams and grades and students who need extra support or whose failure to apply themselves all semester long is taking its toll.  

At the end of each day I come home to the Wild Goose Hermitage, my sweet little home in the woods, dedicated to solitude and contemplation.  The summer drought has subsided a bit, and the stream across the street is running loudly enough that I can hear it from my porch.  The woods are quiet, even though it's hunting season.  The local wildlife seem safe, at least for the moment.  We've had just a bit of snow in the past week, enough to cover the gardens, and add a layer of quiet to the landscape.

At the beginning of Advent I cleaned the hermitage from top to bottom.  We don't have much in the way of knick-knacks around the house, and we don't put up a lot of Christmas decorations, but I cleared away some spaces on tabletops and window sills and mantles, leaving open space where there is usually something to attract the eye.  And for now, I am enjoying the open space, the sense of clearing and patience and non-urgent anticipation.  Something -- some One -- will fill the emptiness that I have left behind. But that Someone neither comes at my command nor is ever not present.  The Divine is both Now and Not Yet, Here and yet Still To Come.  My empty spaces remind me that this paradox is at the heart of Advent.  Meditation now takes the form of wordless invitation, a silent interior spaciousness that mirrors the exterior surroundings.  Allowing words and images and time to fall away is the path that calls me into Advent presence.  

The Christmas items will slowly fill the spaces, and children and grandchildren will come for the holidays and fill the rooms, but for now I walk in openness and emptiness, feeling the space into which I invite the ever-new birth of Christ.