Advent and Preparing the Way: Thursday's Reflection

NOTE: After today's post, I am going to take a brief break. I will be back Thursday, January 4th.
I intend to enjoy these sacred days of Christmas and to enter the New Year rested and relaxed. I wish the same for you. 


I made an assumption. 

If you read my Tuesday, December 12, 2017 post, you know that one of my Advent practices is coloring the outline of a labyrinth. I decided to do this as a way to stay calm and focused during the busy Advent season. I don't spend time coloring every day, but when I do, I enjoy deciding the colors to use and how far that morning's "walk" will be.

One day last week I thought, "Wow, I better get moving or I will never get to the sacred center by Christmas. That morning I swooped around more curves than I had previously. The day before I had accomplish several Christmas tasks and I felt freer. The way seemed clearer.

But, my husband, who knows me so well, said, "What makes you think the center is Christmas?"

I sputtered. To myself, fortunately, and said something about how I would need to think about that. 

I am thinking about that with the help of a meditation in Jan Richardson's book Night Visions, Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas. She describes how Advent is a season of preparation, a time of getting ready for what lies ahead. I assumed that means Christmas Eve and Day, the celebration of Jesus' birth. 

Yes, that is true, but Richardson also invites me to discover what else this time is preparing me for? 
  
                 What is the way that is being prepared within
                  the wilderness of my life? What does it mean
                  for my own life to become a path, a way of
                  welcome for the Holy One? How do I give
                  myself time to notice the ways that the path
                  unfolds before me and within me? What are
                  the acts of preparation that bring delight to
                  my daily life? Whom do I ask or allow to help
                  me prepare?

I am preparing to dig into a major revision of my spiritual memoir. This stage of writing my book means I need to go deeper into my own material and I need stretches, rather than snatches, of writing time. I know doing that will require some changes in how I spend my time, and I will need support as I walk this labyrinth.

This is a time of preparation, and my intention is to keep walking this labyrinth, step by step. 

An Invitation
What are you preparing for? I would love to know.