Tag: 2020

Advent Season 2020

Advent Season 2020--Tiny pewter nativity set on top of Bible.

I have always loved Advent–the time to slow down, take stock, and prepare for the coming of the Lord.

Also, I get to sing some of my favorite songs. And light candles. I love lighting candles.

Somehow, though, I’ve failed to spread my excitement to my children. Part of the problem, I suppose, is that we haven’t been as consistent with it as my family was growing up.

Plus, I don’t play guitar, the way my dad sometimes did during Advent times when I was a child. And my kids mostly don’t like singing.

But, maybe, also, I’ve failed to tell this story right–because it’s an amazing story. God himself came to Earth as a human–starting as a tiny baby just like every one of us. He didn’t come for a few moments or hours, but for a lifetime. A lifetime filled with poverty and hard work, rejection and humiliation. It ended with a painful death (though that wasn’t the end of the story, just the end of his earthly life). He did all of that for us.

So, I’m getting some help. I love the Advent Project from The Center for Christianity, Culture, and the Arts at Biola. And I’m trying out a new Advent reading plan on the Bible app I have on my phone. (It’s the Youversion one.) And I’m thinking up ways to help my teens connect with this story they might not know as well as they think they do.

I want to be ready.

This year is a new opportunity. What better time to try again to tell this story right?

Start of School

I used to love the beginning of school. I loved shopping for supplies (even if it was difficult to find exactly what the supply lists said we needed). I loved outfitting the kids with new shoes and clothes for the school year. I loved the cooler air and the crunch of fall leaves and the excitement of new classes. Perhaps most of all, I loved the hours of time to myself to work and write and catch up on things that didn’t get done during the summer.

This year isn’t much like that. The kids already had most of the pens and pencils and notebooks and things they needed. (And the clothes–my teens aren’t growing as quickly as they were a bit ago, though that could change again, I suppose.)

We did have to get masks.

There have been a few cooler days, but fall hasn’t really set in here. This weekend is set to be in the nineties. The biggest wildfire in state history is raging in Colorado, and in a normal year, that would be a big deal.

This is not a normal year.

(Not that I need to tell anybody that.)

And, so far, school has been remote, which is hard on the kids, and certainly doesn’t provide me hours and hours of time to myself.

HOWEVER, we are all physically healthy.

And we are learning valuable things about supporting each other and learning to deal with the junk life can throw at you.

I feel like we could have done without the lesson–but maybe that’s just hubris.

Maybe we really did need time to reset, figure out what’s truly important, and be there for the people we care most about.

How are things in your part of the world?