Sunday, December 2, 2007

Advent

ad·vent (dvnt)n.

1. The coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important: the advent of the computer.
2. The liturgical period preceding Christmas, beginning in Western churches on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and in Eastern churches in mid-November, and observed by many Christians as a season of prayer, fasting, and penitence.

Advent was always one of my favorite things at church when I was growing up. It meant shorter sermons to sit through, watching someone light a candle, singing Christmas carols.... oh, and yeah -- it meant that Christmas was close!

Now that I'm a little bit older (and hopefully a little bit wiser), I've been thinking more about the actual meaning of the Advent season. The desire to prayerfully await the coming of Christmas and the celebration of the birth of Christ. Just recently I stumbled upon a list of daily readings for Advent season on the website of a former church on the other side of the country, and I'm going to try to follow it. In case you're interested and would like to follow along, you can find the list here. Should be some good "grounding" amidst the craziness that is holiday parties and cookies and gift buying, etc.

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