Adventure & Joy

I love words.

Especially writing them. And collecting them.

In my collection of English words that make my mouth happy to utter aloud are, “Autumnal,” pharmacological,” and “Penelope.” I also really like the words, “Phosphorescent” and “liminality.”

If I ever retire, I just might seek employment creating names for new crayon colors. Seriously. I’d give the colors names like “Sky’s the Limit” and “Adventurous Joy.”

Adventure and Joy are December’s theme words at Parables: All-Abilities Inclusion Worship at Chelsea First United Methodist Church, and one of the first things noticed when we assigned those particular words to this month was that the word ADVENT is tucked right inside the word ADVENTURE. (Advent is the season of the Church which begins 4 weeks before Christmas, and, to be honest, the only adventures I recall from this time of year are the late night will-I get-it-done? marathons in finishing gifts or wrapping).

Turns out the etymology of the word ADVENTURE isn’t nearly as interesting as the rather obvious fact, I noticed: It can be used as either a noun or a verb.

What if we did that with the word Advent?, I wondered. What if Advent could be used as a verb as well as a noun? What if Advent-ing was a thing we did in an adventurely sort of way? How might that shift our usual experience of these 4 weeks from utterly exhausting to even-just-a-smidge exhilarating?

Our parable this month at Parables is Mark 13: 32-37, and the line attributed to Jesus at the very end is, “What I say to you I say to all: Keep awake!”

He’s suggesting here that the coming of Christ is something you don’t want to miss–and may look very different than what some of us may have heard from the scare tactics of the very unbiblical rapture theology. Here’s how Franciscan priest, Father Richard Rohr, describes the Second Coming of Christ (https://cac.org/daily-meditations/second-coming-christ-2016-10-30/):

Whenever the material and the spiritual coincide, there is the Christ. Jesus fully accepted that human-divine identity and walked it into history. Henceforth, the Christ “comes again” whenever we are able to see the spiritual and the material coexisting, in any moment, in any event, and in any person. All matter reveals Spirit, and Spirit needs matter to “show itself”! I believe “the Second Coming of Christ” happens whenever and wherever we allow this to be utterly true for us. This is how God continually breaks into history—even before the first Stone Age, humans stood in awe and wonder, gazing at the stars.

Yes! I do feel a sense of the material world revealing God’s transforming presence whenever I stop to look at the stars!

And I have to slow things down to do it.

Now I know what Advent-ing needs to be about for me this year if it is to invoke a sense of Adventure…slowing down enough to feel my body touching the chair as I write words on my computer, marveling at the miracle of tasty food while I chew leftovers between thoughts rather than just eating to stop the discomfort, thanking my hands periodically on the keyboard, and observing myself from a little distance so that I can become the seer of my own patterns and habits.

I don’t know if becoming and staying awake each day during Advent will bring more joy to me or the world. But in this moment, just slowing things down to the speed of noticing is absolutely making me smile. Phosphorescently.

Happy Advent-ing to you, whatever adventures you may be seeking this year,

LeAnn