ugly christmas and advent

(or, the one where I’m trying not to jack up a season that could be really beautiful and meaningful if I access and engage life a bit more deeply than I seem to be able to lately)

by kate steele

We are a substantially full people. From some hundred agendas,

 together, for a season, we offer a sacrifice of our time;
Of our propensity, and assumed responsibility, to feed ourselves.

We acknowledge that in Friday nights, and the slippery hours
of Saturday; in weekend football and Christmas lights guiding us
through retail centers;

In internal restlessness and external sedation; in studying, laboring,
emoting, and providing for ourselves and others,

There is a nameless yearning crying out, asking us to rest from the
notion that we can nourish ourselves.

So, we are here. Together. Many aching limbs seeking recovery and restoration.

We confess our self-appointed importance -- our need to perform,
produce, and advise.

Lead us to a time in which we can lay aside distraction and worry long
enough to let that which runs deeper than sorting and solving rise to
the surface.

Create a space for us to fast from what already is:
gossip, overwork, impulse spending, complaining, explaining,
expecting, anticipating, demanding…

With these things, we are excessively full, and yet, we are famished.

Create space for us to stand alongside you in:

Faith -- that you mend broken things,
with wisdom -- to live a life of engagement, not avoidance
in justice -- giving voice to the mute, attention to the ignored and
freedom to the imprisoned
and in wholeness -- that you don't cover and hide, but you expose and transform.