December 22, 2008
Monday

The Christian calendar offers two great seasons of preparation, Advent and Lent. Both call for reflection and self-examination, although the flavor of Advent is less penitential than that of Lent. In my personal spirituality, Lent focuses on guilt and repentance in my relationship with God, while Advent offers the hope of change in my relationships with other people and in the ways I live and move in this world. Perhaps because of my roots in the earthy Celts, whose boundaries between the sacred and the secular are thin, I often derive more significant spiritual growth, more love I can touch, from Advent than from Lent.

Yesterday was the Fourth Sunday of Advent. With Christmas on Thursday this year, we are afforded several days of what I regard as the Christmas version of Holy Week. No matter how much I think I can get done ahead of time, I often arrive at these days busy, scattered, and unable to focus for long on any one thing.

In his meditation yesterday, my pastor related the story of a little boy who had recently gone from being the only child in his family to being the older child. His baby sister was receiving all the attention a new arrival can generate. The house was filled with visitors and presents and constant celebrations of this strange creature’s presence. The little boy seemed dejected, and when his grandmother asked him what was wrong, he said, “I just wish I could be brand new again.”

I took that thought home with me and turned it over all day.

The last date I did any significant work on my fiction is October 22. Through November, through the health scares and the continuing adjustments to life as an empty-nester, I took stock of myself and my place in this world. In December I at least started writing personal nonfiction again. My decision to put links to my Holidailies work going back four years showed me much about where my life has been, about patterns I repeat, and which ones are serving me and which need to be let go of. I found amusing and significant gifts for the people I love (except for Ron, who remains ungifted even at this late hour), wrapped them, and await their presentation.

I said when I turned 60 that I was embarking on the ten best years of my life. The day I turn 62 I will be travelling to a writing residency in Georgia, but I won’t be thinking that I have eight of those best years left. I’ll be thinking I still have ten. Sometime over the first day of winter yesterday I came to understand that I am ready to be brand new, ready to move into this new year.

I just have to get through this week.

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A year ago, I wondered about the motivation of people using certain search strings to get to my site.

Two years ago, I did not post on this date.

Three years ago, I wrote about my annual September loss of the ability to fall into fiction.

Four years ago, I wrote about two holiday parties, one I didn’t go to, and one that I did.

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