The Familiar Question: What is Essential?

Dearest Holy Comforter Family,

Last Thursday, I tested positive for Covid. So did Sherod, my husband. Because of our ages, we immediately reached out to our doctors and got on the antiviral medication that helps mitigate the severity of the illness.  We have been fortunate, our symptoms have been quite mild. The worst is the sense of having been draped in a lead blanket of exhaustion. I continue to test positive but am feeling better today than I have since this started.

Boy did this throw a wrench in my life plans for this Advent. I watched Sunday’s service on livestream and ached because I couldn’t be there. I had planned to spend this week visiting and bringing communion to the members of our parish who struggle to make it to church and now have had to settle instead for writing Christmas cards to each of them with the promise that I will be by to visit in January.  As tired as my spouseman and I still get, I am not sure just how much decorating for Christmas I’ll get to do. It seems like this Advent, the faith and hope are all in my willingness to find Christmas even without the rhythms, the ‘homescapes,’ and the fellowship that usually give this time its shape and meaning.

I must also confess I am thankful for this enforced time of slowing down. The small preparations I have been able to make bring me great delight. I took down the mugs Sherod and I only use at Christmas. I lit the “Gaudete candle” on my Advent wreath, along with the ones of the first two weeks while it was still quite dark in my house, with the dogs napping and Sherod not yet awake.  It’s amazing, isn’t it, how candlelight can be both so peaceful and such a reminder of God’s call to us to, “set the world on fire with love?” Each year, a dear, dear friend gives me an Advent Calendar from Jacquie Lawson. Once I have my Christmas mug filled to the brim with coffee soon after I wake up, I open the calendar app on my iPad and click on the correct day. A sweet, wonderfully creative little tableau unfolds, again, filling me with delight. 

I share all this by way of encouragement. Are you beginning to feel ragged and stressed already? How much is enough to get our hearts ready for Christmas? How do we slow down and savor each beautiful moment of time we are given by God? How do we allow anticipation and joy to guide our days? I know these questions can get annoying—“But Rosa,” you may be thinking, “wouldn’t you be running around like a chicken with her head cut off if you weren’t sick?”  Of course, the answer is, yes I would. It’s just that from my vantage point this year, I get to see what Advent and Christmas might be instead.

I don’t wish Covid on anybody. I hope you are taking the precautions that are necessary for your particular health situation. And I hope and pray for you, a gentle, slow end of the Advent season that allows you to savor the wonder of the absolutely cosmic, transcendent moment that we mark by remembering the birth of the Christ Child.

With my love, Rosa+