Saturday, November 28, 1998

Time to enjoy Advent

By Lauren R. Stanley

Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service

(KRT)

And we're off to the races!

Thanksgiving is behind us, Christmas is ahead of us, and life is now one hectic whirlwind in which we swirl and dance and fly, as though there was not enough time for us even to think or breathe.

There are parties for which to prepare, and to which we feel we must go. There are gifts to buy and cards to send, and myriad other details to which we must attend.

Before we know it, of course, Christmas will be here and gone, and we will be left thinking, "What the heck just happened?"

And through all this hurrying, we will have missed one of the most important times of the church year, a time that gets little or no notice outside of the church: Advent.

Advent is the approximate four-week period PRIOR to Christmas, the time when we, as the prophet Isaiah said, are called to "prepare a way for the Lord, and make straight a path in the wilderness."

It is a time of reflection, and of waiting.

Of course, in our society, we're not very good at waiting.

As Americans, we generally want what we want RIGHT NOW! Waiting is for losers, for people who can't MAKE things happen.

Waiting, for most of us, is the most difficult thing in the world, because it requires faith and patience. And we don't do that very well, because all too often it means that we won't get what WE want.

A case in point is this infamous computer bug, the Y2K problem that we anticipate facing on Jan. 1, 2000. On that date, there is a chance -- how good a chance no one seems to know -- that everyone's computers will crash because computers will read the year 2000 as "00," think that that means "1900" and wipe out everything that happened after the year 1900.

That the Y2K problem is a serious one is not in question.

How we handle this approaching problem in general society is.

There are some people who believe that when 2000 arrives, with it will come not only a new millennium, but also the Rapture, the return of Christ on judgment day. Many of these people are proclaiming that when the Divine Rapture comes, it will be accompanied by the Civil Rupture -- that society will fall apart, that we will begin to attack one another because there will be a few "haves" and far too many "have-nots."

Instead of having faith, instead of being patient, instead of preparing a way for the Lord and making straight a path in the wilderness, we are being urged by some to instead prepare a way for violence, for turning our backs on each other, for standing in judgment of others ourselves.

Preparing for the year 2000 in this manner is rather like the way most of us prepare for Christmas: rushing to judgment and caring for ourselves instead of others.

It is a running joke in my family that I rarely get my Christmas cards out on time, and that if it weren't for express mail delivery, my gifts wouldn't get to their houses before January. My family thinks this is because I am a procrastinator, and that I get too wrapped up in other things to focus on the task before me.

They are right. I do procrastinate, and I do focus on others things.

I procrastinate on Christmas cards and gifts because I love to dwell in Advent, to really work on preparing myself for the coming of the Christ child. There is something marvelous about to happen in the world, a gesture of incredible, inexplicable love.

And I am darned if I'm going to rush up to and through that moment without preparing myself.

Just as I am darned if I'm going to rush around preparing for Y2K by stockpiling supplies -- including, according to a Washington Post story, ammunition, as one preacher urged -- and thinking about how to hold off the hordes of "have-nots" who might descend on my door.

Do we need to prepare for Christmas, and for Y2K? Absolutely.

Do we need to do so in a whirlwind of despair and frenzy, focusing only on ourselves and how we can become the "haves" and not end up being the "have-nots"? Absolutely not.

Advent is a time for us to prepare, and to wait, and to reflect on that which is about to happen. It is not a time to be skipped through hysterically or maliciously.

I know that Y2K has the potential to cause tremendous problems and even, in some cases, absolute disasters. And I know that we have to take care of the problem.

But I also know that we don't need to use this as an excuse to cut off others, or to cut ourselves off from others.

I like Advent. I like walking through the four Sundays in which we repeatedly hear the call to prepare, to be patient, to be faithful. I like having the time to really think about what is to happen, and what that means, and how this one event 2,000 years ago in a tiny village in Palestine has affected my life and the lives of the entire world.

I like being asked to trust in God, and in God's enomous, overwhelming love for us.

So forgive me when I don't get wrapped up in gift buying and card sending. Forgive me when I refuse to stockpile. Forgive me when I don't join in the race.

I'd rather dwell in the moment that the church calls Advent.

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(The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley is a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. Readers may write to her care of Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, 790 National Press Building, Washington, D.C., 20045.)

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(c) 1998, Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.