Early Advent

This month, Jeff and Steve are focusing their sermons on Hope, Joy, Peace, and Love. It's a kind of early Advent. Last week Steve preached on Hope, and yesterday Jeff preached on Joy. I think today I experienced my own early Advent....

I was sitting at my desk this afternoon, doing some thinking about and planning for Advent, I picked up the book "Searching for Shalom: Resources for Creative Worship" by Ann Weems. I have used poems from "Kneeling in Bethlehem" for Advent candle lightings the past few years, and again this year. I'm not entirely sure why I picked up the book. Maybe I felt like I needed some inspiration. In any case, I read the first poem, "Searching for Shalom" and started wondering what exactly shalom means. I started with the Preface and I guess you could say I found myself in it.

"Shalom is much more than my own personal prosperity...It's much more than a sense of well-being. It's much more than quiet and calmness, much more than the absence of stress. It's much more than the 'peace' you and I wish each other, much more than no war, no conflict, no violence, no arguing, no loud voices and no red faces. It certainly is a peace that passes my own understanding. Shalom is something that won't come from wishing on a star or keeping the rules. It's nothing I can buy with wealth or power or prestige. It's a gift, a gift that was promised. It's something I keep searching for and hoping for, but something I know I can't have if you don't have it, you and all the yous out there in the world."

For a while in college and seminary I struggled with depression. The thing that made it hard was that I felt like my life really had been pretty good, and I didn't understand why I was feeling depressed, that I should be more joyful. And that led to a downward spiral of guilt and bad feelings. I'm not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way I didn't feel depressed anymore. I still struggle with feelings of guilt and depression, but it doesn't get in the way of other things like before. But I still felt like I was "this close" to happiness...close, but not quite there. It was like I knew there was this feeling, but I wasn't quite feeling it. Sometimes in this time of year when the dark part of the day gets longer, I get this almost restless feeling, like I'm waiting for something, or waiting to get something that isn't coming soon.

Yesterday, Jeff preached about Joy. He talked about how Joy isn't a feeling of perpetual happiness. He said Joy isn't putting on a smiley face for the person who asks how you are when you're really struggling and in agony inside.

I think hearing what Jeff had to say yesterday and reading the Preface to this book today, I realize that maybe Joy isn't those fleeting, happy moments, or trying to preserve those feelings. Maybe it's knowing that we're all searching for, trying to create, and trying to hold onto those joy-filled moments, hoping for a time when they don't go away, when everyone experiences the same Shalom. And until then, we have to experience those low times to appreciate and long for and truly yearn for the true Peace and Joy.