Advent for the Troubled Soul
If you are weighted down, despairing, or on the ragged edge, these days are for you.
The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. {Dietrich Bonhoeffer}
How can it be that Advent—these sparse days given to grieving prophets and a hard reckoning with our dire predicament—has taken on a measure of kitsch alongside Elf on the Shelf? Advent is ache and silence. Advent is for poor fools who’ve crashed into the end of the line. Yet we’ve somehow arrived at Advent bougie. The Powers of Enterprise have proven they can employ absolutely anything in the service of the holiday blitzkrieg.
In October, I walked through a department store’s cosmetics menagerie and bumped into a 7-foot banner promoting a high priced Advent calendar where, each day, you open the little box and receive a glos…
