Preparation Over Performance
Musings on the purpose of Advent
November has a way of sneaking up on me. Summer ends in a rush, fall passes by in a flash, and overnight the warm days are replaced by cold nights and the blaze of brilliant color has settled down into a muted grey landscape of bare branches and cloudy skies.
The Nativity Fast is about to begin and how appropriate that the season that heralds the coming of light should commence in a dull, subdued sort of way. The newness of school books has worn off, the motivation has been dampened, and everybody just wants Christmas break to come early already!
But we have forty days to wait.
Forty days to prepare.
Forty days to be reminded of how desperately we need a Savior to bring light to our darkened world.
The question I keep asking myself is: how will I use this time? Will I use it to prepare? Will I try to help my children prepare?
Some years I do this well, other years I don’t. But past performance doesn’t matter. In fact, performance — whether past or present — is actually irrelevant. Rather than worry about how well or how poorly I’m doing, rather than try to impose a metric, the better thing would be to work on building relationship. Instead of asking myself if I’m doing a “good job”, maybe I should be asking whether I’ve made time and space for the Lord in my heart. Instead of evaluating whether my children are progressing in virtue, maybe I should be focusing on loving them better, whether or not their current behavior happens to be good or bad.
There are tools that I can use in these relationship building efforts: the fast, more prayer, books that help us to focus on remembering why we wait and why we fast. I can spend less time in the digital world and more in the real one. I can look for more ways to connect with those around me instead of disappearing in my little introverted world. All of these things and more are helpful ways to focus attention and set my feet on the path I hope to walk.
But moment by moment the reference should be Christ and I find myself turning to children’s songs1 to take in the lesson again:
Foxes have holes and the birds have their nests
But the Son of Man has nowhere to rest
Is He homeless? Does Christ have a home in my heart?
Blessed Nativity Fast to all our readers! May your efforts to welcome the Christ child be blessed and fruitful.
Kh. Gigi Shadid in her album Fight the Good Fight