I need to remember to pause
Just yesterday I noticed it. Starbucks has its cheery red cups with white stars out again. Having lived in the city for a few years now (where in some neighborhoods there really is a Starbucks on every corner), I have come to associate these cups with the holiday season as much as anything else. They mean that Thanksgiving is coming, and Christmas after that, and even though I can’t stand Starbucks (ask me about that sometime), those little red cups in the gloved hands of every other commuter on the sidewalk get me excited for the festivities to come.
I’m ready for a big plate of food on Thursday and the leftovers for days after that. I’m ready for family time, for decorating the house with paper stars, for picking out a Christmas tree, for choosing the perfect gift for the people I love. I’m ready for gingerbread.
But I’m also aware of how busy my calendar is going to get over the next month, and I meet that expectation with both excitement and dread. I’m aware that gift-giving comes at a price that I’ll see in my checkbook balance, and I meet that expectation with mostly just dread. The truth is that as fun as this coming month of back-to-back holidays is, it can be exhausting, and it is too easy to get bogged down in the midst of it all and forget what I was so excited about in the first place.
I need to remember, and maybe you do too, to pause. I need to remember that in the liturgical calendar, this is the season of Advent. This is a time when our prayer life is meant to grow, and we are meant to take the time to prepare our hearts for Christ. Prayer and self-reflection need a regular place on my calendar. I need to look at regular quiet time not as just another thing in a long list of things to do, but as the thing that sustains me so that I can do all of the other things in the right spirit. This year I don’t want to heave a big sigh when people ask me if I’m ready for Christmas. No matter the state of the gift-giving or the travel schedule or the Christmas party schedule, on Christmas Eve I want to be ready for Christ. Maybe this Advent season I’ll spend as much time praying every morning as it might take the average person to stand in line waiting for one of those red Starbucks cups. Maybe then my “Hallelujahs” on Christmas Eve will be deeper than a venti latte.
- Laura Arico, Assistant Minister