Advent 1, Monday 2010

I'm glad I took the dog out this morning for a second walk along the bike path. After my morning cup of tea, after my morning prayers, after I broke the ice on her backyard water tub ( Ice! ), I decided to take her for another walk. If I hadn't, I would have missed the frost. It's not the first frost but it is the first really good frost on the open grasses along the bike path.

Ice and frost. Winter is coming. This morning the zinnias in the garden are truly browned and dried out. Time to cut them down and let them lie in the garden, shelter and food for small birds. The sunlight coming into the living room has shifted. It's good journaling and praying light.

This year Advent caught me by surprise. In church terms I was ready - services planned, bulletins ready. But in personal terms I realized that this year, for the first time in over a decade, I had forgotten that I begin an Advent discipline of prayer, readings, writing and art on the Monday before Advent 1. And then I realized that maybe it's time to do something different.

I don't know what it is. I'm beginning by clearing up cluttered spaces in the house. And by eating my breakfast at the dining room table without a television to watch or the blogs to read. This year I am waiting, and I don't know that for which I wait. Maybe less sentimental magic and more of something else.

My prayer time was consumed by memories of the end of chemo and radiation three years ago. I re-read a journal entry from September 2007. That, too, was a time of not knowing, of waiting, of hoping for something not known or seen. Meanwhile, one pile of clutter to clear away. Plenty more for the rest of Advent!