For all its festivities and holiday candy, Advent can be a cold and challenging season. Winter's days are shorter, and the lengthening darkness shadows more than just the clock. We are busy this time of year, what with gifts to gather and wrap, schedules to monitor and mesh, and a holy story in gestation that often seems as distant and unrelated to our own experience as it must have to the Israelites whose waiting we imitate and share. Striking the match, it seems like most of what we see by the light of these three candles has little to do with God's word of love that supposedly became flesh and dwelt among us. For all the years of telling the story, and for all the efforts of those who've heard it, the world is still amuck.
Troops stand down and enjoy the respite of eased tensions and care packages from home.
But all the stars generously and patriotically entertaining them can't obscure the fact they are still armed forces. Sure, nickels clank into buckets outside the stores and toys are donated for needy tots. Human Services hands out names of impoverished families. But while we hope the recipients have enough for leftovers, charity food baskets only seem to remind us of how hungry people really are. The flash of seasonal goodwill and open hearts merely veneers the termite-ridden realities that will reappear in a matter of days.