Doing Advent

I am comforted by the dark advent season.  It’s not the darkness that I like. It’s the hope that makes waiting in the darkness tolerable.  It’s the recognition that hope shines not only in the good times, but also in the hardest of times.

I appreciate the concept of Advent now that I am in a personal dark season.  But more than  just appreciating the thought, I’m trying to really live life differently.  Rather than just let Christmas sneak up on me in the middle of holiday chaos, I want to really experience the joy of Christmas as it follows the hope of Advent.

So to help me, I’m working through a liturgical daily planner during the Advent weeks.  I’ve been looking at this planner online for awhile.  It’s called Sacred Ordinary Days.  It’s expensive, so when the offered a sample download for the Advent season for $4.00 I thought I’d give it a try.

So far, I’m loving it.  It combines daily scripture reading, with white space, a place to set goals for the day, and a place to take notes.  It also includes a weekly  life evaluation and goal setting prompt (weekly examen), as a well as an overall evaluation and goal setting portion for the Advent season as a whole.  The focus is on reflecting and resetting.

I already bought a fancy planner for next year that I’ve been excited to use, but I’m going to be tempted to continue with this one.  Obviously a real evaluation shouldn’t be done after the second day, but it kinda of made a devotee of me after I read these words on Sabbath rest.