Reorienting at Advent
Cultivating quiet and stillness this advent season
During last year’s advent season I was grieving a miscarriage of twins and recovering from surgery that occurred right after Thanksgiving. The hustle and bustle of the season lent itself well to distracting me from grief. I was thankful for the distraction as those early days post-miscarriage I did not want to process or feel much. However, in looking back I realize I was numb to a lot of the brightness and joy that would typically bubble up in me during the holiday season. I participated in festive events, but was not fully present and my participation felt forced at times as I tried to communicate how ok I was with things and how I was trusting the Lord amidst great sorrow. I did not take time for quiet reflection as confronting my own grief felt too big to bear. This December, I hope to cultivate a time of quiet and hush and stillness to encourage my contemplation of the past year and prioritize time with God.
I am currently reading
’s lovely book that was just published titled Reclaiming Quiet. This been an incredible read to finish right before ushering in the advent season. I have had the privilege of knowing Sarah personally and have always been inspired by her words and way of describing the world - especially the hard things of life. As a busy mom and writer but also an introvert, Sarah does not have a plethora of quiet moments. Her book is about trying to reclaim moments of quiet and reconnect with God even amidst the busyness of life. Coming off of a full work/life season (as mentioned in my last Substack), I felt that this book was meant for me to read right now ahead of advent.
Sarah highlights the importance of ‘being bored’ and how it can cultivate imagination through the quiet that comes from having to find something to do in those periods of boredom. Interestingly, we encourage children to embrace their boredom, but often struggle with this embrace as adults. Additionally, in our day and age of being so connected, it must be a conscious and intentional choice to step away from the allure of dopamine hits into a place where when we are bored and do not just reach for the phone to satisfy our goldfish attention brain. Sarah echoed this lament about technology ‘I have realized that my capacity to imagine, to experience God’s reality in a direct and joyous way, is threatened almost constantly not by the forces of science, but by those of technology. I see everything through a screen…The function of a phone is to always set one outside of an experience.”
Thinking about my ability to imagine being inhibited by my connection to my phone and being set outside of experiences I want to enjoy is sobering. It challenges me to reassess my phone habits especially ahead of a season that is meant for connection with others and God. I have written extensively about how my social media-free Saturdays help me be creative and more aware of my inner thought life. Saturdays are now one of my favorite days because I have a rule to not use social media and there s no temptation because there is a strong boundary. However, I do not often carry through that knowledge to my other days. My desire for perceived connection with others through social media and running away from boredom snares me so quickly.
Now and through the advent season, I want to strive to be present in the moments I do have instead of hopping from task to task and running from boredom. I desire for these last few weeks of the year to be marked by my attention to what is in front of me. Whether that is during my workday when I would rather be reading or when I am with others and am already thinking about what is next on my to-do list.
The type A part of me wants to make a 10-step plan for how I will accomplish this goal of being more present and on my phone less during advent, but I think that defeats the purpose of cultivating quiet and stillness. To cultivate something, I must work at it gradually to develop the skill and not just check a box that I ‘completed’ it. However, there is also wisdom in having a bit of a plan. To meet in the middle with a plan that will help me acquire the skill of cultivating quiet, I resolve to not wake up and look at my phone right away, but instead spend some time reading or praying. To facilitate this, I will put my prayer journal and another book or two right next to my bed so the barrier to doing one of those two things is low. For connecting with others, I will leave my phone in my pocket or coat when I am with others which is something I typically do anyways. I expect that embracing boredom will be more challenging than the other two goals, but I hope that by keeping books strewn about the house, I will pick up one of them instead of my phone.
Since last year’s Christmas season was a time of weightiness and distraction, I hope to usher in and make space time for quiet and reflection this year while being joyful about what Christmas represents.