prelude to something maybe: november 30, 2019
This is not a business. This is not a blog. It's a bloody mess of post-Ignatian existentialist anti-spiritual liturgical meditation.
I invite you to join Ben on his pilgrimage through the horror, the horror of contemporary "Beauty Advent Calendars" (marketed by Cosmopolitan), "Advent: The Drinking Game (made up by some friends of mine in Chicago), Amazon.com, and "Two-Minute Advent: For Those Too Busy to Think, Feel, Read, or Chant."
But mostly, I invite you to reconsider. Everything. To eat locusts and wild honey. To walk down a pitch black boardwalk at midnight towards what might the ocean and might be the answer to the question you've never been able to frame (or, obviously, might be the abyss). And to have a baby. Or at least wait for one. Or take care of one.
This world is charged with something wild and lonely and lovely and disruptive. Let's attend. Let's intend. Let's try NOT to get out of the way of the mysterious power and love we hope and dream and sometimes tremble about. There is bread enough for all of us. Wine enough. Salt water splashed on our faces by a friend, a reminder that we are not alone.
Meet Ben Camino here on December 1, the first day of Advent 2019. Every day? Most days? Well, more likely some days, a meditation (some new, some old, some the obvious product of a gallon or so of Christmas Blend) will be posted at this site for your reading pleasure.
OK, in truth, this isn't for your pleasure. What, fellow pilgrim, you expect even Advent to feed your hedonism? So just read, sell all that you have, give to the poor, fast from craft beer, and spend some serious time looking up into the gloom (which may or may not be hiding something amazing). You might even see some glimmerings of . . . things that glimmer. Orion on the horizon. Just above what might be the sea. Might, I said.
For you newbies, here is a link to one of Ben's earlier Ironic Advent Meditations. Once you are into the Ben Camino universe, you can access all the meditations by the handy little links in the margins. Or you can download the app. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. I don't have a microwave, I sure don't have an app. But I sure as hell have sand on my shoes.
Here's that link: http://bencaminosoul.blogspot.com/2013/12/ironic-advent-meditation-2-this-advent.html
