Ben Camino's Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #8:
Advent Roots
Roots are gnarly things aren't they? I mean, unless by roots we mean carrots growing in very finely cultivated soil. Humans have, when they knew what was good for them anyway(s), taken care of their roots. Roots ground and fix and give life to whatever is rooted to them. But roots and that to which they are rooted best flourish, when some cultural work by heaven, mother nature, or even people like us helps them along.
Maybe that makes sense. It better because by the end of this meditation, I'll be applying it to Advent and Christmas.
But first, this. Today I spent a good deal of time hiking around or "tramping" as Thoreau and my father would have said. I suppose tramping is less tied to the path and more interested in whatever seems interesting at the moment than my normal hike (which often even has a mileage minimum limit I'm trying to meet). Today, was a wander. And, as you might guess, it being the Advent season, I wondered as I wandered. Sorry.
And you can see by the picture above that I came to place I've been studying a lot lately. A place on the banks of the Wabash River where a great deal of the root systems of the trees on the bank are exposed due to erosion. Besides being really really interesting to look at (I have more pictures if you'd like to see them), they are very interesting to ruminate upon. I would say ponder, but then that would mean I was pondering while I was wondering while I was wandering. And none of us wants to hear that.
I'd love to work on the long version of this meditation. But I'm going for the short one this time. All that tramping and pondering and wondering and wandering wore me out. Plus I'm trying to cut down on caffeine a little bit as an Advent discipline. This ginger-lemon tea hits the spot, as they say, but it doesn't quite pack the punch of the Starbucks Christmas Blend (don't judge me, I asked for Advent Blend).
If you've read some Ben Camino before, you know that chewing on my roots is one of the ways I describe what I do when reflecting on my own life and experiences as part of these meditations. But the Advent season, every year, is a four-week call to root chewing (from one perspective), root strengthening (from another), and root exposure (by an ironic advent meditator, at least).
This is the way, walk ye in it. These are your roots. Tie yourself to them. Live in and through them. Acknowledge them. These metaphors don't work perfectly, of course, but I hope you will know what I mean.
Christmas is a memorial of something that happened once, a long time ago, but it meant everything (so they say), forever. Advent didn't happen. At least not in the same way. Some things happened (angel visiting Mary for example). Many are yet to happen (world will end, stars will fall, sun will go dark, perhaps not in that order, according to the reading from the gospel on the First Sunday of Advent. And the gospel today was about John the Baptist, the grown up one, not baby John who leaped in his mother's womb. John the prophet is a post-Christmas "thing" that happened. And much of Advent features Old Testament prophecies. I guess if you hold to speech-act theory, those "happened. But not in the same way as Christmas happened.
My point is this. Advent is a (more or less, depending upon us) elaborate imaginative root system for the celebration of Christmas (and I don't just mean partying). By elaborate, I don't mean every Christian should feel obligated to take part in every little ritual and practice that the Church or even a local church or family encourages. I mean, it's something that has developed over many centuries along with the celebration of Christmas, a celebration that itself has always been somewhat controversial and open to misunderstand and, frankly, misery. And it serves a function. It roots Christmas to something other than the pagan festivity it has become and, perhaps, once was (if you believe the Puritans).
I am tempted to make the point that we especially NOW need our Christmastide to be rooted in something other than the lights, the shopping, the music, the flurry, and the hurry. BUT, truth be told, I am older than many of my readers, and I'm pretty sure things haven't changed quite as much as some of we old-timers pretend. I was a terrible pagan when I was ten.
Advent cultivates the soil, strengthens the roots, sometimes exposes them lest we forget. Black Friday, Frosty the Snowman, Christmas Vacation (sorry that's the worst), sugar-covered . . . everything -- "this is what the season means to me" we mumble, dazed after yet another day of Christmas cheer.
Advent says -- John the Baptist; the God we have abandoned still calling words of comfort to his creation; a young Jewish girl who meets an angel and says "My Soul Magnifies the Lord"; her cousin and her cousin's husband, who happen to be the aged parents of John the Baptist; the world will end someday so you might want to think about that; and a little family of two (but soon three) makes a long difficult journey.
We aren't trees, but the family of the Christ is figured as one in Advent. The tree of Jesse. Yes, even the Son of God is rooted in something other than . . . God. And, by the way, you might look up "Tree of Jesse" as an Advent practice, especially to get children involved.
I suppose Advent/Christmas is always a time for thinking about own family history too, especially the older we get. That's probably as it should be. Those roots matter too. A lot. But they are best understood in the larger root system of Advent.
In fact, Advent roots are so important that, sad to say, once every seven years December 6 is NOT really St. Nicholas Day. Otherwise, Ben Camino would have certainly chewed on that tonight. But today is the Second Sunday of Advent. The day we remember John, the cousin of Jesus, who came preaching baptism for the repentance of sins in the wilderness of Judea. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, or at least a Saint Nicholas. But even in December, some things are more important than him.
I said that there was no "real" Advent before the birth of Christ, but, of course, in one way at least, there was. There hadn't been a good old-fashioned prophet in Israel for a long time, not a legit one anyway(s). And along came John, reminding people of their roots, reminding them that being God's children had certain obligations. And that all started with remembering who they were, who Yaweh was, and what He expected of them. And John proclaimed, "He is coming! And neither I nor Saint Nicholas (like I said, John was a prophet) are worthy of tying his shoes."
OK, I got carried away. He said, He is coming. Prepare for the coming. Repent. Do Advent. Get rooted. Go deep. Get used to the weird time scheme. And, while you are here, would you like to try some locusts and wild honey?
My advice for you friends is simple. Eat roots.
Amen.
Come on already, Emmanuel.
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