Keeping Advent, day four

Sarcastic Lutheran tells the story of Our Lady of the New Advent, a simple, thoughtful, and slightly snarky way to rebel against the world's message that Advent and Christmas are about stuff rather than about the Spirit:

This is the icon we created during liturgy over the 4 weeks of Advent. Every piece of this is from "Christmas" ads: circulars, catalogs and all that junk that comes in the mail and the newspaper. We created 1/4 of it each week. An Artist in the community traced the image onto poster board indicating what color should go in each shape. People ages 6-65 cut out the right color from the ads and glued it in the space. Easy and subversive.

Part of the practice of slowing down and living into each and every Advent moment is resisting the things in our world that try to make shallow the profound longings and promises of faith. When Christmas is only about presents, family gatherings, and hot chocolate (which are all pretty good things, mind you), then faith is only about warm fuzzies and surface hope. But when Christmas is about the arrival of wholeness and salvation, and when Advent is about recognizing our needs and longing for hope...then we understand the true worth and depth of faith, which draws into itself all fears and all dreams, all griefs and all joys, all desires and all hope.