Tsh Oxenreider - Shadow and Light: A Journey into Advent

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

Eugene, Oregon

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Shadow and Light

Copyright 2020 by Tsh Oxenreider

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97408

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

ISBN 978-0-7369-8060-9 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-7369-8061-6 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020937192

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CONTENTS

What words, sights, sounds, and smells come to mind when you think of Advent?

Depending on your upbringing, church tradition, culture, and perspective, you might consider Advent a foreign concept (perhaps youve heard of the word, but youre not sure what it means beyond a type of cardboard-cutout calendar you can buy from the holiday aisle at the grocery store), or you might picture a lengthy, 40-day Orthodox season of fasting from meat, dairy, fish, wine, and olive oil before celebrating the beloved Feast of the Nativity on December 25. Many of us probably sit somewhere between these two ideas.

Regardless of your relationship with Advent, you most likely have some kind of relationship with Christmas. It might be your favorite time of year, and you employ all your restraint and willpower to refrain from blasting carols from your speakers in October. Or you might flat-out dread this time of togetherness, tradition, and toasting to indulgence, and you have to muster all your strength to power through it while longing for life to return to normal. Once more, many of us probably sit somewhere between these two ideas.

No matter your position, Advent is a gift. Its an invitation to move slowly and methodically, looking inward with honesty about your relationship with God incarnate. It doesnt matter where you begin your Advent journey. What matters is that youre invited.

This book is written as a guide for the journey: intentionally short, ecumenical, and requiring almost no preparation. Many of us dont respond to our invitation to participate in Advent because of busyness, confusion, or overload. This guide aims to remove those barriers, offering a sensory-rich summons to enter the season as we are, wherever we are in life.

Working long, ten-hour shifts five days a week? This invitation is for you. Sleep deprived with small children who have overtaken your house and life? This invitation is for you. Young and immersed in studies with barely enough time to eat? This invitation is for you. In your second half of life, feeling a bit lost on whats beyond the bend? This invitation is for you too.

I first wrote this devotional to meet my own familys needs for an Advent guide that was short but rich with meaningmarinated in tradition, yet fit for a family of laypeople. Because Advent is for all of us. Honoring the season doesnt need to be complicated. It simply requires that we take the first step and respond to the invitation.

Having grown up in a Christian home and attended church regularly, I knew about Advent. Id heard of it, watched someone light a candle every Sunday, and saw the store aisles of cardboard calendars with perforated doors hiding mediocre chocolate. But I never understood what Advent was.

Our nondenominational Southern church traditions were fairly low key and dependent on the mood and whim of our local pastoral leadership. We sang Christmas carols all throughout December, had a Christmas Eve candlelight service, and usually put together some sort of Christmas production for the communitya musical diorama of some form of the Nativity story.

At home, we would participate in our own family traditions, such as movie watching, tree trimming, gift wrapping, bakingthe usual for an American family. Christmas Day was a joy-infused, colorful mess of wrapping paper and Andy Williams on the record player, followed by extended family time replete with overeating and more gifts. And thenit was over.

December 26 was always an abrupt letdown, when it felt as if the literal and figurative lights were promptly switched off and the celebrating ceased. Our family managed to keep our outdoor lights lit through January 1, but our tree was usually tossed out on the curb sometime during the last week of the year. By the start of the new year, Christmas was little more than a recent memory, with the adults eager to get back to routine and regularity.

I share this as an explanation of my Advent backstory. For me, Advent was simply another word mentioned around December, and it had something to do with lighting a candle at church. As a child, my priorities were more aligned with watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on TV. Thats not a bad thing, of course. I simply didnt know what Advent was. It was another vague and foreign holiday word, like frankincense, sugarplum, or tidings.

Im an adult now and a mother of three growing children. My family of five has lived in many different settings, both in the States and abroad, and our holiday traditions varied widely during our familys early years. There isnt one particular thing we have always done the same. Recognizing Advent, however, is the most consistent practice in our familial repertoire, an observance we wholeheartedly and collectively anticipate.