What is the best moment of all? The Bishop of Reading refers us to the excellent answer from Winnie the Pooh. Whilst eating honey is by far and away the best experience ever there is a moment just before the moment when you know the moment is going to happen. That moment is the best of all. The anticipation of the taste of honey. The moment you know the ball is going in the net. The moment you know the meal you made is going to taste great. The moment you know that the next chord you play will finish the tune. The promise of her shoes. That sort of thing.
Whilst every fibre of my being wants to wait, hope, rest and enjoy the moment of Advent, and I don't really mind the interruptions that are about planning Christmas, the thing that spoils the moment for me more than anything else is having to think about next year's programme. I don't want to do it now. I certainly won't want to be doing it between Christmas and New Year.
As a writer I often used to write Christmas resources at Easter. My sister, a designer and photographer, once had tons of industrial snow delivered to her cottage in July.
But today, really, I want to live in the advent moment of looking forward to that which has already happened and remembering the future. How Paula Gooder's sentence is following me round.
So I will walk around today with a year's social programme to delegate, a new set of children's leaders to recruit and an Easter event to plan. Or else they won't happen. I am not rushed but my head is busy. Have a happy Advent 3 Sunday.
4 comments:
Our church makes sure all rotas end at the end of January rather than at the end of the year when there are so many other pressures. Doing the new rotas when the year has already begun doesn't feel so bad!
Thank you for this, it helped me relax and vow to relax more this Advent.
Thanks anonymous friend. Good, simple thought.
Thanks for this post and pause in the day. In fact, general thanks - have very much enjoyed reading your blog this year.
"the promise of her shoes" - fab
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