Where’d my ducks Go?

I am holding on to dear life as we race towards the end of the year. I am all out of paid time off and will be working everyday next week, except (thankfully) Christmas; which is such a gift, yet does not feel adequate for the level of fatigue I am experiencing. I have found myself getting cranky and wishing away the holiday (to get to a much needed PTO refreshed bank so I can get some rest) while simultaneously wanting to cling to the festive season. I feel fuzzy and as someone described it to me when I shared that my ducks were not in a row—" I don’t even know know where my ducks are and one of them might actually be a goose.”

Yesterday, when I tried to write what I would like to call a “serious and thoughtful advent post” my anxiety spiked and I shut down. I didn’t want to even try to type anymore words and so I closed the draft and let it go. Initially I was pretty hard on myself, until I realized, I am tired and that is okay. Right now I am making it through the workdays to the best of my ability and if I am incapable of crafting beautiful, hopeful, and flowery posts on the hope of the advent season—that is okay. Because right now we are doing the best we can.

I have been watching a lot of youtube vloggers, and instagram influencers whose profession is to create beautiful and cozy content. On any given day it is not necessarily the messy parts of their lives—no matter how genuine they seem and how much they attempt to be authentic; the nature of influencing is that they still get to choose what they show. I respect them for that but it can be hard on our minds and hearts. Especially when the curated festive content shows signs of a holiday season that is drastically different than our own.

I few years ago, I wrote a post about my cranky holiday mood and I remember writing that maybe my crankiness won’t lift before Christmas but that doesn’t stop Christ from coming. So, today I don’t have the beautiful, well written, poetic, and thoughtful advent reflection I would love to be able to offer but I do have a little authenticity.

I am tired, cranky, and pretty fuzzy. Right now, I am simply lucky if I remember my car keys and if I locked the door, so things like remembering a zoom call or to send a follow up email really feel hopeless. And I am allowing that to be okay. To be present with myself as I am here and now and extend her grace.

Sure I didn’t get to send the Christmas card I had hoped I would be able to do, or to book a particular show that I wanted to see—but I am able to sit, be with Will, laugh with him and have tears in my eyes because I am so grateful for the life we have together. I am able to be present, when I remember to take the time to breathe fully. If I give myself the grace I deserve I can see the delighted face of children as they watch Christmas parade floats drift by them dressed in twinkling lights. And maybe, just maybe, that is how I am actually meant to spend the season. Open, awake, and actively seeking and willing to witness the presence of the Divine Love in my midst—feel the gratitude that comes so swiftly and suddenly that I am shaken awake with no other option that to shed tears in my eyes and celebrate with thanksgiving in my heart."

The world is heavy, many of us might be struggling, a lot of us are probably worn the heck out but the invitation I keep receiving, especially during this season of Advent is “be right here, be in the present, catch the glimmers where you can, and remember that hope is alive and well here just as she is alive and well for our (collective) future.”

The scripture that I keep coming back to over and over again for this Advent season was used by Kara Eidson in her Advent devotion, Stay Awhile: Advent Lessons in Divine Hospitality. In her second chapter for the second week of Advent (yes, I know it is the third week at this point—but friends remember we on the struggle bus) she starts with Jeremiah 29:5-14 (I have included the text below).

This scripture has been a lifeline for me. A hopeful invitation to live precisely where I am. To be present and open to all that life actually is, right here right now. Have hope for the ways that God will be able to redeem it, choose to live into the present hope in ways that are healing, kind, and loving towards myself and others. Even when the world is not how I would have it, it is still beautiful and our loving God is still very much at work in it and through each of us.

We are invited to live into the present, pray for peace, work for peace, grow gardens, grow families, and foster love. We are invited to find God right here in our very midst even as we hope for God’s coming. Friends, may we live as people of hope, people of love, people of faith right here fully where we are, as we are, with our hearts always open and attuned to the redeemed world that God is bringing in our midst.

Jeremiah 29:5-14 “addresses the Jewish people in Babylonian exile, who have been traumatized by devastation and loss; the prophet Jeremiah assures the doubting that God is still with them. Their doubt seems natural, given the state of things. The doubt that comes in moments of darkness is one shared by all humankind, across generations and centuries. While we may not have shared the exile’s experience of losing our homeland, how many of us have shared in the experience of having a dark night of the soul?” (Eidson, p. 29).

Eidson also writes, “Sometimes our plans fall apart, but God is always at work creating something new. Planning is essential in both our spiritual and secular lives, but we must adapt and live in the reality that plans change as life changes around us.”

5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream,a 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the Lord.

10 For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12 Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13 When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

Eidson ends her section by saying: “The Jewish people in exile, despite the upheaval of their theology, their geography, and even their identity, are called to plan [and I would add hope] for the future. The plan may need to be adapted, but they are still called to plan” (p. 31).

I would also add—while they were called to plan and hope for the future they were also invited to be in the present, to live life, and live it as abundantly as they could. So too are we all called—called to plan, hope, and work for the future while living well right here in the present.

Grace and Peace and may our ducks and geese soon come home to us and get in their rows. Much love, Margaret.