Excerpts from the Peanut Gallery

Whisperings of advent

I am internally sighing and wondering how it got to be 10pm already and I haven't even opened one of the 17 articles I have queued up for my next research paper. At the end of this week I have three papers due, two of which are 15-20 pagers and the other is but a paltry 12. One down (good work slugger!) but two to go (get back in there champ!).
But it is 10pm. And for the last several evenings- let's say, eight- I have not gone to bed before 1. I am le tired. It is the sabbath. Should i just give up? Don't mind if I do. Instead, let's just sit down here by the fire and in an effort to lighten the mood since my last post (mom cried- we already know I cried, it was a big ol' cryfest...) I will tell you of Christmas present (as in #4).

Being that it was Sunday, and I had been up until about 2:30 finishing off a seminal work pontificating on the Millennium Challenge Account aid program, I woke up this morning with every intention of sleeping in and then getting up to start editing and doing the graphs (apparently for economics papers they want graphs. I don't really have any graphs, nor do I generally care for excel and its tricks, but graphs they want, then graphs I will pull out of my...ahem). The familiar Sunday morning text message arrived "are you coming to church?" and I rolled over and all my will power to get up and work vanished. My resolve at 2am to get up and be disciplined and not to go to church withered. The enticement of the hot soup after Utown, where I've been hanging out the last month or so, was duelling with my heavy eyelids and fingers that were clinging to the blanket. But somehow after taking some time to sit, caffeinate and breathe with God, I was up and out the door- wearing my new hand-me-down shirt. Don't you just love getting hand-me-downs? It helps when your patron has nice taste like mine.

I walked into the service a good 40 minutes late and the breathing resumed. I don't think I have particularly impeccable timing, but the moment was beautiful. The band was in a bridge between a triumphant carol and the next song and everyone was so ... full. The room wasn't full so much as there was a fullness to the room and the church. You gotta love those moments eh. I find that the Christmas season can be beautifull like this. Maybe its because I like red best, or because I am mesmerized by twinkly lights (lifetime member of the Stanley Park Train Conductors' Society). Perhaps it's also the fact that everything happens at night. Nights are quieter and the twinkle lights show up better. It also gets dark earlier so things really are happening more at night (what was up with that- I went for a run at 4:15 and it was already beyond dusk... that part isn't as cool).

Much to my mother's chagrin, I am the biggest Christmas keener ever. I love it. I love the trees, I love the decorations, I love the music- whoever says that there isn't a Christmas spirit can't explain the fact that I can even tolerate Michael W. Smith's cheeseball crooning if it's one of his holly jolly songs.

One of the things that has come up the last few Sundays is the advent conspiracy. There is an internet video floating around that catches the spirit of Christmas. It is from a group called Advent Conspiracy. I am not going to rant about the ills of consumerism that seem to have swallowed Christmas- because I do not love that like I love fat little gingerbread men (nine! nitske drops knuefen!). I am going to let that be for now, as I am sure, if you have read anything else on this blog, you can get a sense of what my feelings would be (my mom will probably do two fist pumps of yuletide joy because of it's 'spend-less' theme of the video).

But focusing on that I think there is something even more important going on. I think they've hit upon something there with the idea of presence. Christmas represents the time where God became most tangibly present in Christ. What kinda of presence do I give to others as a response?
I have the attention span of a gnat -look! shiny objects! even more this time of year than any!
Gotta work on that one.

So there's my bedtime story for you. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

posted by Kiki @ 9:59 p.m.