Advent Snow

It’s raining in Wisconsin. It’s not supposed to rain in the middle of December. We are accustomed to snow—sometimes feet deep—by this time of year. It falls upon all that we see and signals to us that things have changed. Summer, the season of growth and life, is long gone. So too the enjoyably brisk air of fall when, although the landscape is slowly dying before our eyes, we secretly hold onto the notion that anything is possible (maybe if it just got warm enough the trees would bud out again!). But then the snow comes, and things change. We get out the shovels and sleds and skis; some of us rearrange the garage entirely. We change wardrobes. Some change out windows and doors on their houses, some change the tires on their vehicle. Winter constrains us and dictates to us. But it also gives definition to our lives. It tells us what to do, but it frees us from the burden of endless possibility. When it snows overnight, you spend the morning shovelling. When the high temperature for the day is in the single digits, you stay inside and read or play games or make love. When the snow is just right for packing together, you make a snowman with the kids. Some things are non-negotiable.

Snow also tells us to get ready for Christmas. Even more pervasive than the Christmas decorations on display in stores (which have been up too long to notice anyway), the snow tells us that Christmas is coming. But more than that, it provides a bridge within the soul connecting us back via a staggeringly beautiful and consistent backdrop to basically every year in which we have experienced the anticipation and joy of Christmastime before.

I find that I need that bridge. Especially now that I am on the adult side of Christmas. Getting ready for the holiday just isn’t what it used to be. As a kid it was all anticipation. Do you remember that?  Anticipation of presents, of course, but also of winter break and parties and concerts and church programs and playing with cousins. Every day of the season seemed to come alive, as if the energy of anticipation that we held for those various moments somehow combined together into a mystical pulse of vitality undergirding our every breath. The magic and mystery of the season was baked into every aspect of life and reinforced again and again as we heard the stories of the season—stories of Santa and Rudolph and Charlie Brown and his friends, and the story of Mary and Joseph and a baby in a manger. And those stories all fit together and made sense somehow, or at least we didn’t bother to question the ways in which they didn’t.

But now it’s different, isn’t it? Now we create the anticipation. Now there is work and life as usual along with the obligation of buying presents for everyone on the list and planning out the parties and programs and travels. Now, if we aren’t careful, the season drains us of energy and takes away vitality. And now, as much as I hate to admit it, the stories don’t always make sense together (more to come on this point in a later post).

But this is why we need connections to the past and a season of anticipation. This is why we need ritual and tradition, putting up the lights and trimming the tree. And this is why, those of us fortunate to live in places that actually resemble the north pole for a portion of the year, this is why we long for—why we need—the snow.

Distracted

As I approach mid-life (well, I suppose I might already be there statistically speaking, but I’d rather not think about that right now), I am more and more aware of how precious our short time here on this rock really is.  I want to be intentional with my life. Yet, I am so easily distracted from it.  Let me say that again—I am distracted from my life!  How absurd, but I am.  I am distracted by the latest sporting event, the latest “breaking” news story, by the text I just received, by all that stuff that Upworthy thinks I should hear about, by the podcasts that I have to keep up with, by so many things.  And some of these distractions are good.  I mean they actually are things that I want to know about.  I want to be an informed citizen, I am interested in what is happening in the world of sports, and I definitely want to keep up with friends, but it seems like the recent “advances” of technology have drastically changed the way that I encounter these bits of information and I don’t know that it is working for me.

As a stay-at-home dad, I almost always have the opportunity (or temptation) to turn away from a household chore or playing with my three-year-old daughter to pick up a device and engage the outside world instead.  And even more than that, my phone can alert me to someone, or something, that wants my attention—right now!  A text from a friend, no matter how trivial has an urgency far beyond it’s content.  The fact that I can check email from anywhere, makes me feel as though I have a responsibility to do so, notifications of world events from CNN (since shut off) seem to have a greater pull than their “this-just-in” predecessors on television.  Maybe it’s just a matter of getting used to these things, but I’m not so sure that is the case.

An example: A couple of nights ago Ohio State played Oregon in the national championship football game.  Now, I like football, but I don’t follow college all that closely and have no connection to either school.  We choose not to have cable so I couldn’t watch the game at home, but I had checked the score on my phone mid-evening and found myself checking back frequently since it was a close game.  I was essentially “watching” it via sporadic, written play-by-play and stat checks (which, in case you’ve never tried it, is no way to watch a football game).  But after deciding to turn in for the night (and I really wanted to get to bed because of my new year’s resolution to get up earlier in the morning), I couldn’t shake the temptation to get up and grab my phone or ipad and check the score.  Why?  I didn’t really care.  I know that I’ve turned off equally significant (or insignificant) games on television in the past and easily slipped into sleep, but for some reason the fact that I knew I could quickly and easily check the score made the temptation that much stronger.  Something about that mode of “watching” made it harder to turn away from.  I had the will power not to give in, but as I lay there (annoyed that I wasn’t just falling asleep already!), I realized that my mind—my consciousness—was not where I wanted it to be or where it naturally would have been had I not checked that score two hours earlier.  There are numerous things I’d rather have been thinking about as I drifted off to sleep that night—reflections on the day just over, dreams of the future, prayers for my children and family, even simple plans for navigating the tasks of the week ahead.  But instead of using that valuable end-of-day time on and my life, I was distracted… 

Now, maybe this isn’t a big deal.  Maybe everyone else is already acclimated to this way of engaging one another and the world outside and this isn’t a problem for them.   But when I find myself responding to any text the moment it comes in, or I see the mom at the library completely missing the fact that her son or daughter just walked into the next section because she’s glued to her phone, I can’t help but wonder if these ways of connecting with the world are helping us or if all they really do is offer a constant temptation to dis-connect from what is before us—our actual life—only to take up the latest breaking, extremely urgent, needs-to-be-addressed-now… distraction.