The Slow Way: An Advent of Believing in Believing

This Advent let's practice believing in believing. Let's practice not only receiving the wildest story of Divine Love, but inviting that story to settle all the way down in us.

for the frantic strivers, serial doers, and weary achievers

“Look, I know very well that brooding misshapen evil is everywhere, in the brightest houses and the most cheerful denials, in what we do and what we have failed to do, and I know all too well that the story of the world is entropy, things fly apart, we sicken, we fail, we grow weary, we divorce, we are hammered and hounded by loss and accidents and tragedies. But I also know, with all my hoary muddled heart, that we are carved of immense confusing holiness; that the whole point for us is grace under duress; and that you either take a flying leap at nonsensical illogical unreasonable ideas like marriage and marathons and democracy and divinity, or you huddle behind the wall. In short I believe in believing, which doesn’t make sense, which gives me hope.” - Brian Doyle, “Cool Things,” One Long River of Song.

Here’s what’s wild: We spend four weeks every December gearing ourselves up for a celebration of the Divine One who, in an attempt to get close to their creation, settles into humanity in the most logical way possible—through a woman’s uterus. After all, how else does anybody else show up in the world? 

And the woman who bears the Divine—simple and working class, young and unwed, in a Jewish homeland ruled by an oppressive empire—gives birth to the most real human there ever will be. If all of us are created in God’s image, then this child is God’s image, true all the way through. If we are reflections of Divine Love, then this child is Divine Love, not reflected, but present in the flesh. 

Who can believe this? 

Mystery is the core of my faith these days. Because no matter how many people prop a pine tree in water and twist twinkle lights through it, no matter how many Playmobile nativity sets are opened and play-acted by little ones, the story of baby Jesus is wild. When we allow ourselves to sit with it, to ask all the questions there are to ask, we are left with a choice—to either believe in just how marvelous it would be if the Creator came to us as a babe, or to embrace a season of gifts and cozy and connections, but write the Jesus part off along with most of our culture. What do we do with a story of God that lies beyond any modern, practical notions of how the world works?

Brain Doyle wrote that while “brooding misshapen evil is everywhere,” and while the “the story of the world is entropy, things fly apart, we sicken, we fail, we grow weary, we divorce, we are hammered and hounded by loss and accidents and tragedies,” he also knew with all his “hoary muddled heart, that we are carved of immense confusing holiness.” 

I know that too. I know it in moments when the world around me is kind, when the people I love love me back, when a flower I planted rises up and moves toward the sun, when a child learns in the most marvelous and simple way, and even when we twirl twinkle lights around a pine tree in the middle of our living room, lighting up the dark world. I know that there is something to this God-With-Us story. And it’s something I long for, something I still believe can change the world. In short, as Brian Doyle wrote, “I believe in believing, which doesn’t make sense, which gives me hope.” 

This year I’ve been thinking that Advent just might be a a season for practicing believing in believing. A season to throw all logical thinking to the wind and instead embrace hope arriving in the form of a human. Advent is four weeks in which we’re allowed to receive the most mysterious story of God ever told, a story where God refuses to leave us alone, and shows up the way we all showed up in this world. Who better than a baby to point us to wisdom and hope and a future wholeness? It’s a season of practicing what “cannot be measured, calibrated, calculated, gauged, weighed, or understood.” The sorts of things that can only be clarified in a child’s mind, explained by a child’s tongue. 

Christmas has never been a holiday that makes sense. Is it logical that God shows up in humanity to rescue us? Of course not. But do we humans understand what it means to be rescued? Always. We have sung our songs about it, danced our dances around it, told our stories around our fires about how we were lost and needed to be found, how we were oppressed and needed to be released, how we were in danger and needed to be brought to safety. 

I’m convinced that’s what Christimas is: God showing up in a human body. God arriving with arms and legs and fleshy beating heart, in order to snag our hand, pull us out of our existential danger, dance our dances with us. 

This Advent, here at The Slow Way, we’re going to practice believing in believing. Putting ourselves in a position where we can not only receive the wildest of stories of Divine Love, but invite that story to settle all the way down in us, in the places where we long to be rescued. 

This season, let’s invite one another to do more than decorate. Or shop. Or eat those sausage-cheese balls at parties that seem like they’ll be delicious, but are almost always disappointing. This Advent, let’s be present for the spiritual work of believing. 

For the next few weeks, I’ll be inviting us into the Christmas story through its most illogical parts, in hopes that the more we use our spiritual imagination to be present to the glory and mystery of God in the flesh, the more we might awaken to belief. 

I hope you’ll join me.

A Slow Practice

I always believe that the most simple practices are the ones that stick. My family has tried all the Advent devotionals over the years. We’ve done big service days and celebrated St. Nicolas Day by cleaning out toys and giving away gifts. We’ve taken on prayers for the world each day of Advent. But the thing that has lasted every year of my kids’ lives? Lighting our Advent candles around the table and singing haphazardly and off key “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” We do it all the way till Christmas Eve. And while my teenage sons can feel awkward about just about every spiritual practice that asks more of them than simply thanking God for the food, this one means something to them. I suspect that they won’t really know what it means for them until they’re older, which is how life works, right? Usually the most meaningful things settle deep in us before we ever really know why.

I want us to have an Advent practice this season that sticks, the kind that transforms us, not because it looks like something incredible on the outside, but because it gives us space to get quiet and sit with the story for a while. 

Here’s what I’m suggesting: For the next twenty-four days until Christmas, will you join me in sitting for five minutes a day in the silence? You can make this time whatever you need it to be, but I suggest you choose early morning or night, sometime when it’s dark, when you can light a candle or look at your twinkle lights. 

Maybe this is already part of your practice. That’s fine! Keep going. But for those of us who fluctuate through different sorts of practices (me!), committing to one small thing for a season is a way of differentiating that season from the others. I am a morning prayer person. And while I love to get up before the rest of my family, that’s not usually what happens. I wake just before my kids at 6:15 and we’re off to the breakfasts and lunch-packing and nerve calming around my house. And I usually fit a little reading or prayer in between when the first two kids leave and my youngest’s breakfast demands to be made. It’s chaotic, but I know that the little I can give is beautiful enough. 

Evenings are harder for me. I’m tired, the day is clanging around my skull, some kid has forgotten to study for a test until 9 pm, or won’t put down their phone. I’m most prone to fall into bed and suggest that anyone with problems meet me under the covers to talk it through with my eyes half shut. 

But I often wish I ended the day in prayer and this Advent, that will be my practice. I may have to put a sign on my door that prayer is in session, but my hope is five minutes of centering prayer each night before bed, sitting up in the chair in my room, with a candle beside me. 

Here’s how I’m going to practice. You’re welcome to do it just like me, or lean into your own thing. 

Find a cozy spot and light a candle. Before you begin choose a word or phrase you’d like to focus your time of prayer on. Maybe this word is what you want to use all Advent to prepare your heart for Christmas. Maybe you’ll switch it up. Either thing is okay. If you don’t know where to start, you might make a list ahead of time about what you want this season to be for you. When you find yourself on Christmas Eve, what do you hope your season of preparation will have built inside you—Belief? Wonder? Curiosity? Delight? 

Choose a word and as you come to this time of prayer, imagine holding that word in your heart in the presence of God. That’s all that centering prayer is. We sit in silence, we focus on breathing deeply, and whenever our mind wanders we bring it back with gentleness to the word we’ve chosen.

Set a timer on your phone or on a more old-school timer (if you don’t want the distraction of a phone close by) for five minutes. And begin.

Breathe in: Come Lord Jesus.

Breath out: Help me believe.

Breath in: Come Lord Jesus.

Breathe out: Help me believe.

Breathe in: Come Lord Jesus.

Breathe out: Help me believe.

When you’re ready to settle into your time of contemplation, use your imagination to hold your word in the center of you. Breathe deeply in the presence of God, and return to the word whenever you feel your mind drift. 

When your timer goes off, you can close with this prayer that comes from Brian Doyle’s beautiful words:

You, Holy One Who Comes to Us, cannot be “measured, calibrated, calculated, gauged, weighed, or understood.” And so I choose to “believe in believing, which doesn’t make sense, which gives me hope.”