The final grades have been submitted, and I (and my students) are now on break. My brother arrived home from college last night. My own semester of grad school has ended. It’s Christmas break!

Break is often a time of seeing old friends, celebrating holidays with family, and catching up on sleep. During college, it was also a time to get a cold, unfortunately.

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Milkweed bursts with silken seed. Crushed almonds scatter like spilled cinnamon. A child clips basil at the tender neck, after a family friend passes away. Love is swallowed in moondust, bared in cherry rose. Across the landscape of human experience, can inside really be disentangled from out?

- L.L. Barkat, InsideOut

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Over the years I have collected quotations related to Advent and Christmas. This morning I took some time to read and reflect and I have some favorites to share. Maybe you have a favorite quote related to the first and second coming of Jesus that you would like to share as well.

“Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.”                        –Simone Weil

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Rejoice: for my M.A. thesis has been submitted.

I’m not only a college instructor (mercifully, not a TA); I’m also a graduate student. Or I was. I’m not quite sure when I can switch over from identifying myself as “grad student” to an “M.A.” – it could be when the department notifies me that the graduate school has accepted my thesis. Or it could be when my degree officially confers on January 25. In any case, I feel done, and I’m happy about that.

At the end of the year, I always find myself thinking about the past year, evaluating it, considering how far I’ve come, where I’ve slacked, what I’ve done, what blessings I’ve received, and what I hope to do in the New Year. This year, as I’m finishing two calendar years as a student, I’m also evaluating grad school.

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The three things I remember most from my 9^th grade English class are1) the day our 6 ft tall teacher came to our conservative catholic school in a cow costume (it was totally rebellious for her and hilarious for us!), 2) the day she talked about beer and kegs during her lesson on short stories, and 3) the day we had to bring a pop song for the poetry unit so we could analyze the lyrics. (I remember it so well because of how anxious I was to make sure I selected a song cool enough to impress my classmates). Like many high schools students, I was preoccupied (at least, in part) by rebellion, beer parties, and being cool.

I’m sure I learned more from freshman English than an encouragement to be rebellious or where to find a little a poetry in She, the Green Day song I picked; however, I can honestly say that my faith-based high school did not teach me a single thing about why this faith was important when it comes to English class or any other class, besides Religion, for that matter. Like many of my peers, multiple parts of my life were as compartmentalized as the class periods we attended: I had faith in one compartment (I knew I was a “Christian”, but had no clue how to live that out), academics in another (even as I acted out, I still strived to make the grade), and social life separate from these, spending way too much of my energy trying to be cool enough for Kennedy Catholic.

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Jubilee 2010 speaker Jim Belcher’s life was radically changed in college. He had grown up in the church and wanted to honor God with his life. For Jim, like many of us who grew up around Christianity, he understood “salvation” as being primarily personal—being saved from sins and living morally for God. A life following Christ consisted of doing stuff for God, saving souls, supporting foreign missions and having quiet times. There’s nothing wrong with this vision, per se, but Jim started asking good questions. Is this vision of the Christian life big enough? If this is all life is about, what do you do with all of the things you are learning in college? Shouldn’t we just be pastors or missionaries?

One phrase changed everything. It’s right there in the Bible and yet many of us miss its significance: “the kingdom of God.” In his new book, Deep Church, Jim explains how Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom, the reign of God breaking through human history, captured his imagination. He writes:

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It’s December, and a season is upon us – a season of merriment, of longing, of looking eagerly toward the day when our deepest wishes will be fulfilled.

I speak not, really, of Christmas, but of Advent. Appropriately named, Advent is the time on the church calendar when we wait expectantly and prepare for the Lord’s coming (both symbolically, on Christmas Day, and in the real, historical future). It is the beginning of the liturgical year in Western churches.

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I grew up thinking most Catholics were going to hell. I’m not sure exactly where this came from, except maybe from watching Donnie in first grade. He was Catholic and the worst-behaved kid. He even spit on Mr. Gordon’s bald head from the second story school bathroom. Or maybe it was the occasional “So there was a Baptist, a Presbyterian and a Catholic…” joke from our church pulpit which always ended poorly for the Catholic.

It wasn’t until after college that I gained a clearer, humbler understanding of the world and grace and the hearts of men and women – Catholic and otherwise. That’s also about the time when I read Evangelii Nuntiandi (On Evangelism and the Modern World), an Apostolic Exhortation by Pope Paul VI. In it I found what has become one of my favorite quotes of all time, and it fits so well with Living Jubilee and our high calling as workers and servants that I thought I should share it with you. Read it until you get it. Then read it again with a bit of William Wallace passion: Read the rest of this entry »