Glynn Cardy: Lessons in being a soul survivor

The sober preparatory season of Advent is largely lost and gone forever. The tinsel has been up since mid-November, the shops are serenading us with carols, and we have joined the Christmas rush. It's the season to be jolly, or so we are told.

Let's face it: the end of the year is a frantic rush. At work we are rushing to meet deadlines, financial and other, before the holidays. There's usually a party or two thrown in. For parents it's a busy time of end-of-year concerts, prize-givings, and the start of school holidays.

At home we are deciding the wheres, and whats, and whos of Christmas. Advent means staying up late to finish things, worrying about money and how much to spend, finding time to join the shopping madness, and thinking about who and which relatives, if any, to spend Christmas with. For some, this is a frenetic yet joyful task. For others, it is a rigorous ordeal.

In times past it wasn't like this. The church taught that Advent was penitential, with judgment just around the corner. One needed to get one's life and the life of one's community in order. In Advent people would come to confession. They would remember their sins, ask God's forgiveness, and undertake acts of penance.

The Feast of Christmas being not primarily about presents, food and family, but about the incarnation of the holy God in our midst, people cleaned up their act to meet in a spiritual sense the holy child of God.

Sin is a loaded word that has passed its use-by date. It implies that people are born bad, become worse, and need forgiveness even if they are living decent lives. It is part of a system where God is holy and therefore unapproachable, we are sinful and therefore can't approach God, and only the Church can guarantee us access. Some of us have tried to re-fashion sin. Instead of individual failings there's been talk of corporate greed, foreign policy that serves only the rich, abuse of the environment, and refusal to address the causes of poverty.

But the stain of the "sin" word continued, and in our society it has become a word that the Church uses to condemn and disempower people it disapproves of.

It is loaded with presumptions, laced with guilt inducement, and likely to support I-know-better-than-you attitudes. It should be deleted as historical spam.

The heart of Christmas is love. In the words of poet Christina Rossetti: "Love came down at Christmas time".

Jesus was born to unmarried, and therefore "sinful", parents. He was born into poverty, vulnerable, a refugee, homeless, and pursued by a tyrannical killer.

Topsy-turvy thinking is at the heart of Christmas: the mighty one is weak, the holy one is born out of wedlock, the wealthy one is poor, and the sovereign one is a scantily clothed babe.

If you don't want to be spiritually run over at Christmas, you may want to put time aside in the midst of your day to pause, breathe deeply, look at the world with a sense of thanksgiving, and listen to your own soul.

When the world is telling you to buy, and buy more, think about giving more and getting less. Over-consumption is a disease.

Watch fewer commercials and less TV this Advent. Put a sign on your letterbox asking that advertising be directed elsewhere.

Send a picture of a beautiful Christmas hamper to all your family telling them it would cost only $20 each. Then tell them the money for this hamper will go to the City Mission. Yes, the Mission needs money but, more importantly, for your own spiritual well-being you need to give.

If you are hosting a Christmas meal, think of one non-family member you would like to invite. Then do it. The visitor at the table is as traditional to Christmas as turkey, and spiritually much more essential.

What I would ideally have liked on St Matthew's stone tower this Advent was not a Santa climbing it, like on the old Victoria Park furnace, but King Kong. The caption would read, "Guess who's coming for Christmas?"

Kong not only represents that which we fear in nature, others and ourselves - the untameable subconscious - but he also represents the holiness of modern creativity.

At St Matthew's table we welcome the creativity of our society and the sacredness of the imagination. There was no secular/sacred division at the first Christmas and there still isn't - save only in religious places that want to keep others out and stay safe.

Last, let's prepare for Christmas by being political. The arrival of Jesus was a political act. King Herod didn't slaughter countless numbers of babies for the hell of it.

Jesus was a political threat. The message of peace that the angels sang was making a mockery of Caesar's pretensions.

Caesars always use words like "peace" and "freedom" when they are invading others' lands, stealing their resources, and killing their citizens. Just listen to George Bush. If you believe in the peace of Christ it will lead you into conflict with those who profit from war and poverty.

When we cease to think politically and reduce our world to the parameters of our own vision, then we shrink spiritually. Our concerns might become God's concerns but God's concerns don't become ours.

So choose an issue to study this Advent: like America's thirst for Iraqi oil, dreaming democracy in Burma, or the circus that keeps Tibet caged.

Advent should bring us to our senses. "Stop," it signals. "Look both ways before crossing." Don't be lured by tinsel and piped music into soulless consumerism. Think about giving and hospitality as spiritual exercises.

There is a saying that the two most important days of our lives are the day we were born and the day we know why.

Advent invites us to ask why.

* Glynn Cardy is the Vicar of St Matthew-in-the-City, Auckland.