Advent … a journey in quiet

Quiet … a strange word for this time of year. A word that seems to be a complete contradiction to what is required. For this is the season of end of year parties, and Christmas concerts, and shopping until dropping.

This is the season of hustle and bustle, and being of good cheer. This isn’t the season of peace, tranquility and calm.

This is the silly season, the busy season, when everyone goes Christmas crazy.

Don’t misunderstand me, I love Christmas. It is my favourite time of the year. I love the Christmas songs, even when they are cheesy or mention snow. I love the decorations. I love the focus on family and fun.

But this year I am feeling called to a quieter approach to Christmas. One with less doing and more being. Less rush and more rest. Less busy and more pause.

Myquillyn Smith is an author and blogger who talks about the practice of ‘quieting her house’. The practice entails going room by room and removing  all decoration, clutter and knick knacks. Leaving behind the bare essentials. After living with the room in that way for a period of time she slowly adds back the things she feels are important, beautiful or useful.

I feel like I need to do this with my life. A systematic removal of the things that are causing too much ‘noise’ in my life. I need to quiet my diary, the clutter in my house, the variety of digital input I receive daily, and the never-ending lists in my mind.

Advent in the Christian calendar is a time of preparation for Christmas.  We enter advent today. So for the four weeks of this advent season I am going to focus on this small but important word ‘quiet’.

I invite you to join me as I take a counter-intuitive journey in quieting my life for this Christmas season.

Jodie

The advent journey continues with quieting your mind, quieting your body, quieting your heart and quieting your spirit.