Advent.. to Wait.

"It's coming on Christmas. They're cutting down trees. They're putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace.. Oh I wish I had a river... I could skate away on." It's a still song isn't is it? It's a song about about heartache and heartbreak. It's a song about escaping silently down a placid-ice river.. away from the sheer "contentment" of the season we know as Christmastime. However.. we need not forget that hue-du-jour in the Christian world is Blue right now.. Advent is the season of contemplation. It is a season of of self discovery. A recent preaching I attended taught that the outdated Christian model of Advent color, (Purple), was perhaps still a color to visit as it is a color of forgiveness and seeking oneness with God. A color in Lent we equate to reconcilation. But maybe it has a place still here with us today. Our, River, speaks of running into the purple.. as Joni speaks of making her baby cry.. making her baby say goodbye-


Yes.. Joni Mitchell and James Taylor have brought this ballad alive for me again this year. This year more so than ever I have had the urge to skate away. Most of you know how much affection I own for this season of merry making and mayhem. Many of you know that December 21st is a magical day for me. The Winter Solstice and the official gunfire to the season where I perform my hardest .. usually. normally- until this year struck. It oft reminds me of my mentor movie... "You've Got Mail". Do you recall Meg Ryan, alias, Miss Kathleen Kelly, hanging twinkle lights in her quaint children's book store, The Shop Around the Corner? She hung them so sadly recounting this tune poetically.. gazing out onto the busy streets of the Upper East Side in Manhattan knowing that her dream was dying. She recounts that "The River" really has nothing to do with Christmastime. And I agree. She was "Blue" that the possibility of losing her mother's beloved bookstore and family heirloom was about to face closing due to the "Big Bad" Fox Books SuperBook Store chain that had opened that Fall around the corner from her.

She watched the busy shoppers that used to frequent her black and white tiled floor scurrily purchase books from Miss Kathleen.. the expert in children's literature... heading over to the "designer bookstore that sold lattes and lies" to its' customers! She watched old friends and supporters lie and squeamishly opt for the other store. It made her sad to think that her shop around the corner was no longer their shop around the corner! And although she saw folks walking by her with cut trees and shopping bags marked with other logos.. she prayed and prayed to her deceased mother for that motherly advise, so rarified, regarding a rather difficult decision in her life. She repeated those lyrics mindlessly.. staring into the world as if she were one of the shepherds looking upward to the sky that first night of Jesus' entry into the world. Her answer did not come to her. Her personal Advent was nearing...

We know Advent as waiting. To wait. To wait. To wait. and to Wait, (phew)! We are waiting for this great miracle to enter our lives. We are awaiting the arrival of the bringer of Life! We are awaiting the forgiver of all sins and the One marked to bring us eternal happiness through Him. We are invited throught Advent to be still and wait for the moment. We are not invited to deck halls, rip up strings of lights, party on, shop like crazy, or lavishly eat, drink and be merry. We are invited to wait. To be in the moment. Listen in darkness and just be. We are invited to anticipate what could happen for us!We are invited to self-forgiveness and forgiveness with the hue of purple... or blue. But we are not invited to look at reds and greens yet. Colors of change, spirit and everlasting life. We must do the work first!

Our friend Kathleen Kelly has no idea that her life as "Miss Kathleen Kelly," the Storybook Lady, is about to close it's final chapter on that part of her existence. She hasn't one idea that her redemption will come through the very thing she loathed and despised, blamed, as the taker-away of her life as she knew it.....Fox Books was about to claim her. She hadn't a clue that she was secretly in love with Joe Fox. And she didn't know it becuase it was different than what she thought was her life plan. He really was an angel, and not the fox,(everyone including himself,) thought him to be. He had been lovingly transformed through Kathleen's anonymous emails, easy going nature, and affection for things in life simpler than Gucchi bags, (or as he says.. "Yes.. I love Patricia.. why wouldn't I? She makes coffee nervous?? Speaking of his live-in fiancee at the time!)Theirs, he and Kathleen's, best-friendship, was an Advent that they both awaited in this lifetime.. He was "waiting" for the right girl to shake him up, and she, for the man in her life to help her believe in herself again... or ever.

Kathleen , after making the difficult decision to close the store, spends some 4-5 months in seclusion. She's depressed. She is thinking about what someone likes Kathleen Kelly does after being the Storybook Lady??

Kathleen states in one tear-filled, email in her Advent, "People are always saying that change is a good thing. But all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all... has happened. My store is closing this week. I own a store, did I ever tell you that? It's a lovely store, and in a week it'll be something really depressing, like a Baby Gap. Soon, it'll be just a memory. In fact, someone, some foolish person, will probably think it's a tribute to this city, the way it keeps changing on you, the way you can never count on it, or something. I know because that's the sort of thing I'm always saying. But the truth is... I'm heartbroken. I feel as if a part of me has died, and my mother has died all over again, and no one can ever make it right."

I have a school.. did I ever tell you I have a school?

But the good news is as Spring approaches and she has been told by her mother's friend Birdie that only the brave are daring to imagine what else it is they could be.. Joe Fox shows with a bounty of fresh daisies.. a peace offering. The way into the next step of her future. She responds to Joe sheepishly and most untrustingly.. "I love Daisies.. they are the friendliest flowers..." He nods and asks if they could become friends? The rest is history as they say. Or red and green .. her Christmastime is really in fact her Easter. Her Advent is over and her new chapter beginning!

Joe Fox: "Don't cry Shopgirl, (her email handle), Don't cry. "
Kathleen Kelly: " I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly!"

The credits roll and Over the Rainbow begins to play....

Happy Advent,
Shopgirl