Soon and Very Soon

Soon and very soon we are going to see the king (3X)

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!  We're going to see the king!

No more crying there!  We are going to see the king (3X)

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!  We're going to see the king!

No more dying there!  We are going to see the king (3X)

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!  We're going to see the king (2X) 

It's a very simple song, really.  But it's fun to sing, so it's popular as a processional hymn during this time of year.  And I like it, unlike many Advent songs which can seem so dour when the rest of America is already celebrating Christmas.

I mentioned yesterday that I enjoy the delicate tension between Catholics trying to observe a solemn Advent and the thorough enjoyment that you can have from a full, long Christmas SEASON.  Light, bright days and mournful, longing nights for a better world.

Today was certainly a bright day -- glowing fiercely.  Yet still we can long for a better world.  There was a lot of that in this day as well.  My students were presenting their final presentations on their chosen social justice issues for us to fix.

Besides the joyful but longing song above, that might be the best illustration of this conflict between Advent and the Christmas season that I've got.  Four minutes (or so) on a terrible situation in our world, followed by a freshman girl's fervent belief in how her classmates can fix it.  Some of them are more realistic and practical than others (to say the least), but the spirit is willing in all of them.

The girls at my current school love so much and so freely.  I saw a lot of that today.

Today the world felt bright, but my Facebook wall was full of darkness.  I didn't forget about the problems in the world.

A dear friend saw my message saying that I hate the time zones that separate us because I wanted to tell her about the joyfulness of my day.  So we gchated, and she let me go on for awhile before reminding me that her week was terrible.  A very close friend committed suicide and she is desperately trying to get her applications through so she can go to the funeral and mourn properly.

But -- and this is how wonderful she is -- she listened first to my joy and seemed to genuinely take comfort in a joyful part of the world.  In what can only be a hard Advent of the Soul (for all she's not catholic) longing for a world without death and tears and this heartrending pain, this wonderful person found a place for a bit of my Christmas-like joy.

Because some days it feels like Christmas to get to be around these students -- enthusiastic and wild and respectful and ready to love and hard-working if not responsible.  And some days you wake up on what you think will be a day of celebration for your college to find your roommate in tears and a room full of your fellow students weeping, and one of your friends has died in the night.

This fallen world has both states.  Advent and Christmas.  But they aren't in conflict.  They aren't even in contrast.  They exist alongside and at once and in the midst of one another.  And I feel them in the exact same physical place in my chest.

Soon and very soon, we will have a world that no longer needs Advent.  But sometimes I wonder if it's there for us just as much as Christmas.  So that we don't forget how special Christmas is (as I'm terrified of forgetting about IWA) or just so that we learn that even the bright and beautiful things of this world must pass away so that the darkness can be banished at last.  So that we can understand that all things bright and beautiful is merely a taste of the better world to come.

It's hard not to think "Soon but not too soon" about our entry into heaven -- but perhaps Advent's real purpose is to help us understand that Christmas was only intended to be a consolation, a bright burning star in the night.  Not a reason to fear the coming Day.