Advent for the Spiritually Overcaffeinated
A crooked little reminder that the season of sacred waiting got hijacked by cocoa packets, chaos, and capitalism.
Advent again.
The annual ritual where everyone pretends they’re “waiting for the Light” while the world is burning like a neglected Advent wreath someone left under a heat lamp.
Wars grind on in places we barely bother to locate on a map.
Governments cling to power by feeding fear to people who already lost their sense of direction.
The climate keeps coughing up warnings we treat like background noise.
Half the country argues about tradition.
The other half argues about the argument.
And somehow we’re all expected to meditate on hope while doomscrolling through catastrophe before breakfast.
Into this circus, Advent wanders in wearing a threadbare cloak, whispering, “Be still.”
And we look up from our notifications like, “You picked the wrong century, friend.”
We took a season meant for quiet readiness and stuffed it full of peppermint-flavored denial.
Cocoa bombs and curated playlists.
Shopping carts as spiritual practice.
A frenzy of sugar-coated coping mechanisms that try to drown out the truth:
we don’t know how to wait anymore.
We barely know how to breathe.
Advent used to train people in longing.
Now it trains people in pretending everything is fine while the news tries to convince you it absolutely is not.
Waiting for the sacred feels almost rebellious now.
To sit still while the world screams for your panic.
To listen inward instead of saluting every fresh outrage.
To light a candle not because it’s cute but because you are tired of darkness setting the agenda.
That’s the Advent modern culture can’t sell you.
The Advent that refuses to be aesthetic.
The Advent that says:
“What if the thing being born this year isn’t out there, but in you?
And what if the world is acting like this because it knows you might finally wake up?”
We keep treating Advent like a countdown to a holiday.
But it’s a countdown to clarity.
A reminder you can’t buy your way out of despair.
You can’t binge-watch your way into hope.
And no amount of tinsel will hide the truth that your soul wants something real.
Here’s the crooked blessing for this messy, miracle-starved season:
May your Advent be too honest to be cozy.
May the world’s noise drive you deeper into the quiet that knows what’s true.
May the waiting sharpen your courage instead of your anxiety.
And may something sacred break through the rubble of this year
and choose you
as its birthplace.
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You are one of a couple of people, this morning, to mention problems with breathing. When anxiety levels become high enough, people have to concentrate on breathing to breathe. This December truly is a month of trying to reconcile too many issues of all types to be able to pay attention to what truly is important. It is more than sad. In the destruction of cultural practices and expectations we are experiencing in our transformation to truth, honesty and authenticity, perhaps we will throw off all the old meaningless excess.
Kintsugi is the honoring of the broken in its zig-zaggedness by highlighting the cracks with gold or silver. This crooked blessing is the gold in our brokenness. Thank you