It's Advent Again

Christmas is fast approaching. And, approaching even faster, is Advent. Advent is a convenient little festival. It happens just before Christmas to remind us that… Christmas is approaching. In a “Christmas mad” country like ours, where the Christmas countdown begins in September, it is almost unnecessary to have a formal reminder of its approach. Yet Advent comes, and often goes, buried beneath the glitz and glamour of Christmas. It is easy to think, therefore, why even bother with Advent.
For many of us, Advent is a festival that heralds the coming of Christmas; or perhaps, a better way, to put is, it heralds the coming of the Christ. It is a reminder that we need to prepare for this coming of Christ. But how does one prepare, especially in a modern world that occupies all our time? Do we set aside more time for prayer, for going to mass, for meditation, for doing good deeds? More importantly, how does one prepare inside?
Let us imagine that our very bodies were dark caves. Our external appearance would be like the surrounding mountains (and for some of us on the heavy side, we do look like rounded hills). Hidden beneath our external appearance lies a cavity, a cave. Like all caves, this is a dark, damp place, possibly with flowing rivers and calcium based formations. It is full of life, yet not readily visible to the naked eye. The part of our body that faces the external world, lives continuously in the steady rhythm of sunlight and moonlight. Our hidden selves, that part which lies within us, lives constantly in the dark. Such is our physical design.
Let us now extend this imagination. Let us imagine that Christ is to be born in this cave within us, this darker region of our beings. When we are dirty, we take a bath, yet this only cleanses our external being. How do we cleanse and prepare our inner regions to take in the Christ? With this picture, as simple as it may sound, we begin to develop an idea of how difficult it must be to prepare for the coming of the Christ. We cannot simply “wash” our inner beings with soap and water much as we do our external beings. To cleanse our inner beings would require a transformation of our lifestyle. Ask any doctor. If you are overweight with fatty deposits clogging the arteries, the permanent solution is to change your eating habits. This requires a change in lifestyle. Thus, by extending this analogy, we see to that prepare our inner beings for the Christ, we must begin by revisiting our lifestyles. How does our lifestyle clean or sully our inner being.
Whenever confronted with a challenge as difficult as this, we look for models; others who may inspire us on how to do it. For Advent, the preparation of the coming of the Christ, there is such a model: Mary. Mary was approached by an archangel and told that she had a task. What ensued was a conversation between Mary and the archangel. Like a diligent “patient” Mary sought to understand what was happening, why her, what is she to do? The archangel, like a good doctor, gave the information he was capable of giving. Mary reflected on what she heard; then, she made a decision. Yes, she would do the task given. Not only did she mean she was ready to do it; she also meant she had prepared to do it.
Most of us never look at the visit of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary in this light. We always see it as the wonderful event that it is. Perhaps by looking at it in a different light, it may relate directly to our preparation. Mary got all the necessary information she needed from the archangel; she thought about it; she assessed herself in a way to determine her readiness. She believed she had prepared and, as a result, accepted the task. She literally prepared a space within her for the Christ child to come. She had “cleaned” her inner being in preparation. We will never know if Mary had a healthy lifestyle, was vegetarian and exercised regularly. What we do accept is that Mary had a certain purity, clarity of soul, clean inner being that allowed her to be the bearer of the Christ child. And what a difference it made for the world.
As we prepare during Advent for the coming of Christ, let us look into our lifestyles, lifestyles that clog our inner beings with “fatty deposits”, “sugar”, “tar”, etc. that prevent us from having the clean space in our selves to receive the Christ. In a way, as we continue in our present ways, without a thought to how we live our lives, without preparing our inner selves for His coming, we are no better than the innkeepers who turned away Mary and Joseph by saying there was no room.
Advent is the time to prepare. It is difficult because it affects that which we desire most, our lifestyles. Yet, such changes are possible with tremendous results, more compassion, more love, and a cleaner, healthier world.

An Inconvenient Truth

My daughter’s class went to watch An Inconvenient Truth, a movie by Al Gore on global warming. There was a panel who, my daughter and her classmates thought, would entertain questions and have discussion. Her classmates, she said, had prepared 18 questions to put forth. The chance never materialized. I asked her about the movie. She said it was sad and very depressing.
There are many things about global warming that she did not understand. She had grasped the basic principle of warmth not being sufficiently reflected back to outer space and as a result, it creates heat. I asked her what was their first question. She said, their first question was, “Will man evolve?” If you are a die-hard supporter of the theory of evolution, then the answer would be yes. The challenge of this point of view is that it was such a random event (mutating genes and the like), that how would you know whether you would survive or not. On the other hand, if you are a strong supporter genetically modified organisms, then of course, our evolution has been well under way for some time as the food we eat is genetically modified and this in turn will modify us. What made her feel uncomfortable is the first inconvenient truth: the world that results from global warming is the world she and her children will live in.
That human beings cause global warming is not a mystery. In fact, global warming happened even long before we came along. It was a necessary ingredient for the primordial soup that some scientists believe is the source of life. On the other hand, for those who take the standpoint of divine intervention in the earth’s creation, global warming also was necessary at the start. God’s warmth, a picture of His love, flooded the earth and created the space for man to live and grow. So one may say that global warming is not necessarily a bad thing. It was, at a time, essential for life to come into being on earth.
Today, however, it appears that global warming is killing off life. Numerous studies will readily show how the world’s temperature is rising and that species of flora and fauna are dying off. But is this not consistent with the theory of evolution that only the fittest survive? In a world conceived in this fashion, then the world should be full of “fittest” and so new “unfit” flora and fauna would have to arise. Here arises another inconvenient, although obvious, truth: in a world that is changing, death is part and parcel of that change.
My daughter asked, “What can we do?” Yes, what can we do? Can we stop change? Can we stop global warming? Can we prevent death? Can we make the future look brighter instead of bleaker? What can we do?
Scores of people will flock to the idea that we must preserve and conserve the environment. But won’t preservation and conservation prevent change? Well, we could always say that is healthy change and there is unhealthy change. How would we know the difference? I am overweight and have hypertension. This is an unhealthy change to my body as most doctors will readily say. Can any good come from this unhealthy change? One answer is no; I am stuck with this condition for the rest of my life and I will have to take scores of drugs to delay or mitigate the inevitable – death. It’s interesting because to the best of my knowledge, at some point in time, I too will die. Then it becomes described as an untimely death. I’m not entirely sure what a timely death is. In any case, this is one possible point of view. On the other hand, the opposite answer of yes is also possible. My condition has made me reflect on my like, my lifestyle, my habits – both good and bad. It had created in me a greater awareness of who I am, where I came from and where I am going. It makes me more awake to the experiences of my body (as every little ache and pain is now given the closest attention) and it forces me to confront my fears. I believe, that this is a good thing that has resulted from my unhealthy condition. Perhaps, therefore, we come to a third inconvenient truth: our understanding or relation with the environment must transform. A new point of view is needed, one that will create balance. While it is true that our models for this balance were what the environment used to be, it is also true that we cannot restore the environment. To do so would not only mean replanting and reviving extinct species, it would also mean reducing global population by unimaginable numbers. Of course humanity, in its very limited way, tries to do this through wars, famines, self-induced epidemics, and general inhumanity to other human beings. And perhaps, were are not reducing population fast enough because the global population continues to grow – a natural consequence of being the “fittest” species. Yes, a new point of view needs to be revealed.
Will humanity evolve? This was my daughter’s first question. When we look at our physical bodies, so puny next to other animals and yet so pliant and flexible to change, the answer could be very easily – no. However, other facets of humanity still need to grow and develop and evolve. Our sense of feeling and compassion still needs to evolve. Our sense of empathy still needs to evolve. Our sense of thinking, even, still needs to evolve. And for these to evolve, perhaps, what the humanity needs is the right wake up call or challenge: wars, famines, epidemics, a dying world.
The world is alive and we are part of it, not because we can stand on it pretend to rule. We are physically part of the world. The very strata of silica that makes up the soil of the earth also makes up the composition of our skin. Our very beings are embodiments of the world. We have our own rivers, oceans, flora and fauna. Each of us is so alike and yet so different. Humanity on earth is a literal galaxy of worlds. Therein, perhaps, lies the new perspective of our relationship with the earth and the environment: developing a healthy relationship to ourselves and other human beings.