The Second Sunday of Advent

Snow is falling outside my door on this somewhat frosty (-4°C; 25°F) morning. Inside, my Advent Candles sit on the long harvest table in the midst of the jumble of busy wildness that is my kitchen, the place where I spend most of my time. I light the first candle - hope - and then stop. 

The second candle signifies peace and I can't bring myself  to give it light. All is really not at all right in the world. This whole peace thing is a bloody mess and has been for too many for too long! Is there any point in this world gone mad with aggression to even entertain the concept of peace however symbolic it may be? 

I find myself wandering back to the old story, the one that has angels, and good news, and wonderful signs. It feels comfortable, peaceful. But of course the news of the day 2000+ years ago was not that much different from today. Lots of bloodshed, death, persecution, and dirty dealing.
And yet, she dared to imagine peace. 

Advent stands in the thick of my December life, in the disorder that is the world today and asks me to dare to open my arms and heart to the way of peace, to imagine.

"You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one."

John Lennon: Imagine (have a listen) 

So I light the second small candle, right in the middle of my wild busy kitchen and dare to imagine.

Peace begins with me.

(And when it comes to lighting the darkness, two candles are better than one!)

©2025 April Hoeller

Week 1: Hope - Saturday, The Feast of St. Nicholas

 It's "Little Christmas" in my family today, a day when candy canes, carols and kids of all ages play together. For me it is the kick-off day for Christmas celebrations.

When our children were little they woke up on December 6 to find the breakfast table set with their Christmas placemats and mugs along with a small gift and always a candy cane. 

Over the course of the day, or so - sometimes my plans were too ambitious for just one day! - the decorations - garlands, window clings, wreaths and more - made their annual appearance and Christmas music filled the house; a fun, festive counterpoint to the herald of Christmas found in the sacred texts.

According to my children's bible way back when, John the Baptist was NOT someone you wanted to bump into first thing in the morning, nor any time of the day for that matter! He is one formidable, scary character. He ate bugs, wore camel fur and hung out with snakes. And he yelled a lot, “Prepare the way, make the paths straight, you brood of vipers.”

I much prefer this guy Nicholas of Myra. He was a Greek, a Bishop and a lovely saint with an absolutely charming disposition. He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, and thus became the model for Santa Claus, whose English name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas. He is the patron saint of children as well as that of merchants, the falsely accused, repentant thieves, and sailors.

This is the time of year to have good friends around, and to be a good friend; to share your food and warmth. It is the time of year to be hospitable to strangers and travelers. It is the time of year for telling stories around the fire -- because we all need a little Christmas for lighting the darkness.

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

©2025 April Hoeller

Week 1: Hope - Friday

 Hope - Chaos & Comfort

Happy Friday!

WAIT! WHAT? - it's Friday!? Already? Oh, expletives deleted, I've got so much to do!

Thin fingers of panic creep their way up the back of my neck before igniting a frenzy of synaptic activity in my vintage brain. So much to do. So little time!

I really do enjoy the baking but the decorating in this season is a bit of a reach for me - Martha Stewart I ain't!

Still, I can cope...with a little help from Old Man Winter.

It's the gifts that fuel much of my angst. Come December 1st every year, I ask the family for their "Santa Wish List". Half of them respond almost immediately (you know who you are - bless you!) and the rest of the crew is hit and miss.

With a list and some guesses, off I go in search of the perfect and not so perfect gifts. What used to require time-consuming crawls through the Mall madhouse, now only requires time-consuming surfing through the internet asylum.

It's a jumble everywhere!

I suppose I could just buy them all gift cards. But come Christmas morning, where's the fun in that?

I love the pile of wrapped parcels under the tree, spilling out in all directions.

And the scattered mess afterward.

I love the whole Christmas morning scene where chaos and comfort romp together.

Hope does not come in a gift card form to be redeemed at a later date. She gets right in there into the midst of life with the wild stuff and the mundane. When there are things that can be done, She does not tolerate my sitting on the sidelines wringing my hands and whining.

This old heart of mine too often loses itself in self, losing Hope's message of encouragement because I'm spinning in a whirl of ToDo lists.

As the first week in the journey to Christmas draws to a close, I ask Hope to be my Morning Star, guiding me, encouraging me, leading me through the Advent season with the grace of joy and laughter.

©2025 April Hoeller

Week 1: Hope - Thursday

Several times lately the words of Max Ehrmann's poem Desiderata  have come to mind reminding me that during frustrating times in the world or personally for me, my late father would often step into the room and begin reciting, 

"Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence..." 

He'd mumble and stumble his way through the less well remembered lines, then lean in to say, "Remember sweetheart..." 

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

Yeah, it is still a beautiful world and beauty inspires hope. The following images are ones that have inspired me to hope, to believe that indeed the universe is unfolding as it should, not falling apart at the seams.

From my travels to faraway places:

Iceberg in Ungava Bay, Nunavut Canada

rosewood plant growing in the tundra of Killiniq, Nunavut

Geirangerfjord, Norway

Giant tortoise, the Galapagos

Blue-footed Boobies, Galapagos

Somewhere over the north Atlantic

Elephant taking a  sand bath, South Africa

And right outside my door:

Solar eclipse, April 8, 2024

Northern Lights, October 10, 2024

Thanks Dad for the reminder.

Oh and Happy Birthday!

111 candles are shining out from the great beyond today, lighting the darkness.

💗

 

©2025 April Hoeller

Week 1: Hope - Wednesday

 I sauntered into the kitchen this morning, cranky and reluctant to greet the day. My body protesting every movement. It seems my recovery from back surgery in September is a zig zag, not the straight line every day I'm getting better and better thing that I would prefer. Who knew? Well apparently such ups, downs and sideways are as normal as they are frustrating.

Hope is a bit of a long shot for me today, so I'll reprise an older post and let the words of others light the way today.

Take care of each other.

Lord save us all from…a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.  Mark Twain

Hope rises like a phoenix from the ashes of shattered dreams. S.A. Sachs

Hope is grief's best music.  Author Unknown

God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us - in the dreariest and most dreaded moments - can see a possibility of hope.  Maya Angelou

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.  Lin Yutang

Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.  
Samuel Smiles

Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops…at all.  Emily Dickinson

©2025 April Hoeller

Week 1: Hope - Tuesday

 Hope  is an openness to possibility...

Pamela C. Hawkins wrote this about Hope:

Hope opens something in the human heart. Like shutters slowly parting to admit a winter dawn, hope permits strands of light to make their way to us, even when we still stand in cold darkness; but hope also reveals a landscape beyond us into which we can live and move and have our being. With hope, closely-held interior thoughts are gently turned outward; deep desires, perhaps long hidden in secret corners of our heart, might be lifted up to the light. At times, hope peels back the edges of our imagination to free what waits underneath — a changed life, a new resolve, a 'yes' pregnant with possibility. In other moments hope dares us to unfold a layer of desire — for relationship, for clarity, for courage. 

from: Simply Wait: Cultivating Stillness in the Season of Advent

I've made some seventy+ journeys through Advent since my birth and sometimes - actually quite often! - I think that I have some significant stock in wisdom. Well, I don't, or at least not as much I would like. I still come up short when all seems to be whirling out of control in my life. I flounder and flop, whine and curse, despair and cry. All sense of a vibrant future evaporating in the heat of it all. I lose all sight of Hope.

But she is there and when I calm myself long enough to take a moment, a long intentional moment, to stop, look and listen, she emerges from the dust storm, sometimes rushing in with grand sweeping gestures and perhaps a cluck of gentle reprimand. More often she simply seeps into my empty places with a simple beautiful moment bringing fresh air and positive energy, restoring my future. And I can again say, "Yes" to a new day.

©2025 April Hoeller

Week 1: Hope - Monday

 Anne Lamott wrote: 

Hope begins in the dark,

the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing,

the dawn will come.

Wars rage far beyond my house and homeland, many more than those that grab the headlines. And for some reason that I cannot fathom or even come close to reconciling, businesses and people can be targets of vandalism, violence, hate speech, and death threats all because they express a nationality, or a faith, or a skin colour, or even just a point of view that differs from an organization, group, country or even just one other person. 

So what is the right thing that I should try to do in the midst of this dark disfunction? I have neither the stamina, nor the skillset, nor, (thankfully!) the official responsibility to wade into the rancor.  I don't have the patience any more for meetings to discuss resolutions. I've reached the age and stage when even my eye rolls are too loud and my vintage "think before one speaks" brakes can fail without warning. 

What I do have is an abiding moral obligation to show up and choose kindness over outrage, compassion over ill will, understanding over indifference.  I can bring some light into the darkness and where there's light, there is hope.

©2025 April Hoeller