Imagine Advent Differently: Hope

Advent 2024

A few weeks ago, I heard from a church worship coordinator that their pastor was waiting to hear the election results before planning for Advent. As a former pastor, this struck a (dissonant) chord with me. After a brief moment of thought, I determined that if I were still pastoring, I would not be waiting to plan Advent. After another moment of thought, I came up with an idea that could be tailored to the current context, no matter who won. Imagine. 

The first Ash Wednesday post I shared on this blog was about how the Greek word “metanoia” could have been translated into English as “imagine” instead of “repent.” While “metanoia” is commonly translated into English as “repent”, it literally means “beyond thinking.” Beyond thinking, or changing one’s thinking, thinking outside the box, became connected to the idea of repentance, thanks to the word going from Greek to Latin to English, instead of straight from Greek to English. But it could be, Imagine. Think differently. Think creatively.  

If you think differently about Advent, what would you want this season to be? Less crowded, less hustle and bustle, maybe. More down time on your calendar. Keep the pretty lights, because they shine light in the darkness, but maybe make sure to not drown out other lights or noises. Keep the season feeling manageable instead of overwhelming. What would you re-imagine Advent to look like? Maybe calmer, less commercial. It feels like many of us just push through the season, looking ahead to winter break when it’s all over and we get a vacation. If you re-imagined it, and thought creatively, instead of pushing through, what would you hope this season might be instead?  

In “What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World,” Prentis Hemphill discusses studies about why humans are bad at predicting the future. It’s because we think linearly and often fail to factor in the unknown variables that are outside of our control. We predict based on our past experiences, but conditions are not going to be the same in the future and we don’t know all the ways they will be different. So, we cannot accurately predict.  

However, Hemphill says, we can envision the future instead. We can describe what we want it to look like, and then take actions to achieve that future. So, if December tends to be overwhelmingly busy, we can block hours on our calendar and protect that time for ourselves for downtime. If the noise feels overwhelming and we need some peace and quiet, we can commit to turning off the radio/TV/YouTube and spending time in silence. We can do things differently and make it a point to engage in activities that closely align with our values. Then, these committed actions lead to change and a different Advent. 

After the election, author, podcaster, and social worker Brené Brown wrote a short post about “micro-dosing hope.” In it, she explained that hope is not an emotion. We don’t feel hope. Instead, hope is a cognitive behavior. We decide, consciously or unconsciously, to hope. Hope is a choice, not a feeling. I find it helpful to think about it by translating the word into my second language, Spanish. “To hope” is “esperar.” “Esperar” also means “to wait” and “to expect.” Waiting is definitely not an emotion, and it’s not even always a choice. As for expectations, those can also be conscious or unconscious. Interestingly enough, because I can go down linguistic rabbit holes, another synonym listed for “esperar” in Spanish is “imaginarse”, and we are back where we started with imagining and thinking differently.  

Hope is also the traditional theme for the first Sunday of Advent. We begin the new Church year with hope. We begin by intentionally choosing hope. It’s an informed decision. We know Christmas is coming. It’s a cognitive behavioral choice. We choose it in spite of the coming darkness of the longest night of the year. It’s the only way to envision a different future, to decide to hope for something better. Imagine, think differently, outside the box, and through hope, create a vision of what the future could look like. The future does not have to be Project 2025. It does not have to be significant harm to America’s lower classes, minorities, women, people of color, and anyone who isn’t a rich, cisgender, heterosexual able-bodied white man. We can imagine, envision, and create a different future. We can imagine and plan and enact ways to protect the vulnerable. This is hope that is tied to imagination. This is hoping, because we dare to think creatively and then act on those ideas. The impossible can happen when you hope and imagine together.