Miracle of the Advent Wreath

How boyish Christmas joys can turn brittle with age

Can you tell which candle is real?

To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:

Peace on Sanibel

When I suggested we buy an Advent wreath for the house, Darlene liked the idea.

We could sit in silence for a few minutes each evening around the wreath, with our Christmas tree twinkling nearby. Afterward, we could talk about the four themes of Advent, each celebrated with a candle lit on a Sunday: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.

When the wreath arrived from Amazon on Saturday, all hell broke loose.

Darlene placed a fat, flickering, battery-powered candle in one of the four holders. It’s one she’s used in the past, to remind us of someone we were keeping in our prayers. Perfect for the Advent wreath, right?

Uh, no.

Somewhere in my childhood I fell in love with lighting candles during Advent, real candles. You needed a long match to light them, and when you blew them out a nice plume of smoke rose into the room.

That memory was precious to me, because it was linked to long-ago delight. When Darlene proposed an alternate version of the observance, something in me snapped. I got angry. It lasted halfway through the neighborhood holiday party. By the time we walked home, my feelings had cooled. But I still wasn’t happy.

Last night, with our friend Kathleen visiting us overnight, we sat in silence for 10 minutes. The wreath had one fake candle and one real one.

After the silence, we talked about peace.

Darlene said she feels peace when she is able to understand someone else’s point of view. I said I realized how the Advent wreath had triggered a lack of peace in me, because my childhood memory had become brittle and rigid. I felt badly about it.

We’re about to gather around the wreath again tonight.

Movers came this morning with our stuff from storage in Cambridge, Mass., the last phase of our move to Sanibel. Boxes are everywhere.

It will be good to share the silence and maybe learn some more about peace.