A Still December

Last December as I was doing some last minute Christmas shopping, I found, buried in a jumble of drugstore stocking stuffers, some little bags of hard candy. It was the old fashioned kind that comes in a rainbow of jewel tones and has a glossy finish... the pretty kind that our grandmothers kept in glass candy dishes in their living rooms. I promptly bought a bag for a dollar and tucked it into the toe of the professor's stocking on Christmas Eve for the sake of awakening the same sweet memories and smiles in him that finding the candy had done for me. On Christmas morning he smiled, and we filled his grandmother's old candy dish. This year, on the day after Thanksgiving, we shopped for candy.
Our fall has been more hectic than usual... In late August, when the boys and the professor went back to school, Sister and I headed off to preschool together. Several mornings a week since then she has delighted in partaking in the joys of preschool while I have delighted in teaching my own little flock three and four year olds. The opportunity has been a joy and a challenge, a blessing and a transition for me and for our family.
As our schedule has been more full in recent months than in years past, I've been learning to better seek and recognize and guard and savor life's quiet, simple moments. None of us have lives that are filled with only peaceful tea and candy moments. I'm coming to understand that the beautiful, simple moments are ever-present, recognizing and savoring them depends on my mindset and my priorities.
We read our first advent reading tonight as a family. As all five of us prepare to return to our normal school-day routines in the morning this evening's advent-hush was an appropriate way to end our recent days of Thanksgiving celebrations, Christmas candy shopping, and college football craziness. On this, the first day of advent, I find my heart yearning a for a still December. My prayer is that during this advent season I will seek and recognize, and guard and savor the beautiful still, still moments as they come. Keeping silence... isn't this where worship begins?
Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and with fear and trembling stand; ponder nothing earthly-minded, for with blessing in His hand, Christ our God to earth descendeth, our full homage to demand. verse one, "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence"