By Owen Phelps, Ph.D.
Director, Yeshua Institute
I’ve got no doubt that there are many people in the world – including many people in positional leadership positions – don’t see any connection between the season of Advent and their own development as leaders in their homes, workplaces, communities and parishes.
But they’re wrong.
Leadership, you see, begins on the inside. It starts in the heart.
Unless we get the heart part right nothing else will turn out to be anywhere near as it could, anywhere near where God would like to see us be.
Advent is all about developing our hearts and heads, as well as offering our hands, so that our lives and our leadership grow to ever more conform to the teaching and example of Jesus.
Making the most of the developmental opportunities provided by Advent isn’t easy. We’re busy. Sometimes we’re overwhelmed. Add Christmas preparations – especially socializing and shopping – to our already oppressive schedules, and the thought of trying to do anything more is downright de-energizing.
If we succumb to fatigue and temptation and blurt it out, we wouldn’t be the first: Just leave me alone.
I know, I’ve been there. Fact is, there was a time in my life when I wasn’t reliably able to distinguish between Advent and Lent.
It’s comforting to know those days are behind me.
Of course, like most people I will struggle with making Advent somehow special -- somehow a season of growth and learning and preparation. Only two things are certain for me. It will be a struggle. And I will engage it.
Like you I don’t have a lot of time. And like a lot of people, I’m not drawn to acts of piety. So what will I do?
First, I will be more grateful. God has so blessed me that I could never be grateful enough. But I could be more grateful – and generous. I am going to try.
And I’m going to try to be more responsive to the needs of those around me. I will try to practice more kindness in every encounter. I will find a good and relevant – if thin – book to read and on which to reflect. (If you haven’t chose one for yourself yet, let me recommend Laudato Si – One Care of Our Common Home, the beautiful and inspired encyclical by Pope Francis.)
I will begin my days with moments of prayer, brief and spontaneous but heartfelt. I will slow down, if only a bit. I will take deep breaths.
I will – finally! – clean out my closest and my drawers to assure that the clothes I don’t wear can be worn by someone else who needs them. I will look for opportunities to volunteer and to donate to help me better connect to my brothers and sisters in Christ who could use a little help just now.
My wife and I will adopt a family for Christmas and try to make it a celebration for them instead of just another reminder of how they are marginalized and made helpless by a host of circumstances.
I will ask God’s forgiveness for all the times I have failed and because I always come up short.
And I will ask for God’s help in all of this – because I will need it … during Advent and thereafter.
Happy Thanksgiving … and Happy Advent!