This past Sunday households at Peak took home Advent rings. Below is a description of their meaning and use.
Sometime this October I was cutting up firewood and noticed a log from an old crabapple tree. The inside had rotted out, but it had continued growing until a storm finally knocked it over. I’ve had it for a while, so it was dry, but I couldn’t send it to the wood stove because it was too interesting. This is not the first time I left that log alone. I guess I was waiting for this.
In preparing for the Advent season, I’ve been thinking a lot about circles and growth. A circle is one of the most natural of shapes. Time is circular. Trees, bones, lakes, snowflakes—all round. But not merely round; there’s growth too. Another winter comes, like last year’s and the 10,000 years before, but this winter is, in some way, different.
Trees are good examples—they are made of circles. Cut one in half and you can see a record of its growth—every year, every season. you can tell how mild or harsh the season based on the growth ring. An atmospheric scientist once told me they cut down piñon trees and study their rings to learn about climate before humans kept records.
Circles and growth go together. Things don’t grow only in lines—including humans. Our growth is roundabout too. Yes, we try to grow in a direction, and should. But how we get there is simply not direct. It takes time. We return again and again to the same questions, the same hurts, the same gifts—but each time there is a different interaction: we may move from in-action, to re-action, to constructive action. These are not perfect circles.
I think this is what we see in those crabapple rings. All of them show us what growth looks like. Some of the rings are responding to an insect’s activity; in others, a pruned branch; a few rings are incomplete. All of them responded to the disintegration and hollowing out of the heartwood. Still, they continued to grow.
We see something else in these rings. By putting candles in the ring, we remember that for all the insects, pruning, and disease, the tree grew up toward the light. That’s what we’re doing too, whether we perceive it or not.
And one more thing: these are rings, not discs. By preserving a hollow center, we remember that at the center of our lives, and the center of all life, is a void. A problem. We grow around death. None of us will live forever.
This is why, on Christmas Eve—the time of year when the nights are longest—we light one more candle and place it right in the center of that ring—right in the center of that hollowed out void, the darkness. We light a single candle we call the Christ candle and we say, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.”
HOW TO USE YOUR ADVENT RING
There are a lot of ways to use it. Maybe you will think of some ways and share them with all of us. But I will offer some ideas.
Every week I will print a half-sheet of paper with a verse, a reflection, and a suggested practice for the week. You can light the candle (or candles) every night at supper time, read the verse, and talk about it. Or you can light the candle and pray together before bed, or in the morning, as a way of orienting your days.
How ever you choose to use your ring, I hope it helps us bring the celebration of Christ’s arrival into our homes.