What kind of alarm clock do you have? And how effective is it?
My former associate at St. Ann’s sometimes would sleep through his morning wake up call. Which was a more difficult task than you might think. You see, he had two separate alarm clocks, and he would set them 15 minutes apart. And place them in the room in such a way that he would have to get out of bed to turn them off. Yet, even in spite of such preparations, every so often, he would wake up enough to turn off the first alarm. And then enough for the second. And then drop off back to sleep. Though they will wake him up, it will not be enough to “WAKE” him up. How effective are your alarm clocks?
Because there are different kind of alarm clocks, aren’t there? There are the ones that get us up (or don’t) in the mornings. And then there are the ones that happen during the course of our lives. I had a conversation with a man who had dropped daughter off at College. He was a salesman. He and his wife were driving home and were on the road for about 10 minutes after dropping her off when he pulled over and began to weep inconsolably. “I missed my daughter’s life”, he said. “I missed my daughter’s life.” The alarm had gone off, he was awake, and now he had choices to make about how he would prioritize his time. And he did. And you can bet that he did not miss the rest of his daughter’s life.
Don’t you wish there were alarm clocks for those kinds of things? Alarms that would go off when something crucial for our life and our future is happening so we wouldn’t miss it, wouldn’t sleep through those crucial things? Something that would buzz or beep or chime or play rousing music, or light up and flash so we are attentive to the important, and not just the urgent.
Fortunately, we have such an alarm clock. But it is not a very modern technology, though. It doesn’t beep or buzz or chime or flash. Rather, it comes into our life as an awareness, a watchfulness in our living. It is called the season of Advent. And it is meant to be an alarm clock to wake us to the most important things. Beating swords to plowshares. Turning spears to pruning hooks. Throwing off the works of darkness. Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. Advent cries out: Don’t miss the opportunity to love today. Don’t skip the chance to be reconciled. Two are in the field, one will be taken, one left. Two are in bed, one will be taken, one left. Wake up, lest you miss the chance.
The problem with this alarm clock called Advent is that we can still sleep through it. Someone commented to me about reaching Thanksgiving: “It means the craziness has begun, and it won’t stop until after Christmas.” And certainly we can do our Advent like that, as one massive rush to Christmas. But like my friend, I wonder if we’ll wake up the day after Christmas, and realize that we missed our Advent, we missed what was important for us to be doing.
As we begin this season, let me suggest a few ways to live into this season.
1) Post a picture of an alarm clock by your bathroom light switch, or the one by the door through which you leave, or the background of your phone or the rear view mirror of your car. Let it remind you, as often as you see it, of the call to be AWAKE to what matters.
2) Live with an alarm clock in your head, and in each encounter, each conversation, ask yourself – is it going off? Is there something crucial to this moment that I have to be alert to, awake to?
3) With whom do you need to beat your swords into plowshares? Is there a relationship that needs at least the first step toward reconciliation to be made?
I almost always wake to the alarm that is beside my bed. For that, I am grateful. These Advent days, I pray for ears to hear those other alarms, those other wake up calls – to sense the presence and nearness of God in every moment and in every person. And to let that awareness move me into concrete action, to prepare the way of the Lord’s coming once again.