Mary DeTurris Poust's Blog, page 22

Talking about a revolution, with Liz Faublas

If you’ve got three minutes to kill, you can catch my interview with Liz Faublas, the inspiring, funny and fabulous (can’t resist) anchor of Currents on Brooklyn’s NET-TV. We talk about Cravings, the tribe, our plans for revolution (personal, that is), and spiritual practices that stick. She was in the Brooklyn studio, and I was in my Albany office. Isn’t technology amazing? Thank you, Liz, for asking me to be on the show. It’s always a treat to talk with you! Liz also happens to be a comedian, so check her out. She’s got a show coming up in NYC later this month.

P.S. How come Liz looks so awesome in the frozen moment from our interview (below), and I’m in mid-sentence (as usual)?!? Trust me, I considered not sharing the clip because of this image, but I can’t be the tribe cheerleader if a little thing like looking goofy stops me in my tracks, right?

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Stop being so hard on yourself. Begin again. Always.

Hey, Cravings Tribe! So, we are starting Day 4 of our adventure, and I’m guessing that if some of you are anything like me (and I’m secretly hoping you are), you’re feeling like this isn’t going as well as expected. You may be getting down on yourself for not doing as much as you had hoped. You may be getting down on the tribe for not providing the transformation you had expected. You may be getting down in general, because you have to take down all those Christmas decorations (ugh) or you have a big work project coming up that’s stressing you out (double ugh) or you have to try to bi-locate to drive two of your children to three different places in opposite directions but during overlapping times tonight (true-story ugh). And you may be ready to scream, “SERENITY NOW!!!”

It’s all okay. It’s all normal. No one said this was going to be easy or fast. Expect it to be a dance of two steps forward and one step back. In the end, you’ll still be making “progress,” not that we should be measuring progress, because that’s not what it’s about. Every day we have to be willing to be a beginner all over again. To start over, if necessary, and without judgment. (That’s the hard part, isn’t it? We are good at self-judgment.)

Here’s what I said about my own struggles with this beginner mentality in “Notes from the Journey” in my book Everyday Divine:

I’m not good at being a beginner. I want to be an expert from Day 1. No matter what I’m doing. Even when I’m doing something I’ve never done before. Not sure where that mentality comes from, but it’s a stumbling block. To expect perfection in everything is a surefire path to “failure,” or to not trying at all.

I need the willingness to be a beginner in prayer, to sit there and be open to whatever might unfold, to come back day after day even when it feels like I’m not progressing and just practice my “craft,” the craft of praying.

This week in the early morning hours before anyone else is awake, I’ve been saying Morning Prayer out on the deck or in my sun porch. And slowly, slowly I have found a rhythm there that feels right, one I hope I can keep up for good. As soon as that thought enters my mind, I realize I’m heading right back to the quest for perfection instead of living in this moment, praying in this moment, one day at a time.  (Everyday Divine, page 12)

When you feel yourself slipping into that perfectionist mentality or that mindset that tells you that you should be making progress faster, just stop, breathe, and begin again from wherever you are at that point. It’s all good.

I was listening to something yesterday and the speaker said that if you know you’re someone who has issues letting things go or being still, that’s a good thing, because it means you are aware and you are working toward awakening. So let that be a hopeful reminder to you today. You are here, which means you’ve already taken the biggest and most difficult step: recognizing that you want to awaken something within and shift the balance of your life. Begin again. Today. Every day. Always.

For further reading, here are a few things to keep you going, if you’d like (no pressure to read them!):

Click HERE for a story I did on mind-body-spirit connection from a Catholic perspective for OSV Newsweekly.

Click HERE for a story from Aleteia (also from a Catholic perspective) on “10 Spiritual Practices to Jumpstart Your New Year.”

And if you’d like something outside the Catholic arena but still really helpful, click HERE for a story from Kripalu on “Turning Winter Blues into Winter Warmth.”

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Join the Tribe: Now you can make it official

Our Cravings Tribe is growing, and fast. Thank you for making that happen. Many of you are asking how to sign up and make your membership official. Now there’s an easy way to do that.

Just fill out the very brief form at the link below. This will not only allow me to send you occasional emails with updates or information on any Cravings Tribe events that might be coming up, but it will also give me an idea of where everyone is located. I can already see that we’ve got a large number of folks in the New York Capital Region. There may be other hot spots out there. This will let us know if some real-life meet-ups might be possible down the road.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for being you!

To get to the form, click HERE.

 

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On building tribes and learning not to fly too low…

You know how sometimes you start reading about something and talking about something and suddenly that word or topic starts showing up all around you. Well, that synchronicity or movement of the Spirit was swirling around me yesterday when we officially kicked off the Cravings Tribe.

Not long after my first post went up, I scrolled through FB and found an interview with Seth Godin and Krista Tippett of On Being called “We Choose Our Own Tribes.” Seriously. How cool is that?!? I’ll link to the full interview at the bottom of this post, in case you’d like to hear everything he had to say, but here’s the part I thought was important for all of us in the Cravings Tribe to hear (Italics is Krista Tippett; regular font is Seth Godin; bold is mine):

I want to bring in the word “tribes” that you use, because that’s another way you’re using a word that we associate with something primitive that we think — that we thought modernity was about outgrowing.

Right.

You are actually really affirming that it’s not, you know, identity doesn’t matter less it matters as much or more. But you’re saying that now it’s not just a matter of blood and lineage that’s given to you. It’s something we create and choose. We choose who and what we belong to. It’s not just about survival. It’s about connection and flourishing.

So, you know, in the desert or the jungle, the tribe was defined by geography alone. That you were in the tribe based on where you were born. And then if we fast forward to, I don’t know, Mark Twain, Mark Twain would show up in a city and a thousand people would come to hear him speak. And everyone who came was in his tribe. They were in the tribe of slightly satirical, slightly jaundiced people who were also intellectuals who could engage with him. And he had never met them before, but within minutes, they were part of a congruent group who understood each other.

And so if we fast forward to today, you can take someone who hangs out in the East Village or Manhattan who has 27 tattoos, they go to Amsterdam, they can find someone in Amsterdam who talks their language and acts like them, because they’ve chosen the same set of things that excite them, and that they believe in. And we divide tribes as small a group as we want. But what the Internet has done has meant that we don’t have to get on a plane anymore to meet strangers who are like us. That the Linux operating system, which is on a billion computers around the world, was written by a group of strangers who have never met who are part of the same tribe. And so the challenge of our future is to say, are we going to connect and amplify positive tribes that want to make things better for all of us? Or are we going to degrade to warring tribes that are willing to bring other groups down just so they can get ahead?

The myth of Icarus is one that you’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and bringing into your work. And I think you’ve been talking about what that holds for you. But explicitly say — you’ve called it “the Icarus deception.” What does that mean to you?

So if you and I had been sitting around just after the Dark Ages and heard the story of Icarus — what we would have heard is this: that Daedalus said to his son two things — one, put these wings on but don’t fly too close to the sun because it’s too hot up there and the wax will melt. But more important, son, do not fly too low, do not fly too close to the sea, because the mist and the water will weigh down the wings and you will surely perish. And that was the story until Andrew Carnegie and the rest of the industrialists made it really clear that it was a bad idea. And they left out the part about “don’t fly too low.” And that’s not what we were taught, and the books changed, and suddenly the Icarus story we all grew up with is, “Don’t fly too high. Avoid hubris.”

And for me, the most important message that I’ve come to after thinking about this for so many years is, we are flying too low. We built this universe, this technology, these connections, this society, and all we can do with it is make junk? All we can do with it is put on stupid entertainments? I’m not buying it.

I think we are capable of being bigger than that. I think we’re capable of going beyond division and into connection. I think we’re capable of dealing with the shame that comes from vulnerability, and opening ourselves to what the audience wants to tell us. And I think that this society now has said to people, wherever they live, we can have more faith. We can have more faith in community and charity and innovation and dignity and education.

Here’s the full interview:

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What are you craving in 2017?

When I originally started writing this post two days ago, I was so full of optimism and go-get-’em positivity. I was definitely in cheerleader mode. Then, yesterday morning, something happened that made me take a second look at my approach. I went to throw on some jeans and a particular sweater for a trip to New York City. First pair didn’t fit. Second pair barely fit. By the time I got to the third pair of jeans, I was both frustrated and sad, wondering if I should be the one leading this tribe of ours. How had I strayed so far from my own principles and practices? And so we are beginning today from a place of total honesty, which is the way it should be.

I am not “leading” us down this path toward transformation; I am walking right alongside you. I know from personal and powerful first-hand experience that the practices I’ve outlined in Cravings can make a difference, not only in your waistline and on your dinner plate but in your mindset and mood and perspective. Over the past 18 months, however, ever since I went to work in an outside office rather than writing from my home office, I’ve had trouble finding the new “normal” in my eating, exercising, praying, mindfulness routine. Where I used to spend time each morning over my bowl of Mindful Oatmeal, a practice that grounded my day and gave me balance, I now throw a yogurt in my bag and usually don’t remember to eat it until halfway through the morning — at my desk as I work. (And then I swing by a friend’s office to grab some always-at-the-ready candy.) Where I used to consciously strive to get away from the multi-tasking mindset that wreaks havoc with our serenity and, by extension, our eating habits, I now regularly do about 10 things at once and almost always end up eating my lunch at my desk as I answer emails and keep up with various projects. Sometimes I just plop my lunch container down on top of the pile of folders and newspapers. I’m here to tell you that eating that way, operating that way is a recipe for disaster in terms of both physical and mental health.

Which is what brings us to where we are today: Cravings, Chapter 1: A Deeper Hunger. What is your deeper hunger for 2017? Surely it’s more than taking off a few pounds. I’m guessing that if you’re anything like me, underneath the surface hunger for a slimmer waistline or stronger abs is a desire for inner peace, self-acceptance, and a transformation that will lead you to a place where you are not defined by the number on the scale or the size of your jeans.

As we begin our journey, some aspects may feel a little unusual since we’re talking about eating habits and diet but we’re not actually going on a diet. I’m not going to give you a list of foods you can’t eat or foods you must eat or an amount of exercise you should do. This is going to be a much deeper and interior journey than the typical kind of health plan. If you follow this path, your newly restored relationship with food will naturally bring things into balance because you won’t be stuffing or starving based on feelings of inadequacy or because of stress in your work or home life or because you’re trying to fill a void of some kind. You will be learning to move mindfully through your meals, through life, doing things with attention and INtention, which is what sets this apart from any old diet. In order to do that, we have to drop down into our heart center and make a spiritual connection.

From Chapter 1:

“When we begin to connect prayer lives to physical lives, when we look beneath the surface, we often discover just how deeply intertwined the two are and how our food issues are wound around our spiritual needs and longings. We’re not hungry for a carton of ice cream or a bag of chips. We’re hungry for acceptance — from ourselves even more than from others — for love, for fulfillment, for peace. We’re hungry for a life we think we don’t deserve or can’t have, for the person we know we can be if only we’d give ourselves the chance.

“Often it is not the fear of failure that holds us back but the fear of success. We cling to the comfortable rather than step out into the possible. So we sit at home with a container of Cookies and Cream rather than take a chance on getting our heart broken again, or we down an entire bag of chocolate-covered pretzels rather than work on that resume that might get us out of a dead-end job. Or we eat cold pasta right from the refrigerator rather than sit down in silence and listen for the whisper of the Spirit speaking to our hearts.”

Practice for the week: Rather than counting calories and fat grams, this week we’re going to try to add one spiritual practice to our daily routine. It can be five minutes of silence and deep breathing at the start of the day, or a meditative walk out in nature, or daily Mass, or a few minutes with Scripture — whatever suits your spiritual style. Do your practice daily for one week, and at week’s end, notice if there were any changes. How did it change your mood, attitude, habits, hungers, if it changed it at all? Was it hard to do? Can you keep it up, or even increase you amount of prayer time? (You’ll find some questions to prompt reflection at the end of Chapter 1, along with a meditation.)

Journaling: If you haven’t already started a journal, now is the time to begin that as well. A simple spiral notebook is fine. Again, no calorie counting. This is about noticing more than what’s on your plate. Yes, jot down what you eat, but, just as important, write down how you feel on any given day — physically, emotionally, and spiritually. What’s going on in your life that might be making you scrounge around in the pantry for cookies or stare into the fridge for a magical food that will make the pain going away?

Prayer: If you’re looking for something to serve as a spiritual touchstone, spend some time with Psalm 139, which you’ll find on pages 13-14 of Chapter 1 (or in your Bible). Focus on these words:

“I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your works!”

Can you see yourself as wonderfully made, loved unconditionally by God? This is our starting point. And our ending point. It can be hard work to get there, but we’ll tackle it together, and share our struggles here in the comment section. I can tell you with all honesty that yesterday morning, as I faced my own backsliding, I did not feel wonderfully made. Not even close. But because I’ve made this journey before, I know what that means: It’s time to slow down, to take time for some self-care, to spend time with God, to shut out the noise of our chaotic world and recapture my balance, to become more mindful. (If you’re struggling with mindfulness over multi-tasking, you can find a post on that topic HERE. We’ll talk more on that topic in the weeks ahead.)

Thank you for joining me on this journey. Feel free to ask questions, share stories, or start discussions in the comment section, and you can always find me on Facebook as well.

Upcoming radio interviews on the #CravingsTribe:

Monday, Jan. 2, 8:20 p.m.: Busted Halo, the Catholic Channel, SiriusXM 129

Tuesday, Jan. 3, 5 p.m.: Drew Mariani Show, Relevant Radio (listen live HERE)

Musical inspiration for the week ahead: Colours by Margo Rey

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ReVolution, not resolution, beginning here Jan. 2

Our new adventure — this Cravings Tribe — is not about making a single, one-year resolution or losing 10 pounds or becoming someone you’re not. It’s about finding out who you really are and coming to terms with your true self. It’s realizing you are good enough exactly as you are right now, at this very moment, whether or not you feel you need to eat healthier, exercise more, spend less time on social media, read more, pray more.

Whatever your “goal,” we want to begin from a place of acceptance, but that takes work. It doesn’t come naturally, does it? We are hard on ourselves, always seeing the cracks, the flaws, the places where we’ve failed to live up to our own expectations. That’s about to change…

Often the root of our feelings are buried way down deep inside. They’re not easy to face, and so we use other things (food, social media, alcohol, gossip, shopping, etc.) to fill the void, and, before you know it, we’ve layered another “issue” on top of whatever else we’ve go going on. Before you know it, we’re caught in a vicious cycle, always setting ourself up for failure by making goals or resolutions that are doomed because the real work doesn’t involve a scale or heart rate monitor. It involves getting right with God and with ourselves. Exciting and daunting, but not nearly so much when we do it together!

During the next eight weeks, we are going to try to take the first step in our personal revolution, a transformation that is not just skin deep. We will face ourselves, not in the mirror where we tend to see all our flaws, but in prayer and mindfulness and self-awareness, where we will learn to see the beauty and strength that resides deep within in spite of — or maybe because of — our brokenness.

Here’s a schedule of how we will journey through the book, beginning each chapter on the date listed. Although we’re starting Jan. 2, you can jump in any time, or come in and out as it suits your schedule and life. It’s all good! I’ll put up a blog post on those days as a kick-off for each week. You’ll find that here and linked on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Throughout the week, I’ll try to share inspirational memes, quotes, and posts that will help you along the way. I’m hoping to do some Facebook live events or YouTube videos I can post here every two weeks or so. Just watch this space for more information. In addition, I’m working on a podcast, although I’ve never done one before so we’ll see how that goes. Stay tuned!

January 2: A Deeper Hunger

January 9: Dieting Delusion

January 16: Mirror, Mirror

January 23: Freedom by the Forkful

January 30: Feast or Famine

February 6: Balancing Act

February 13: Soul Food

February 20: Just Desserts

February 27: Going Forward as a Tribe

If you want to dive in right now, you can read the Prologue. If you won’t be using the book and want more information on what this is all about, you can click the “Cravings” tab at the top of the home page here on NSS and you’ll find lots of essays and tips I’ve posted since the book was first published by Ave Maria Press. If you buy the book at Ave before Jan. 31, you’ll get a 25 percent discount when you use the promo code: CRAVINGS. Click HERE for that link. Or you can buy it on Barnes and Noble by clicking HERE, and on Amazon by clicking HERE. (Amazon is temporarily out of stock; Kindle edition still available there.)

You can also tune into a few radio shows in the weeks ahead. Here’s where I’ll be talking about the Cravings Tribe:

January 2, 8:20 p.m. ET: Busted Halo on the Catholic Channel, 129 on Sirius/XM

January 3, 5 p.m. ET: Drew Mariani Show, Relevant Radio (listen live at the link or on the Relevant Radio app)

January 10, 2 p.m. ET: On Call with Wendy Wiese, Relevant Radio (listen live at the link or on the Relevant Radio app)

Here’s a helpful graphic to get you started while you wait for our adventure to begin. You can print it out in copies of two or five to share with friends and family. Put one in your copy of Cravings, and keep one on your desk or kitchen counter or nightstand, wherever it will serve as a reminder of this personal revolution you’ve begun.

Cravings set of two bookmarks

Cravings set of five bookmarks

I can’t wait to get started with you on this journey next week. I will be walking with you every step of the way, because, even though I wrote the book on the cravings, I still fall back into old habits. I want to practice what I preach, so thank you for joining me and providing the community that will make that plan easier.

I recommend getting a journal for the journey — it can be a simply spiral notebook or something fancy. Sometimes the 25-cent spiral notebook from Staples is better than the leather-bound beauty because it allows us to write more freely without any worry that we have to write something worthy of a “good” journal. Do whatever feels good for you. But remember this: We will not be counting calories or fat grams. We won’t start starving ourselves with the arrival of the new year. That’s not how this works. It’s not an old-fashioned diet; it is a way of life. This will become more clear once we officially begin.

So get ready to begin and meet other folks who want the same kind of transformation. We aren’t meant to walk this road alone. We need companions. I hope in time you will feel free to share your thoughts and feelings in the comment section here and on Facebook, not only with me but with each other. When this Cravings journey ends in late February, we will have built a support network that will last long after we’ve closed the book.

Oh, and if you follow hashtags, we’ll be using these two: #cravingstribe, #soulsurvivors, and #reVolutionnotresolution.

Happy New Year! Remember that you are beloved in God’s eyes exactly as you are right now. Never forget that. ReVolution not resolution. You are already on your way.

Here’s some music from Alessia Cara to send you on your way today: Scars to Your Beautiful

“But there’s a hope that’s waiting for you in the dark

You should know you’re beautiful just the way you are

And you don’t have to change a thing, the world could change its heart

No scars to your beautiful, we’re stars and we’re beautiful…”

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Revolution 2017 is coming! Join the #CravingsTribe Become a #SoulSurvivor

If you build it, they will come.

Thank you to everyone — in the comment section on this blog, on my Facebook page, and in my email inbox — who have said YES! to the #CravingsTribe. We are on our way.

When I put this out there, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought maybe one or two of you might decide to tag along for the ride, but what I’m hearing is that there are lot of you out there who feel as I do: We need a tribe, a community of people who want to journey together through Cravings and beyond. Now that I know you’re game, I’ll be putting together a plan. When in doubt, check this blog/website for information. (The Cravings tab at the top will always have the most recent information on this topic, if you don’t see it on the home page.) If I’m going to do anything on Facebook, I’ll try to post here as well for those who don’t do social media. And, if I decide to do a weekly or bi-weekly newsletter, I’ll check in with all of you to see if you want to share your email addres (in private) so I can send the newsletter directly to your inbox.

I talked about this new endeavor on the Morning Air Show on Relevant Radio earlier today. If you missed it, you can listen to that brief conversation at the link below. I’m first up after a short intro. Share your thoughts in the comment section, if you’d like. The goal is to eventually have a group that can share with each other, pray for and with each other, and accompany each other for months, maybe years, to come. I can’t wait to get started. Thank you for trusting me enough to join me on this journey. Peace and blessings.

Here’s the radio show link. Just hit the play button:

http://relevantradio.streamguys.us/MA%20Archive/MA20161215c.mp3

 

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Skip the resolutions and go for a personal revolution I’m forming a tribe for 2017. Who’s in?

I don’t know about you, but right about now I could use a tribe, a group of like-minded folks who want to band together for support on the journey. I was thinking recently about ways to reinvigorate some of my spiritual and physical practices—from regular prayer and healthy eating to more exercise and less distraction—and I decided I’d commit to practicing what I preach and work through one of my own books, Cravings: A Catholic Wrestles Food, Self-Image, and God. Then I thought about how much better this would be if I could do it as part of a group, or maybe even lead the group, or at least serve as Cheerleader in Chief.

Cravings is about how we fill the empty spaces in our lives with things we don’t really want or need because it’s easier than facing our demons and living our lives with more attention and intention. Although the book was written specifically with food in mind, the principles can be applied to just about anything: shopping, alcohol, social media, gossip, gambling, TV or whatever vice gets the best of us.

“When we begin to connect prayer lives to physical lives, when we look beneath the surface, we often discover just how deeply intertwined the two are and how our food issues are wound around our spiritual needs and longings,” I wrote in the opening chapter. “We’re not hungry for a carton of ice cream or a bag of chips. We’re hungry for acceptance—from ourselves even more than from others—for love, for fulfillment, for peace. We’re hungry for a life we think we don’t deserve or can’t have, for the person we know we can be if only we’d give ourselves the chance.”

Does any of that sound vaguely familiar? If so, I hope you’ll consider joining me on this journey through Cravings, an internal and virtual pilgrimage that I hope will result in a group of people committed to living life more fully—and more mindfully. We’ll take chapters one week at a time, and I’ll post regularly here. I also plan to do some Facebook Live events where we can “talk” with each other. Over the course of eight weeks, I hope we’ll build up trust and tear down barriers until we have a bond that allows us to move forward individually and as a group, offering encouragement and support, prayers and a listening ear. For those who may live in the upstate New York region, perhaps we can even take the virtual off the screen and make it real, if only for a one-day retreat experience toward the end of our journey.

Starting with Chapter 1 on Jan. 2, we will travel week by week through dieting delusions, feasting and fasting, finding our balance, turning meals into meditations and more, until we end, appropriately enough, right before Ash Wednesday, at which point we begin a journey of a different kind and can segue beautifully from one season to the other.

Although it’s optimal to have a copy of Cravings, it’s not absolutely necessary, if you can’t or don’t want to buy a copy. I’ll be sure to post something weekly on my blog, and I’ll post multiple times every week on Facebook and Twitter, providing a basic outline of what we’re discussing, along with some practical exercises.

We aren’t meant to travel this path alone. We need company. We need encouragement. We need spiritual friends to share the way, but that’s a book group for another season. I can’t wait to get started on our Cravings spiritual adventure. I hope you’ll join the tribe and come along for the ride.

To purchase a discounted copy of Cravings, go to www.avemariepress.com/cravings before Jan. 31, 2017, and use the promo code CRAVINGS, or buy the book on Amazon. Watch this blog for information on the virtual book group and to learn more about mindful eating and living. Follow my author page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MaryDeTurrisPoust/ for regular updates and Facebook Live events.

This column originally appeared in the Dec. 8, 2016, issue of  Catholic New York.

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Lighting the Advent wreath: just hit pause

My reflection on the Advent wreath, from the current issue of Give Us This Day:

Lighting the Advent wreath each night for prayers before dinner has long been my family’s tradition. The flickering candlelight growing brighter with each passing week mirrors the interplay of darkness and light we see outside our kitchen window at this time of year. There is something both haunting and comforting about a single flickering candle or two dancing against the velvety darkness. Our brief pause as we light a candle and offer a prayer opens up just enough space in our jam-packed lives to let the beauty of Advent edge its way into our souls.

This is a season that asks us to be patient, to bask in the waiting even as the rest of the world rushes us to deck the halls and play Christmas music. This is a season that asks us to hold things in tension—birth and death, Christ’s arrival in a manger and Christ’s second coming—even as the rest of the world urges us to focus on buying gifts and accumulating things.

The Advent wreath serves as a visible sign of God’s impending arrival, a growing glow and sense of anticipation as we prepare to celebrate again, as if for the first time, God’s willingness to break into our world and live among us as one of us. Light beyond all bounds. Light that never goes out. Light that burns within each one of us.

Each time you light the candles on your Advent wreath this season—day by day, week by week—may it be a reminder to step outside the frenetic pace of the world and set your life to a slower rhythm, a sacred cadence that gives you room to breathe in God’s goodness, to revel in the waiting, to look into the darkness all around you and find the Light that can never be extinguished.

You can get a monthly subscription to Give Us This Day by clicking HERE. Why not get one for a friend or family member this Christmas?

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Entering Advent, sometimes kicking and screaming

If you’ve been a reader of this blog since the early days, you know my family has had some Advent struggles over the years. There was the time we needed to start Advent with a coin toss, and the time I canceled Advent as punishment. Yeah, we like to keep things interesting. But, I have to admit that I get sort of melancholy when I read about those days. Life moves by so quickly, and, before you know it, opening the doors on a calendar just doesn’t hold the same fascination. Enjoy it while you can.

Yesterday I talked with John Harper of the Morning Air Show on Relevant Radio about celebrating Advent with children, young and old. You can listen to that short conversation at the link below. Just advance to the 31:50-minute mark. I hope your Advent is off to a peaceful start, even if your rituals inspire household riots.

Here’s the link to the interview:

http://relevantradio.streamguys.us/MA%20Archive/MA20161129c.mp3

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