Advent, like the four day study period before finals week, is a time of waiting and anticipation. The only difference is that where Advent is typically a season of joyful expectation, study period is a time of frantic dread as all the paper deadlines and test dates that have—up to this point—been reasonably spaced out are suddenly condensed into a three-day period of woe. As the library turns into a 24-hour triage center and anyone who makes noise or even breathes too loudly is at risk of being labeled a menace to society, it can be easy to lose perspective. Where a 4-6 page paper causes mild anxiety in a normal week, under the glare of reading period, it can feel like a death sentence.
Luckily, this weekend, Brother Larry, our chaplain for community life, hosted a study retreat at the chapel. And so, weighed down by book bags, coats, and a massive to-do list, we all arrived at 8:30 am Saturday morning for breakfast, devotional jumping jacks, and a prayer by Howard Thurman before plunging into our studies. We stopped throughout the day for food, fellowship, and more jumping jacks, crossing tasks and assignments off the large to-do lists hanging on the walls as we went along. In addition to an electric candle, we each received a bell to wear around our necks and their bright sounds echoed off the stone walls, accompanying the soft pad of our feet as we took breaks to make tea and hot chocolate or to do jumping jacks to keep ourselves from falling asleep. We kept the candles close, perched atop computers or resting on knees, a constant reminder of light and hope even as the shadows grew long outside, quickly plunging us into the darkness of night.
As I left the chapel last night at 10 pm, breathing in the brisk winter air, the Howard Thurman prayer we said throughout the day echoed in my head:
When the song of the angels is stilled
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.
There are so many people in this world whom we are called to serve and minister the work of Christmas to, but when we arrived at this retreat, we were all pretty broken, weighed down by all the things we hadn’t done yet. So when Larry gave us bells to make us harder to lose, fed us six meals plus desserts in two days, and released us from the stagnant atmosphere of the library by opening up the chapel to us, he helped patch us back together. As we studied in silent community, we gave each other a support system, celebrating our successes with the ringing of bells as we methodically checked off things from our lists. Though the song of the angels was stilled, we sang taizé chants in a dimly lit room and by the time we left, we had found some measure of peace, remembering how to make music in our hearts.
In this season of frantic dread, this retreat restored to us our joyful anticipation and grounded us in the knowledge of God’s presence around and within us. In our studying and in our writing, in our praying and our singing, our bells rang with joy and our electric candles flickered, heralding the coming of the Light of the World.