Advent is a sign

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten—

You used to be able to drive down I-94 through north Minneapolis and spy her every time, waving and watching over the rush hour traffic. A mannequin perched high atop on a weathered red convertible, scarf flapping in the wind. Her Porsche was welded to a metal pole. Ps 46:10 read the sign below on the car door, an enigmatic evangelization from the car repair shop beneath.

You didn’t have to know what it meant, or how she got there. You could simply look up and know she was there, certain as seasons.

But one day she was suddenly gone. And then you noticed her absence. Wondered where she went, what her sign meant, why you even cared after all those years.

Here is one way you can approach Advent: racing past, speeding unaware, not knowing you missed it until it was gone. 

Or here is another way: looking up, slowing down, coming home.

Be still, and know that I am God (Ps 46:10).¹

//

Advent is a sign. It points us to something else. 

Advent is a symbol, of course: a participation in God’s own mysterious preparation for the coming of a savior. But also a clear and certain sign, like roadway markers. Stop. Turn. Yield.

Each year Advent speaks the same steady refrain: Awake. Repent. Prepare. Hope.

A sign is practical, pragmatic, functional, and unmistakable. You can decide not to stop at the red octagon; you can token-tap the brakes and slide through, but you know you have ignored the sign. 

Likewise, you can speed (though you know the limit) or race through the yellow light (though you know to slow). Deciding your own rules and barreling through life is a way plenty of us choose to follow.

But you will miss many signs if you live like this. You will miss everything they are trying to tell you: how to move wisely through the world, how to care for others on the road, how to trust that wiser folks than you have studied the right way to go.

Against the maddening mall-press of spend spend spend and save save save, Advent points one powerful finger in the opposite direction: Slow down. 

Quiet down and power down. Listen and learn. Then turn back again and prepare your lives for the unlikeliest gift of grace.

If you want peace, if you want hope, if we want to stop barreling through the world hating and killing each other, then we better start to heed the signs.

Be still, and know that I am God.

//

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

Mother Teresa spoke this sentence, her wisdom hardened from the slum streets of Calcutta.² We cross-stitch it on pillows or flourish it with flowery prints on our walls. Humans have a habit of recognizing truth, but not doing the hard work of living it out. (Self included; self perhaps leading the charge.)

No one would call it news that we have no peace. My prayer book for Advent begins with a sobering note that more countries are currently waging armed conflicts than at any time since World War II.³ Half of Americans say people are driving more recklessly than before the pandemic; statistics for traffic accidents and deaths bear out the brutal reality.⁴ In the U.S., a majority of Democrats and Republicans believe the other party is not just wrong, but dangerous. Nearly 40% in each political party call their opponents evil.⁵

We have forgotten that we belong to one another.

When I drive on the interstate today, there is only empty sky around the long-gone sign. No more words of peace from the Psalm above. Gone is the figure pointing the way (by her strangeness, sure, but couldn’t we say John the Baptist did the same?). Gone is the regular reminder that even here on the racing road, the right way is be still and know that I am God.

I didn’t know how glad I was that she was there until it was too late.

//

Be still. And know that I am God.

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

Stay awake.⁶ Prepare the way of the Lord.⁷ Share everything you have, your clothing and food; stop stealing and cheating.⁸ Believe that what was spoken will be fulfilled.⁹

The sign is clear. Slow down. The only way we stop barreling past each other, into each other, at each other, any direction except that which leads to God, is this: 

Get still. Get quiet. Get slow. Get small. 

The strangest of figures will point the way. But look up and you will find them. Wise are those who heed their words.

Statue of Saint John the Baptist by Doris Caesar, found next to the baptismal font in the Saint John’s Abbey Church in Collegeville, MN. IMHO, he makes John look exactly as uncomfortable and unforgettable as he would have been.

FYI: I started writing an Advent essay for you, and it turned into 3. Maybe 4. Next week, a story for paid subscribers about Advent as rescue. A story I cannot shake.

1. More on Minnie MAPCO if you’re curious.

2. Drives me batty when people don’t cite saints’ quotes (because many of them are made up), so I went digging for the source. Per Mother Teresa’s order, the Missionaries of Charity, the full quote is even more of a doozy: “Works of love are works of peace—to love we must know one another. Today if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other—that man, that woman, that child is my brother, my sister. If everyone could see the image of God in his neighbor, do you think we would still need guns and bombs?”

3. “How can we speak of peace when the phrase ‘endless wars’ accurately describes our world? If you sense the conditions are worse than usual, you're right: currently more than 50 nations suffer from armed conflicts, the most since 1946.” From “Prince of Peace” by Kathleen Norris in Give Us This Day, December 2024.

4. What the data says about dangerous driving and road rage in the U.S. Pew Research Center.

5. How Americans describe the Democratic and Republican parties. YouGov.com.

6. “Be vigilant at all times.” From the Gospel of the 1st Sunday in Advent, Lk 21:25-28, 34-36.

7. “Prepare the way of the Lord.” From the Gospel of the 2nd Sunday in Advent, Lk 3:1-6.

8. “Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none. And whoever has food should do likewise.” From the Gospel of the 3rd Sunday in Advent, Lk 3:10-18.

9. “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” From the Gospel of the 4th Sunday in Advent, Lk 1:39-45.