Time has no meaning. We’ve been saying that a lot in western North Carolina this fall. Since Helene, none of us can remember what day it is or what we did yesterday. The seasons continuing to turn feels wrong. The entire world should have stopped when the storm hit. The fact that it didn’t, that life kept going on outside the mountains, felt offensive. It made us angry and confused, as we’ve tried to survive in a fog of hurt.
Our mountains entered an alternate timeline when the storm hit. We acknowledge that time is moving on; we see it happening. After the storm, trees changed from green to brown, covered with dust from the dried mud, but now they’re starting to change to yellow and red. Their brilliance feels discordant. I want to ask the vibrant leaves, What are you doing here? Are you sure you’re in the right place? It got cold last week, further proof that the planet is tilting like normal, but for us it just meant sourcing heaters and blankets and hot meals. We’re in a state of functional attention, not appreciative.
Our bubble of time is a location where the passage of days is charted by shifts of energy and emotions rather than planetary movement. As our needs are more easily met and our physical security grows, we have more room for the pain to affect us. Depression and trauma reactions are setting up residence, especially for those of us who have gone through this before. For some in Canton, this is their fourth disastrous flood in 20 years. Our emotions shift quickly. We’ll be sad and in shock, but then we’ll see a friend and the hugs are fervent. We meet with other recovery agencies and volunteers, and our gratitude brings tears. We read Scripture or poetry or any of the ongoing scroll of encouragement (interspacing the doom) on Facebook, and we feel inspired and determined. Every day, sometimes every hour, our needs and reactions change. Rather than days of the week, we are marking time by emotional waves.
I’ve come to consider this bubble of time as a kind of Advent: that wild, disconcerting season full of prophets and proclamations. It’s a frustrating season of longing when all we want is joy and belonging and celebration, but we’re stuck with locusts and honey.
I’ve come to consider this bubble of time as a kind of Advent: that wild, disconcerting season full of prophets and proclamations.
But with the wildness and longing, we have truth. It’s hard, bitter truth, but still truth: things will fall apart. We all face destruction and loss and grief. All of us. And with the accelerating climate crisis, we may face this kind of disaster again. But we are not alone. It is for precisely us that a child has been born, and a son given, and that child is love, and brings peace, God with us.
We are seeing glimmers of the Christ child’s presence … well, sometimes it’s glimmers, but sometimes it’s more like the Kool-Aid Man, busting through our walls, hollering about the presence of God. It’s hugs and mountains of donations and free hot meals and concern for our neighbors. It’s volunteers searching for body parts to bring closure to families, willingly taking on the burden of nightmares. It’s deep belly laughs with other pastors about the case of lube that showed up at a distribution center. It’s weeping in each other’s arms with the news of another death. It’s people from every part of the world checking in with us, even if they don’t know how to help, just saying, Hey, I love you, I’m here, I got you. It’s houses and trailers already being rebuilt. It’s space heaters stuffed into SUVs, driven here from states away. It’s sex workers raising money on OnlyFans, spending $30,000 on generators and heaters, driving them to Asheville, and then donating an additional $20,000 to build a tiny house. It’s a congregation singing “Amazing Grace” in worship, tears streaming, singing I once was lost, but now am found with their whole chests.
This post-storm Advent season revealed itself to me through my church’s worship.
Everyone was crying on the second Sunday, even the most stoic of us. Necessary, uncontrolled, unselfconscious tears. The third Sunday was more about hugs and connection and saying, I’m so glad to see you, I’m so glad you’re here. Last Sunday was more about anger, as we named the roadblocks to recovery: how the lust for power blocks belovedness, and how it grates on our spirits.
This upcoming Sunday, we’ll celebrate a wedding during worship. A sweet couple in our congregation saw their wedding plans get washed away in the storm, and asked if they could get married during worship, just their family and the congregation, sharing it with us as a gift. Maybe the theme of this fourth Advent Sunday will be just that: gifts.
So I’m not marking the days now by the calendar or by the seasons but as Advent. We’re all waiting for revelation, expecting to be loved, knowing we’re found. We’ve had tears, hugs, anger, and gifts — not instead of the traditional Advent themes of hope, peace, joy, and love, but alongside them.
I know that someday the timeline of our mountains will merge with the rest of the world again. I know that Christmas is coming on December 25. But right now, at this moment, we’re in the wilderness, feeling prophetic. We’re everything, all at once. We see the child here already, and not yet. We’re saying, O come, O come, Emmanuel, please, God, now.
I know that someday the timeline of our mountains will merge with the rest of the world again. … But right now, at this moment, we’re in the wilderness, feeling prophetic. We’re everything, all at once
We’re united with the saints of every age who waited in hope without knowing exactly what was coming. We are trusting that love is on the way, and that the promises are true for us. We’re waiting for our roads to be cleared of debris, our power and internet to be turned back on, our water to be drinkable, our businesses to re-open, and our hearts to heal.
As we’re waiting, we’re working. We’re doing what we can, where we can, to help. We’re working side-by-side as neighbors, ignoring (or raging at) the reports from the outside world that would divide us. We’re doing it together. Conservative and progressive, gay and straight, cis and trans, all races, all genders, all ages, government and churches and synagogues and mosques and non-profits and businesses and agencies, together. It’s the joy and belonging and celebration of Christmas, fulfilled.
So in this Advent time, we’re holding fast to the love we see everywhere around us. As you are reading this, you’re joined with us in the waiting. Please light candles for us, keep us in your prayers, and watch with us for the shoot to come from the stock of Jesse, and the branch to grow from the roots.
