I think my kids were barely back to school this fall when I noticed stores starting to put out Christmas decorations. The holiday season is slowly encroaching upon the entire fourth quarter of the year!

It still seems rushed.

This isn't a preacher's rant; I love Christmas. Though in a world of waning religious interests it seems that the "Holiday Season" has become almost a proxy for the spiritual institutions that used to shoulder the weight of our cosmic longing. We invest the last three months or so of the calendar year with a wish for transcendence, that in going unmet the first nine, leaves us with a lot of ground to make up.

So, while there's not enough time to do all the things a person/family is supposed to do during this season, there's certainly not enough contemplative space to feel and experience all that we're expected to.

During Advent, Christian communities around the world attempt to decelerate this season of hurry by adding something to it: an interruption. A rhythm of pause by which we attempt to lay claim once again to the invasion of divinity that instigated this "holiday" to begin with, believing that there are dimensions of eternality to Christmas that mere nostalgia and glad tidings will never fully reveal.

Yet, what the story of Christmas tells us is that our expectations shouldn't be chastened but heightened. And the saints who have gone before us tell us that this amplification takes a devoted community of practice who regularly gather together to listen for the whisper of the sacred in the midst of a season of unusually loud commerce.

For you, that community of practice is likely Intown. And, you are invited to join us in listening not just for that which is generically sacred, but for the one who came among us and personally whispered "peace" to our busy souls.