This first week of Advent it was The Road starring Viggo Mortensen. I thought screenwriter Joe Penhall did a really excellent job disseminating the themes of Cormac McCarthy's novel. He created wonderful scenes from the source scenes in the book and revealed heart of the journey. Which is always, in every apocalyptic film I've ever seen, to never give up, never surrender. The main characters just simply can't bring themselves to stop hoping even in the midst of ashes, dust, decay, cannibalism, insanity, starvation, or marauding gangs (sometimes of zombies, though not in this film.)
I think Advent is the darkest season of the church year. Lent with its sacrifice is not dark, it is dry like the desert. It is our choosing to give up. Advent is not born of our choice, it comes upon us. For the northern half of the world, it is actually dark. And cold. They are in the midst of a bleak mid-winter. This is what Advent feels like to me -- blue twilight outside cold empty cathedrals on Friday evenings.
In Advent we are celebrating what is and what is not quite yet. We are the wanderers in an apocalyptic tale -- something tremendous has happened and most of humanity has fallen apart but we are the keepers of the flame and we trudge on in spite of it all, sure that we can reach the coast.
For those of you that know it, and most of you know this even if you don't know you do, repeat with me now
the mystery of faith:
He was
He is
And He is to come.
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