Overwhelmed and Procrastinating

• I am about 60% through writing a new Christmas story.
• I am about 30% through writing the first post on the Spirituality as Resistance series for Advent to Epiphany.
• I have nothing written on next week's Tuning Slide.
• I am sitting here at my computer in my coffee shop "office" scrolling Facebook and checking my calendar for the fifth time.
• In other words- I am stuck.

At the same time:

• The tax cut [sic] bill, a potential major step toward ending support programs like Social Security and Medicare, is aiming toward passage.
• Trump re-tweets a British extremist right-wing anti-Muslim video.
• Garrison Keillor is fired.
• Roy Moore is leading the polls again.

I stare at the computer screen and see the story I'm working on and wonder how I can even continue. Is there reason for "joy to the world" at Christmas 2017? Evangelical "Christians" support hateful groups and people, ignoring the very "morality" they have said they stand for. How can I proclaim the birth of a Savior they would ostracize in a way that challenges their status quo?

So I start writing here. I get the feelings down in pixels. And I sit and stare some more.

I guess I am in the perfect place to be thinking about Advent. I was not originally planning on writing this preview of the series. But what better way to get started. This is the world before Advent. This is the world into which he was born. It is clear that I am not ready for Christmas. I am still too broken, weighed down by the sad and bad and hateful news to hear any good news. I need these next four weeks to be ready.

If I stay stuck in my procrastination, nothing will change in me. I may not be able to change the way the world is going, but I do know that God can change the way I see the world and my place in it. Is this how people of faith felt before the first Advent? Has the world really changed all that much in these 2000+ years? Have we?

Hope. Love. Joy. Peace.

They are coming.

May I be ready to hear them.