My first week of Advent was a flop. I don't know for sure what happened but by Thursday, after coming home from a third night of parent conferences, there was the faith candle, stooped over and looking pitiful.
If you are not familiar with the Advent wreath, it is a Christian tradition in which three purple candles and one pink candle are placed in a wreath and lit in celebration of the Advent or the four weeks leading up to the arrival of Christ, aka Christmas. In my Unity faith, we are not literally waiting for a messiah to come to earth to clean house or anything like that. We are symbolically celebrating our "indwelling Christ," acknowledging that God is in, through, and around all things. We turn our hearts and minds to what the four candles represent: faith, peace, hope, and joy.
The practice involves lighting one purple candle each Sunday until the final one, the pink joy candle, is lit and the whole wreath is aflame just when we need it -- around the final days of the darkest time in the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice.
When my children were little, we would light a candle every night, say an affirmative prayer, blow out the candle, and open a very small gift. Now that my kids are grown, this year I decided I would light the candle each evening just as a gift for myself. I planned to meditate on what each candle represents for a few minutes and maybe do a little journaling before I went to bed.
I was gung ho Sunday evening. The piny scent of the Christmas tree with its sparkling lights and the dull glow of the candle's flames lulled me into a place of confidence, faith, and strength for the coming week. I even wrote a few pages in my journal.
Monday was good too. I kept my thoughts centered on the faith and gratitude of my healed heart and affirmed that I continue to heal in all ways. By Tuesday, I glanced at the candle and was able to muster the word "faith" in my mind until laundry piles got my attention. By Wednesday, however, it was all downhill. I had allowed myself to get tangled in thoughts of all that I had to get done and questioned if I had the strength to do it. I'm pretty sure that's when the candle started to keel over too.
Now the faith candle hangs over as a waxy drip threat and I must face the truth: I lost faith this week. I worried about getting my students' work graded for the close of the trimester. I worried about how I would find the time to complete my final project for the online writing course I am taking. I worried how my paycheck would stretch across the bills marching in this month. It felt like a long, weary week.
The good thing about time, though, is that is passes. I'll call last week the week of little faith and I'll also call it over. Done with.
Tonight I'll slip a piece of foil under the faith candle and let it drip its bowed head all it wants. The worries may encroach upon me again. Sometimes we are imperfect in our faith. Sometimes we wander into the darkness of our worries. But I'll light the next purple candle this evening. I'll blend a little peace in with my wilted faith and enter a new week with an open heart.
