A nice line from Abbott Christopher Jamison, who gives the inaugural Operation Noah lecture in November, on the subject of ‘putting the waiting back into wanting’:
“Advent is the traditional month of preparation before Christmas, a time of fasting and intense prayer, a time of eager expectation. It is above all a time to celebrate waiting as a normal part of human experience, when the Christian tradition invites us to wait for the birth of a child. In Advent we rejoice that we are waiting, that there is still time to prepare a way for the Lord and we celebrate the virtue of patience. By contrast, the consumer world tells us not to wait but to ‘buy now.’ Greed cannot wait, so to learn to wait is a simple antidote to greed.”
Operation Noah have an interesting advent initiative based around simpler living and sustainability in reaction to the consumerism of Christmas. I’ve just been talking about it on the work blog, and you can check it out here.
The Earthbound Report 