The leaves have finally fallen, the sky has turned gray, and the air is cold.  It is late fall in eastern Pennsylvania. This is the way it is supposed to be.

Sunday marks the beginning of Advent, this season largely forgotten save by some of the churches and maybe a calendar or a wreath of candles in fewer and fewer homes. We seem more taken by an elf on the shelf than by a call to let all mortal flesh keep silence; with fear and trembling to stand.  We have no idea what it might mean to ponder nothing earthly minded.

There will be time to sit before the fire on the hearth and to enjoy the glow of the lit evergreen in the corner of the living room.  Today, not yet Advent, still autumn, the bleak late fall reminds us for what Advent calls us to wait.  We need more than the warmth of the fire, the glow of the lights, or whatever playful delight the game about the elf on the shelf brings.  In fact, our world is a world of sad and lowly plains.  Many in our world live “beneath life’s crushing load, their forms are bending low, they toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow.”

Until recent years, Advent, with its deep purple vestments, was considered a season of penitence.  Where it is now much practiced, the emphasis has turned to expectant, even joyful waiting.

The bleak late fall speaks more of penitence.  Something needs to change, and, to borrow the poet’s phrase I’ve already corrupted, bleak midwinter comes long before the spring.

Rich in Mercy is a mission organization in Haiti.  One of its workers posted this notice on social media this past weekend:
There is also a paper being circulated saying that dechoukaj (creole for uprising or demonstration) begins on Monday and if parents send their children to school to write their names on their feet so that their bodies can be identified when they get shot on the streets. I read the paper on a what’s app posting sent to one of the guys here. Parents want to send their children to school and public transport drivers want to work but they are facing intimidation and threats. 

Yes, WhatsApp to Facebook, but what could be bleaker?  Children writing their names on their feet so their bodies can be identified when they get shot on the streets.  Elf on the shelf, even joyful waiting in a world like ours?

I have mentioned before the  place “In the Bleak Midwinter” holds in my journey through Advent.  The first verse is haunting:

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

“The words depict not just a scene of gray December, but of a world turned cold and hard – Caesar’s empire, Victorian England, this second decade of the Third Millennium,” I wrote nearly a year ago.

Penitence, regret and sorrow, but so much more. My need for penitence is deeply personal but also widely public. What have we done to create a world where children write their names on their feet so their bodies might be identified when they are shot on the streets? This is not the way it is supposed to be. Haiti and thousand other Haitis are our responsibility.

“Christ our God to earth descendeth.”  The reality demands repentance more than joy.  Of course, finally joy comes in the bleak midwinter.

We have little patience for penitence, for responsibility taking. But without it we will never turn to the deep joy that will come in the bleak midwinter.

This remains my favorite rendition of “In The Bleak Midwinter.”