Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
For some people, Advent really starts when the candles are lit. For others, it really starts when the tree is up and the house decorated (don’t start in about why you should wait to do that). For me, it really starts when I listen to the Isaiah parts of George Handel’s “Messiah.” It’s impossible for me to study Isaiah without hearing Handel’s music. Together, they are like anything else holy—every time you regard it, you learn something new.
That happened to me as I sat down to write today’s Tripod, 
more than two decades after my first sing-along “Messiah.” This time, I didn’t think about the exiles’ way literally being made straight, or of John the Baptist preparing the way of Jesus, as we read in today’s Gospel from Mark. No, I thought about this a bit more personally, more intimately. We are all in a desert here on earth—sometimes, more parched and desolate than others. Our paths can be crooked, our valleys deep, the mountains seemingly impossibly high. The way may include people who have grievously wronged us, sometimes intentionally and just for sport. It may include cruelty and pain. It may include despair and bitterness and loneliness.
Or we can invite Him in as our traveling companion—fully. We can surrender to His direction, without concern about the time or the length of the trip. And when we have the faith and courage to do that for even a few seconds, we see and feel and taste the difference. The sourness of regret dissipates. The burden that was so unbearable, that hurt our shoulders just to think about it, falls away. The pained breathing stops and our lungs and chest open up. The relief may be brief at first. But the more we believe, the more we trust, the better we feel, even if not one of the difficult situations changes in any visible manner.
And that is a way of living to which we can all aspire, regardless of whether the candles are lit or the tree is up or the music is on.
