This Sunday officially starts the season of Advent. It is one of my most favorite traditions. It is not something that I grew up celebrating, but one that since being introduced to, I love.

Advent is about slowing down, preparing the way, remembering what this season is all about. As a man who will soon celebrate the last birthday of his forties, I am learning a little more about taking in as much as you can, while you can

I love the lines from the movie City Slickers as quoted in the book The Body by Charles W. Colson

"Value this time in your life, kids, because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices. It goes by fast.

When you’re a teenager, you think you can do anything (and you do.) Your twenties are a blur. In your thirties you raise your family, you make a little money, and you think to yourself, "What happened to my twenties?"

In your forties, you grow a little pot belly, and you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud, and one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother. In your fifties, you have a minor surgery – you’ll call it a procedure, but it’s a surgery. In your sixties, you’ll have a major surgery, the music is still loud, but it doesn’t matter because you can’t hear it anyway.

In your seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale. You start eating dinner at 2:00 in the afternoon, you have lunch around 10:00, breakfast the night before, spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate frozen yogurt and muttering, "How come the kids don’t call? How come the kids don’t call?" In your eighties, you’ll have a major stroke, and you end up babbling with some Jamaican nurse who your wife can’t stand, but whom you call mama. Any questions?”

Ok, so hopefully I don’t end up like that, but I am not taking any chances ;-)
May you have a blessed Advent Season