Advent across Cultures

It hasn't been so long ago that I was sure to go to Christmas Eve services every year. Lately, though, not going so often, I've been watching with occasional surprise at the slippage of deep reverence--in myself, as well as in others.

Something hit me wrong today when I heard the PBS announcer carefully avoid "Christmas" and say "Advent," as though it would distance him and us from too explicit an association with that overtly Christian thing that troubles us today.

To announce "Advent across Cultures" and rather too quickly describe what he meant--How Advent is celebrated in Portugal and Japan (he might have said Morocco, too--more odd, I thought, not knowing why, except for all that sand and Paul Bowles . . .). The intention he was stoking, to celebrate with all hands and feet, all possible intonations, all songs and trinkets, all--yes--incarnations should not have felt so alien, so thunkingly leaden.

Not sure why that seems wrong . . . maybe he just has a bad voice for reverence . . .