The PHurrowed Brow

A vestigial flicker from my altar boyhood reminds me that today marks the start of Advent: beginning this fourth Sunday before Christmas, faithful non-Orthodox Christians ready themselves to celebrate the arrival of the baby Jesus on the 25th. On the other hand, secular consumers of Christianity may now be three days deep into, ahem, mass-marketed ‘Advent calendars’ stocked with chocolates, beers, LEGOs, whiskeys, teas, or quantities of other consumables. These, for the sake of year-to-year standardization, are packed with 24 pockets to be opened one per day. Perhaps they offer helpful practice for the great unwrapping on Christmas Day. Advent, deriving from the Latin verb advenīre (meaning “to come to” or “to arrive”), connotes prolonged anticipation of a boon to come. Whether the anticipation is solemn or self-indulgent varies, of course, but in either case it is a waiting game.

Lapsed as I am from religious or secular observations of Advent, I will instead use the season to perform a daily ritual of a different sort. My goal and method will be to share descriptions of and reflections upon the various sorts of wonders to be found in this world. Some of these wonders have been part of my lived experience in my work, play, and travels this past year. Other wonders I have heard, seen, or “mind’s eyed” when listening to podcasts, watching films, or reading books and articles. Whether I’ve been afoot, in my pick-up, rolling on a motorcycle, or transported through varied media, the wonders (and some difficulties) that I’ve encountered have helped me to come to new understandings of myself, of others, and of the natural world. I found good and bad as I did so. What will you find as you read and consider what I share?

Bringing oneself to new places and new awareness, can be a messy process. It’s well encapsulated by the associations we have with the word adventure. Adventure is my preferred derivative of advenīre. In order come to one’s intended destination, one must do the work of getting there, perhaps facing unintended obstacles, detours, unpleasantness, danger, and the like. Sometimes the perils are adventitious, which is to say that they are external and only ‘come to’ the adventurer once he or she has left the safe insularity of familar and habitual locations. At other times a peril such as fear, rashness, or distrust (of oneself or of others) is intrinsic to the adventurer. In the end, one may come to the choice or even necessity of abandoning the journey before reaching the intended destination.

We can argue whether failing to reach the destination means that a journey abandoned is undeserving of being called an adventure. But we have time before we need to argue: in the weeks ahead I will be relaunching my blog with this and 21 other posts, one daily from the 3rd to the 24th. Whether you read them one at a time or several at a go, I hope that they are an avenue (yes, that’s from advenīre, too) that allows you to come to a new view of the world, or at least of some part of it. After one more philosophical examination of adventure and travel, we’ll consider the skylines of Denver and Delhi, motorcycle and hike from the beaches of Puerto Rico to its mountain rainforests, go from flooded Kansas wheatfields to alpine tundra in Colorado. Who knows where we’ll end up?

P.S. Very few of the forthcoming posts will read like they were written by an ex-Latin teacher trying to give a lesson on Latin’s importance to English vocabulary. And most will have much to offer the eye and ear: I promise to add photos, video, and other embellishments by which you may gain a sense of the places and experiences of these adventures. Having failed to do so in this post, I offer you instead this song. Originally performed by World Party, here covered by Eliza Gilkyson), Is it Like Today? carries quite a lot of my inquiring ethos. I hope that in the end you will decide that my questions are sincere rather than cynical.

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