Advent 2017
‘The Tao’ of Advent
FOLLOWING ‘THE WAY’

Tao means The Way. It can be used to mean the “natural law”, or the WAY of right and wrong that everyone knows, more or less—not just Christians. It is basic truth that has been revealed to everybody, not just Christians. Christian theologians call it “general revelation” (see Romans 1-2).

Historically Christians believed that blind and tyrannical self-preservation, a constant pursuit of general self-happiness and a pervasive dread of self-misery is the result of people ignoring the Way (the “Tao”) basic truth and the virtues. Ignoring the basics of goodness and truth, or forgetting virtues like self-control, honesty, courage, wisdom, or respect for authority will lead to terrible events, such as Herod and the Magi, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Nazis, and our more recent examples of Rodney King and the L.A. riots.

Christians and noble pagans (Plato) also believed that living according to virtue and teaching appropriate responses to the “Tao” is basic to character formation and living as humans with integrity, whether in children, in Christians, or in anyone else, even pagans or Magi.

WHAT IS THE WAY?

The full practice of Advent is to remember and teach how one should live a life guided by, filled with, in harmony with: truth, beauty and justice. This three-ness (truth, beauty and justice) is really one whole, Tao or ‘Way’. This Way runs through all nature, including human nature.