One might think that a holiday that arrives with regularity every twelve months would be less overwhelming than it is. It is not as if it catches us off guard, like when the weather gets wonky, or a baby is born prematurely. Christmas has little chance of sneaking in unannounced, given the popularity of advent calendars, holiday programs in the single digits of December, and the snowballing mound of greetings that arrive in the mailbox.
Yet even if you are informed about a date on the schedule, it is not a foregone conclusion that you have prepared.
John the Baptist knew about getting ready. "Prepare the way of the Lord!!!"
He shouted to the crowds by the Jordan river with urgency, as if their very lives depended on it. He believed that they did. Yet the words he was echoing were first spoken eight hundred years before. It would appear that timeliness was not linked to importance.
This does not jive easily with the collective messages that bombard us without reprieve.
"Sale ends tonight!"
"Last chance!!"
Yet many of those mandates are pulling us toward accruing stuff that will be forgotten by Valentine's Day.
While there were those who harkened to John's message by preparing, the effort did little to move things along. Anna was in the temple for eighty four years as a widow, fasting and praying for the coming of Christ. There is no mention of impatience on her part, which if I am honest would tinge my own reaction to such an inconvenience. I recall how my edginess accelerated for the final eighty four minutes waiting to meet my granddaughter. Now that she is really here the pause has melted into
the pot of forgetfulness.
People I love have their own toe-tapping timelines. To finish school. To sleep through the night. To marry. To get a license.
