“Our waiting is always shaped by alertness to the Word. It is waiting in the knowledge that someone wants to address us. The question is, are we home? Are we at our address, ready to respond to the doorbell? We need to wait together, to keep each other at home spiritually, so that when the Word comes it can become flesh in us. That is why the Book of God is always in the midst of those who gather. We read the Word so that the Word can become flesh and have a whole new life in us” (Henri Nouwen).

Tomorrow, how will you not only hear the Word but obey it? How will you be transformed by it and weave it into the daily fabric of your lives?

Lord, help us not to be hearers only who go away unchanged but doers who are radically transformed by the same power that raised Jesus the Incarnate Word from the dead.

Amen.

The Christmas season for me is always a time of reflection. For some reason, this time of year brings to mind all those I love who are no longer with me (including the grumpy little feline pictured above).

There’s a hint of sadness, but there’s also a fair amount of gratitude that I was able to know these people and pets and be blessed by them. There’s a little regret that I didn’t make more time for them, but there’s also a peaceful assurance that I will see them again one day.

As surely as death is inevitable for everyone, I know that one day God in Jesus will wipe away every tear from all our eyes. What awaits is worth any loss or sacrifice or sorrow we’ve ever known.

Christmas is a reminder that at the darkest time of the year, hope is born again.

Well, it’s really Thanksgiving. But somehow that has turned into National Stuff Your Face with Turkey Day. We’ve lost sight about what this holiday is really about.

It really is about gratitude. It all started with those pilgrims who were thankful to still be alive after a treacherous journey across the sea and a brutal winter that followed. They were shell-shocked and grieving for all those they had lost, but grateful to God that they weren’t all dead.

So Happy Gratitude Day. May we be known as a thankful people as opposed to an entitled people or a complaining people. Give thanks on this day of all days for the incredible gift of life.

I think that is what is referred to as a 2X4 truth– the kind that smacks you upside the head.

How many days do I complain and whine and forget my blessings? How many times have I become so caught up in my first world problems that I lose sight that so many have it way worse than I do.

I didn’t wake up hungry– I had at least one good meal yesterday. I’m not in any danger of dying from hunger or malnutrition like so many around the world are.

I didn’t wake up in the middle of a war zone like much of the world’s population.

I didn’t have to practice my faith in secret, afraid that someone might snitch on me and get me arrested for my beliefs. I don’t live in a place where Christianity is illegal and proclaiming my faith could cost me my life.

My bad days are better than a lot of people’s good days. In fact, there are lots of people who dream about having a day as good as one of my “bad” days because they get clean water, food, shelter, clothing, security, and life.

Gratitude helps me see my life as the gift it is and not the burden I think it is when my thinking gets skewed. Giving thanks takes what I have and makes it more than enough.

“What is coming upon the world is the Light of the World. It is Christ. That is the comfort of it. The challenge of it is that it has not come yet. Only the hope for it has come, only the longing for it. In the meantime we are in the dark, and the dark, God knows, is also in us. We watch and wait for a holiness to heal us and hallow us, to liberate us from the dark. Advent is like the hush in a theater just before the curtain rises. It is like the hazy ring around the winter moon that means the coming of snow which will turn the night to silver. Soon. But for the time being, our time, darkness is where we are” (Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark).

I’m not sure if Advent has started or not. I suppose not since it’s not even Thanksgiving, but since Thanksgiving is later in the year this year, it could be.

All I know is that this is my favorite time of the year. Advent is a season of waiting, a word that is almost obscene in this frantically paced culture of instant gratification and . . . no waiting.

But waiting is where we learn to appreciate what we already have and to anticipate what’s coming. In this case, it’s celebrating the incarnation of the Christ child and awaiting His return.

I’m still not very good at waiting. I get impatient and distracted and forgetful. I try to help the process along and hurry it up. I get bored and move on to something else.

But waiting is the part where we get silent and still enough to hear the voice of God speaking to us apart from the noise and distractions of every day life.

Lord, help me to learn more of what it means to wait well this Advent season as I wait upon you.

If you’re not quite where you want to be, you may be exactly where God wants you.

Just as gold undergoes a refining process, just as a sculpture undergoes chiseling, so must the child of God undergo the sometimes painful process that God uses to make us more like Jesus.

Just remember that everything worthwhile will be costly. But if God is in it, it will be worth it.

Peanut is living the dream– the feline dream.

She gets to sleep in every day and does pretty much whatever she wants whenever she wants for as long as she wants.

Her usual pattern is eat, sleep, repeat. Not a bad way to live.

Just once I’d like to send her off to my job so I can spend the whole day being a feline.

She’s an unusual little critter. I’ve had her going on 3 years and I have never once heard her growl or hiss. She’s super laid back and compliant with two exceptions: whenever she accidentally gets outside and is frantically trying to get back in or whenever I’ve tried to introduce her to new people.

I sometimes wonder if rescue cats (and dogs) have a vague shadowy memory of their previous life. Maybe they remember being abandoned or thrown away. Maybe over time that memory fades as it is replaced by new and better ones.

Whatever the case, little Peanut is living the good life now.

“Want you sing me back home 
With a song I used to hear
Make my old memories come alive
And take me away and turn back the years
Sing me back home before I die” (Merle Haggard).

I’ve been watching the documentary on country music by Ken Burns and marveling at how good a filmmaker he is and at how much fascinating history there is to the genre of country music.

It also got me thinking of what makes a song good, what truly sets it apart from the thousands and millions out there that don’t make the cut.

For me, a good song can take my own thoughts and feelings and put them to words in a way I never could. It’s almost like having your own diary read back to you in someone else’s voice.

The right song at the right moment is magical. I can probably think of several movies where the perfect song elevated a particular scene to make it memorable (and in some cases iconic). Personally, I can hear a song and be transported back to when I first heard it — what I was thinking and feeling at the time.

There’s healing power in music. I know because I’ve seen it firsthand. After a stressful day, music has been able to lift me out of my own problems and transport me somewhere else, even if only for a little while.

Music is good.

I’ve been there, done that.

Thankfully, I am looking forward to a night to turn off the alarm and sleep in.

Fridays never get old.

It’s Friday Eve! You’ve got this, people! You can do it!

Whether it’s been a great week or a terrible week or somewhere in the middle, Friday is almost always a welcome relief.

For me, it means at least one day of sleeping in.

So go forth in the knowledge that no matter what happened today, good or bad, tomorrow is a new day with new possibilities and new opportunities. You choose what kind of a day it will be by your attitude and how you choose to respond to what happens to you. No one can make you happy or mad or anything but it all depends on how you respond.

You get to wake up tomorrow and live another beautiful day.

Also, the hedgehog believes in you.