My first instinct is to begin a list of all the things I need to do before they arrive, make space in my schedule and my home so that they are comfortable being here, and give myself permission through my planning to enjoy the treat of their presence. Menus, grocery shopping, extra linens and small touches to create hospitality, completed ahead of their arrival mean I am not scrambling through the visit like an insane innkeeper, and my guests feel a part of the rhythm of my household, not an out-of-place cog putting the whole place out of balance. Preliminary preparation, beyond presenting a welcome atmosphere, also draws me to recall how my visitors came into my life, how we have journeyed together, and how we enrich each other's lives in the present.



Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year holiday bring many people across the country, and from other countries, to reunite with family, friends and shared memories that, if properly retold, embellished and cherished, deepen ties over time. It is a season of making room, opening our lives and remembering.

Making room in our lives seems to be a particularly challenging thing. Something about being busy and exhausted suits our culture, but also keeps us from engaging life in a meaningful, purposeful way. Having made the trade off, we've also left behind a relational quality of life that, over time, weaves warmth, kindness, love and beauty into our hearts and souls. A busy life isn't necessarily a full life, but we work very hard to convince ourselves otherwise. It's interesting to me that Christmas decorations have to be integrated into a living space, most obviously a Christmas tree that takes up more space than a lounge chair and a coffee table combined. How do we make that happen? What do you need to rearrange in your living room to give the tree its due? What kind of inconveniences do you tolerate because of the pleasure of the tree's scent, decorations and lights mean more? Pine needles clogging the vacuum, furniture squeezed closer together and maybe a little out of place, assigning someone to crawl underneath to water it each day, just don't seem to be insurmountable issues. We welcome the joy, and set aside any thoughts of annoyance. We make room.

The people who now populate our lives once made room for us, and we made room for them. A mutual agreement was made to retain the connection, develop it and nurture it into a relationship. How would your life be different if one, two, or three choices ago you had walked around and away from the opportunity to love someone? Reflecting on our lives in a "It's a Wonderful Life" way is good for the soul. We forget or set aside the miracle of human relationships so easily in place of everything else that seems to matter more. We do touch other lives every day, and lives touch us. Because of this human contact beliefs change, the trajectory of our lives alters and we can find ourselves in new places without having realized how we got there. And we may be surprised at just how good it feels. Investing in each other, sharing coffee, conversation, friendship, love, does take up space in our lives, space that deepens our pleasure and satisfaction in being human, who we were created to be. Having been created for community, each time we make room in our lives for someone else, in any way, we are carrying on the creative process with God, and with which God blessed the world at its beginning.

Pondering this day after Thanksgiving can be poignant. Making room and opening our lives to people doesn't guarantee they will remain with us. Drifting apart, dancing in and out, shaking hands and waving good by, all happen over the years. Not everyone stays, or is meant to stay, as permanent fixtures in our day-to-day existence. Sometimes the space we make for someone is temporary, but they linger in our hearts. Remembering all these personal moments and connections, whether long-term or short-lived, keeps all of the people who have touched our lives alive in the present as if they haven't moved outside our circle of life. And, in memory, they have not left us, or become fragile, or stagnant. They are as vibrantly alive as the day they first said hello.

Advent comes again this Sunday, and initiates the new church year. It is a time we can't quite imagine will ever come again, and when it does, we are in ave. Advent simultaneously encourages us to make room and open our lives to the newness of preparing once more for God With Us, and also welcomes us to remember the beauty and grace of those we love who remain in our lives, and those who remain only in our hearts. God's Word becomes flesh and dwells among us in many, glorious ways.