Busy. Busybusybusy.

It’s the refrain of the holiday season, this time in which our To Do lists are monstrously long and the winter hours fly much too quickly. It’s the voice in my own head as I sit down to write this post. I try to quiet it, to breathe deep, and slow. 

Shake shake shake  goes my leg.

I consider the thousand other tasks I could accomplish if I focused on them, instead. Notes to be written. Gifts to be finished. Packages to be wrapped. Treats to be delivered. (This notion of the importance of Advent’s quiet reflection is well and good. But it doesn’t change the reality all the things have to get done. Am I right?)

Buzz buzz buzz goes my phone.

Wine. Wine could help. Wine would be lovely as I sit here in the quiet, the frasier fir festive and refreshingly un-demanding as it sparkles in the corner, perfectly content for me to look, or not. But we did go to a party last night. And the night before. And the night before that. I mean, clearly a little downtime is in order.

I’m getting the wine.

I should be better at this, is the thing, with the experience of years, with a stated intention of minimizing and simplifying and prioritizing, and a great big and very genuine desire to bring the right things into focus during this holy, holy season.

And then I remember Sunday’s sermon and Mike preaching how joy comes of chaos, that it was that way in Bethlehem, that it’s been that way since the beginning of time. That when things feel tumultuous and confusing and disorderly and lost–beauty will emerge. Something new is born.

Maybe it’s all just as it should be. 

Is that possible? 

Maybe all this activity–anxious, frenetic, excited–is just exactly what this expectant season calls for.

Maybe I could do Christmas cards. I could buy them tomorrow, get them signed and addressed and stamped and…

XXOO

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