Getting ready is one of my favorite things to do. Not getting ready in the morning, though; I'm talking about the planning and preparation for some fun/meaningful/exciting/happy thing in the future. Like a trip, for example. When Steve and I decide on a spot to visit for vacation, I shift into my role of travel agent -- researching the place, making lists, booking accommodations, plotting out an itinerary (a loose one...every vacation needs some flexibility!). Almost as much as the trip itself, I enjoy the prep work that comes before we ever leave. It has to do, I think, with the anticipation of it all, with looking forward to what's to come.

Similarly, Advent and Lent are both high on my rankings of seasons in the church year. There's something that sparkles about the time leading up to Christ's birth, and it's not just the Christmas lights that are everywhere. It's a holy, hope-filled season of preparing for the arrival of Emmanuel, God-with-us.

Together, through Advent, we're anticipating the Divine's in-breaking into the world that often isn't all that sparkly. It happens every day, though: there are God-moments in the midst of the ordinariness of our daily lives as well as in the holiest of days, in the mud and the muck as well as the pristine, in the mundane as well as the mountaintop experiences. What if we spent not only this season, but each day, anticipating, expecting, looking for the ways that God shows up and shakes things up?

That's what worship and the daily Advent devotionals will focus on this year: waiting for, expecting, and noticing how God shows up with us here on earth, through the holy and the humdrum. With eyes, hands, hearts, and minds that are open to God's world-changing presence, let us receive the One who makes heaven and nature sing.

Love and peace to you,
Pastor Megan