Getting Ready

Last year for my birthday, a church member sent me a card with a quote from Annie Dillard. "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." I don't know the context of the quote, but as I reflect on the coming days of Advent, I realize that many of us will be spending these days of December in a flurry of activity...shopping, cooking, planning, traveling, entertaining, and all of the other myriad tasks of Christmas that rob us of our rest and hide the true meaning of these days. How will you spend your days this Christmas? And how will that reflect the way you spend your life?

Will decorating the Christmas tree be a chore or an opportunity to rejoice with friends and family? Will the Christmas offering at the church be another plea for money, or will it be an opportunity to help others? Will your Christmas gift giving be the fulfilling of an obligation or a joyful response to the gift of God in your life? Will Christmas be about parties and eggnog or about the presence of God in our world?

I don't want the hustle and bustle of the holidays to define my days. Instead, I want the message of the first Christmas to define my life. So I am going to put out some strategically placed reminders.

...a nativity on my desk
...a Bible by my tree
...an angel near the TV

Perhaps these things will remind me this Christmas that the way we spend our days is, of course, the way we spend our lives.

Prayer: O Lord God, help me keep Christmas in my heart and in my home, and fill me with the goodwill and peace promised so long ago on a winter's night in Judea. Amen.

--Peter K. Perry